My Blog is One Year Old – Happy First Birthday!

Time flies. It was just like yesterday but one year passed. From the very first days, I setup this blog with the only purpose: reviewing books I read. However, day by day, more and more targets were included. My little cyber home now also takes care of studying journeys and food findings. One year ago, on August 1^st, 2011, the first post was published. Now, after 1 year sharp, there are totally 74 posts. The number is modest but still, it's not nothing. I’ve been trying to have at least 1 post per week. With 74 posts for 52 weeks, I can call it a success and I’m at least catching up the goal well.

Happy first birthday to my dear blog!

(Picture from the Internet)

To celebrate the birthday party, I think it’s also the ideal moment to review my 2012 goals. The success of my blog will be counted by the success on my personal year goals. Let’s see what I’ve done after first 7 months!  

Goal: Read more books and fix the time for reading every day (not keep lowing its priority by “busy” excuses all the time). Also read all important the electronic books on my laptop. Well, the list was around 12 books for food photography, 3 Vietnamese books (I brought around 15 books with me last year and 3 left), 1 PMP book from my mentor, 3 books about online earning, 2 books about doing research work, 1 book about Advanced Excel, 1 book about Java Script, HTML5… However, I know for sure I won’t finish them all at the end of 2012, but I’ll try to read at least 10 books totally.

Achievement: 

Finish PMP book from my mentor and two other books in the same topic recommended by him. 

Finish 2 books about online earning.

Finish 2 books about doing research work. 

Finish ½ Java script book, abandoned the rest. 

Did not read any photography books yet. 

Did finish other 6 books (The Lean Startup,  Blink,  Steve Jobs,  Manage Your Time,  The Book of Awesome,  What the Dog Saw). 

Conclusion: the goal of 10 books can be done for the year. In the rest 5 months, there must be at least 2 more books consumed.

Rate: Good: 90%

Goal: Take driver license knowledge test.

Achievement: None. The current status won’t allow me to approach this goal yet. Have to move to next year or at least after September this year. 

Rate: Not good but not too bad - objective obstacle: 0%

Goal: Earn money.

Achievement: Did earn money but not a lot (under $200).Rate: OK: 50%

Goal: More useful and professional posts for my blog. Maintain it at least 4 posts a month.

Achievement: maintained well average of 1 post per week but not too many professional posts yet. 

Rate: OK: 50%

Goal: Be useful for at least one volunteer job, the purpose is helping people after me.

Achievement: Yes, I’m trying to help the followers on a community forum. I also maintain the volunteer job with my mentor. However, the volunteer job with my mentor was not much active during the year. 

Rate: 50%

Goal: Put at least one market plan for a start-up seriously on papers. Or deploy it if possible.

Achievement: I had set up a plan but not worth calling “a start-up” plan yet. 

Rate: Not good. 20%

Goal: Study one new English word a day and remember as many proverbs as possible. It’s funny that the goal is just for 1 new word. However, as much English you know, as much harder to get more. Just put the feasible goal here. 1 word a day, 365 words a year, not bad!

Achievement: I’ve been studying for IELTS, therefore, at least hundreds of words were in process in a couple of weeks. That means this goal is completely successful.

Rate: 100%

Goal: Go to bed earlier and wake up earlier.

Achievement: successfully set up daily schedule and strictly went to bed early as well as woke up early in first 6 months. This month (July), I tend to return to the bad habit “sleep late, get up late”. Need to improve more.

Rate: 70%

Goal: Do exercise everyday or at least 3 days a week.

Achievement: In winter, I could maintain 2 or 3 days a week on a treadmill. In summer, I have followed 4 or 5 days a week (including swimming). Everyday, I keep up stretching exercise around 1 hour in the early morning. In average, I think the goal went pretty well.

Rate: 80%

As mentioned in earlier post, I have also been chasing after a great goal which was not included in the list above: studying for IELTS. It can be estimated that I’ve used at least 60% of daily time for this target since the end of March. Here are my achievements so far: 

• Succeed building personal study plan
• Finish “Step up to IELTS” 
• Half   “Focus on IELTS” (I will review about this material later when I finish the course)
• Setup, download and listen to podcasts regularly (EffortlessEnglish, CBC Radio 1, Just Vocabulary, The Guitar Podcast)
• Read and catch up all IELTS writings of former examinees (band 7+)
• Get ready 18GB of materials for the entire journey ahead
• Read “IELTS Sure Success for 7+ band”
• Go through “Speaking English Like An American”, “American Accent Training - Barrons”
• Succeed building personal vocabulary databases (using Super Memo and Vocaboly), words are put in studying in using regularly at least once per  2 weeks. 
• On the way of “The K method by Andy Krieger”, “Verbal Advantage – Charles Harrington Elster”, “American Accent Training - Lisa Mojsin”, “Pronunciation Workshop - Paul S. Gruber”, “Mark Allen –Listening for Speaking”, “Speed reading – Tony Buzan”, “IELTS Target band 7 – Simone Braverman”

Basically, I’m on the good pace. I hope this summary would be a great birthday gift to my worm home blog too. One year passed, another year is coming. I wish that my cyber home will be always warm and active. Let’s welcome a great year ahead with our family!

(Picture from the Internet)