Top 10: The Afghanistan goals list.

I’m a firm believer in under promise and over deliver, it’s an eloquent way of saying “aim low” (thus to not disappoint yourself in the future yet be pleasantly surprised). However, in this case, I have an entire year to “fix” my self-discrepancy theory, so to really aim high and set a lot of goals, seems fitting. If I nail it, perfect – I set out what I wanted to do, under complicating conditions. If I come relatively close, great – I’m well justified and it’s progress. If I’m not even close at all, amazing – I’ll realize I’m a failure, and carry out my days getting a low paying job, masturbating frequently, and completely engulf myself in a MMO until I die, completely stress free. Here goes nothing:

1. For someone who loves traveling, I certainly don’t do enough of it. I’ll accredit a lot of my passion for travel to my father, for taking me across the States as a child, which I’m very thankful for. While the world may lie explored, there’s not enough you know about yourself until you know what you’re missing out on. Of all the culture, character, and fun that comes from traveling, I can’t comprehend how traveling can be disliked. All that said, I’m finally making a trip down to Europe for R&R, and while its for only a couple weeks, I’m quite possibly looking more forward to that returning home. And yes, I plan to travel throughout Afghanistan as little as possible.
2. In order to make the following goals a hell of a lot easier to accomplish, I have to stop doing one thing that’s screwed me more times than a newlywed, in addition to probably shaving years off my lifespan. Procrastination. It’s great isn’t it? Why do what you can do today that you can put off until tomorrow? For the two aforementioned reasons, I really have to stop. I’ve screwed myself out of great opportunities and money putting things off far too long, not to mention I’ve dealt with that stress the entire time. To top it off, I normally don’t even get the things done that I put off.
3. I’ve been in college far too long, and really don’t have a whole lot to show for it other than a bunch of scattered college courses. Luckily I’ve found the closest thing I can gauge to a calling in life, and plan to run into it head first. I’m aiming for 30 credit hours, 36 would be ideal, and anything more than that is beyond perfect. I’ll settle for 24, but I’ve only been in Afghanistan for a little less than a week now, and my job may be subjective to change, however if it isn’t. Class will go by quite smoothly, it most likely regardless of a job change or not. Plus I really really need to keep my wits my sharp because this job is ultra monotonous.
4. Because of the severe effects and symptoms that are carried with extra weight, it would behoove me to lose all that’s unneeded. Other than general unattractiveness, I’m very much cutting my life short with silent killers, most notably high blood pressure; not to mention the general implications of ailments that transpire. I am going to take this approach very slowly and methodically. I plan on exercising semi-regularly, but more importantly keeping a good eye on what I eat and how many calories I burn a day. Of course I’ll log as much as I can, to help share and post results and analyze where I went wrong/right.
5. I loved drawing. At one point in time, I drew nearly everyday, and was damn good. Then 8th grade happened, and some bitch of a teacher who I hate nearly turned me off from drawing completely; said c-word really shouldn’t be in the hands of molding our youth. Nonetheless, whatever talents I managed to retain and hone, I consider my artistic skills and creativity in the top ten percentile of the world. Nonetheless I plan to have roughly 40 or so drawings done. I was going to try to fill a book up, but that’s just absurd. 1 a week should suffice.
6. This is the only one on the list that doesn’t take up time, it in fact does the complete opposite, its not a whole lot of time, but its honestly social time, which is incredibly needed in my scenario. I’ve most likely been smoking roughly for 18 or so months, and not that heavily either; relatively, whatever three to seven a day is. I’ve been meaning to quit, but funny story, so I accidentally smoked somewhere I wasn’t supposed to, twice. My commander, a firm believer in the “punishment should fit the crime”, made me do a PowerPoint on the dangers of smoking and then present it to the unit. I’m sure picking up cigarette butts would have been just as fitting, but this is for all the better. Nonetheless, I found out more than I wanted to about smoking, and that some of it wasn’t irreversible, and that it can be the cause of.. uh.. other problems. Nonetheless I decided to quit the instant I arrived in theater, and from what everyone tells me its nearly impossible, so I’ll severely cut back, never smoking more than one whole cigarette a day, and for sure cold turkey upon return. edit: Not doing good, I’ll see how things go in a month, I really don’t want to have to turn to aides.
7. Half the time, its an exciting hobby, half the time it’s a droll chore, half the time it’s a fraction of my life I just don’t have time for. Thus the reasons I have updates only half the year. You can guess what kind of mood I’m in at the moment.
8. Organization. Because of my one track mind, and terribly afflicted OCD-ness from which I accredit to the military, I have a lot of organizing I need to do. This is incredibly vague and spans across a lot of genres, from my stupid computer files (music, movies, ect.) to hundreds of scattered papers, finances, and other small things here and there.
9. Even more reading and writing. In addition to all the classes I’m taking, and this stupid-ass website. I’d like to try to get some books under my belt, in addition to all the internet reading I do. There’s that gentle allure of being well read. As far as writing is concerned, I plan to hand write all my letters as form to communication to the States. A lot of people ask me why, and suggest Email and Skype as if those options were new concepts to me. Other than being novel and sentimental, its just plain ol’ nice to receive hand-written paper mail.
10. Lets not forget all the small things:

previous top 10′s.