My Five-Year Plan

I realize it's important to have goals in life. If you don't have goals then you end up working at the Audi/Volkswagen dealership for the rest of your life driving the customer service shuttle. So this morning, while I was taking an outside shower in the rain in the Hamptons, I started thinking about my five-year plan, and how I need to have a five-year plan regardless of how much or how quickly it will change in the future. So here it is:

1) Hour one

Drive back to Manhattan with Scott, Grant and Peter, stopping at Chipotle on the way.

2) Week one

Get back to Seattle, see my family and enroll in a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course that guarantees job placement upon completion. Courses that start on August 20th and September 5th. Live with my parents and also sometimes sleep at the studio on Capitol Hill where I'm still paying rent.

3) Month one

Work extensively on my tan in the quickly diminishing Pacific Northwest sun while also doing weekends at the TEFL course. If possible do yard work on Bainbridge Island to make money, maintain fitness and work on tan.

4) Year one

Teach English in either Colombia or China. Win-win situation: If I'm in Colombia my Spanish will be further solidified and I will also adopt a lilting Colombian accent, my favorite accent of all the Spanish-speaking countries. If I teach English in China I will learn some Mandarin and become approximately 73% more employable.

5) Year two (and also part of year one)

Go to Africa to see my sister and her family. Possibly live there for a short time and work on learning Portuguese. Also, go back to school and finish my Master's Degree in Spanish, translating poems by Heriberto Yepez while continuing to study French or starting a new language.

6) Year three

Move to Alaska. Live in a hut. Write the Great American Novel.

6) Years four and five

Continue to travel, visiting such places as: Western Africa, Tajikistan, Tristan da Cunha, Perth, Indonesia and New Caldonia. Continue to study Chinese and also possibly Arabic or Farsi. Garden. Own land. Get married.

So that's the plan, and no matter what happens these are the main goals:

Work hard.

Get married.

Speak at least two languages other than English fluently, be conversational in at least two more and emergency capable in two more than that.

Travel to every continent.

Make a concerted attempt at writing a book.

Live off the land for at least a week (but preferable a month or a year).

Run naked on a beach in Alaska.