Hello everyone,

Trying something new this year with ROW 80. It's a community that started with friends setting personal writing challenges which take into account the trials and tribulations of a normal life. It started as "a round of words" but from what I can tell it's grown into a wonderful and supportive goal setting and accountability community.

For those in the ROW 80 community, welcome! I'm Shannon, an engineer and chemist, NaNo ML, with a lovely SO and a couple furbabies. I work a good 42 hours a week in the lab and work goals won't be on here, so these might be shorter than some. Probably. I still do a cray cray amount of stuff anyways.

Without further ado, my goals for the first 80 days.

Big Goals:
1) Finish my most recent degree. This will roll over into Round 2, but it would be silly not to have it on here. I'm two classes away, I intend to get an A, hand in all of my assignments on time, and call into my classes twice a week. One of the classes is creative writing, so whatever the class requests of me is my writing for this round.

2) Help publish another anthology. This round will involve choosing the pieces, sending out the appropriate acceptance/rejections emails, doing initial editing on those which were chosen, sending out contracts, and sending the revised pieces to the official editor. This will be picked up again in Round 3.

3) Learning Japanese and getting ready for my Japan trip. I've tried a number of different apps throughout the years and have been slowly getting better. This time I'm kicking it up a notch, the goal is to understand simple anime and manga without a translation. The method is to a) obtain a Japanese penpal who I can call once a week through Google Hangouts or Skype so that I can get used to conversing in Japanese. b) Support Dogen on Patreon and watch all of his linguistics videos. c) order new luggage when I find a set I like that's on sale. d) send in the money for the airplane tickets etc.

4) RWA Classes. I was going to keep this to three big goals, but I found out today that there are two classes during the month of Jan that honestly sound made for me and the novel I just finished. These aren't graded, so the goal is to finish the class with an action list of ways to make my life better and my novel more accurate. (That novel was already slated for revision in Round 2. I suspect that once the classes are done mid Feb that'll give me some time to do additional research with the resources obtained from the class before doing said revision.)

I'll add more specific deadlines as I get more details. (I don't have a class schedule yet and I don't know how many linguistic videos there are until I support Dogen, etc.)

Smaller Goals:
1) Warm up to the day. 5 days a week; Wake up at 6AM. Cook myself A HOT breakfast. Morning journal. A quick walk, or shoveling, or active housework.

2) Cool down to bedtime. 5 days a week; Evening journal. Hot tub/Shower. Brush teeth. Read a physical book for at least 15 minutes before bed.

3) Make audio meditations for my goals and listen to them in the car 5 days a week. I'm still learning the software, so I'm sure there will be some revisions as I learn. The goal is to have 8-20minute meditations that sound professional by the end of the round. I'll post at least one on my website to share.

4) Save an extra $1,500 to put towards my student loans.

5) Schedule two workshops with local libraries. One of my bigger goals next round will be putting together the material for the workshop. Right now I want to get a room and officially on the library calendar.

6) Read one book a week. This is an ever goal, because I think it's a good one.

7) Read a one self-improvement book a month. On the top of the list are Think and Grow Rich, The Success Principles, and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

I think that's most of them, if not I'll add them as I go. Thanks for reading!
Shannon