Resolutions for 2011

These days everyone seems to be writing up on their resolutions for 2011. Often around new year. Because sticking to the resolutions and making them happen is a rarity, I will not write about my resolutions for 2011 here. I believe in short term goals and plans of action.

Arguably the title is misleading, nevertheless my short-term goals are the following:

• Finish final thesis before the end of March.
  Right now I’m writing my final thesis in mathematics on local deformation of planar quadrilaterals. The end of March is quite late and I would love to be done earlier. This I think is a realistic goal though.
• Master the Smart.fm Core 2000 Japanese sentences by end of February.
  I did study some Japanese about two years ago but have not had the time to keep up with it. I knew the かな and the first ~1500 漢 from Heisigs Remembering the Kanji. Furthermore I got through the first five lessons of みんなの日本語. After a quick glance at the material I have realized that I have forgotten most of the かな already, which means I’ll have to restart at the beginning.
• Read Vietnamese for ~30min each night.
  My reading skills in vietnamese are miserable and comprehension is worse. With every tonal language, if you cannot pronounce the words right, there is no point in studying vocabulary. For this goal I haven’t set a tight deadline as my primary goal is to improve reading skills and I’m curious how far ~30min each night will take me.

With this list I have attainable and verifiable goals.