The Next Ten Years...

Another year. 2006 ended with my teenage years. It was fun...much better than most people’s experience of adolescence, with minimal levels of angst. I love my life. I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions but I wanted to begin 2007 with a list of ambitions for the next ten years. My New Decade’s Resolve.

Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

Francis of Assisi

The word “impossible” is not in my vocabulary. I believe I can do everything I want to do and learn everything I want to learn. My only limits are those I choose to set for myself. This is the decade when I achieve the impossible.

THIS IS THE DECADE I DEFY GRAVITY.

1 When I was a little kid, about grade 3 or 4, I said I wanted to learn 10 languages by the time I was 20. Back then, I didn’t know how I was gonna do it. I always thought it was something I’d have to take classes for. When I was 16 years old (grade 10), I discovered I could do it ALL ON MY OWN. I wanna take up my childhood ambition and raise the bar. By the time I’m 30, I want to speak 20 languages...14 more to go. In no particular order I want to learn Italian, German, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Syriac-Aramaic, Persian, Russian, Akkadian, Romanian, Japanese, Hebrew, Indonesian, Arabic, Swahili, Turkish, Indonesian, Swedish and Icelandic...there’s a lot more, but I have more paragraphs to write.

La conoscienza di tutto è possibile.

Leonardo da Vinci

2 There really is no point in speaking all 6,900 known languages if I’m just gonna speak them here in Vancouver. I want to know the world intimately. I’m gonna trek the Sahara, climb Mt. Everest, and I’m gonna circumnavigate the world on land and sea, just like Ferdinand Magellan...except that I’m not gonna get killed by Filipinos halfway through my voyage. I’m gonna cruise Alaska, ski across the Alps, climb the tallest mountain on every continent, retrace the migration routes of my ancestors, swim with whales, see Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids... I’m gonna live in Paris, London, Cairo, Salzburg, Timbuktu, Sydney, New York, Québec Ville, Rome...and, to fulfill my dreams since I was 9, I’m going to climb Mt. Olympus, prophesy in Delphi, pray in Meteora, and watch the sunset in Santorini. Screw this; this is taking too long. This is gonna be my next blog.

Life is a daring adventure or nothing.

Helen Keller

3 This is the decade when I lose all fear. I grew up afraid of heights. I had problems taking the first step onto an escalator, I couldn’t open my eyes on roller coasters, and I was scared to try a lot more. Action cures fear. On my trip to Québec, I began to lose this inhibition. On a daytrip to La Ronde in Montréal, I tried every roller coaster and free-fall waterslide. My fear was replaced by serious thrill issues. Two years after, I did it again, this time in Canada’s Wonderland in Toronto. I went on every waterslide, rollercoaster, and even that ride that drops you 500 feet from the air. That same summer, I jumped off of a 50-ft cliff into a river (see The Bookman blog). And I’m not gonna stop there. I’m gonna go hang-gliding, parasailing, skydiving and bungee jumping. I am gonna learn how to surf, and I am gonna get really good at snowboarding...I may even try ski-jumping...we’ll see. I am no longer going to make decisions based on fear.

You can't test courage cautiously.

Anne Dillard

4 Weaknesses are just talents I haven't yet discovered. I’m gonna become good at things I was never good at. Math is the major thorn in my flesh. In school, I was never brilliant at sports. It wasn’t because of a lack of ability, but due to a failure to see what I was doing wrong...and in all honesty, none of my teachers have ever taken the time to teach me personally. But recently I’ve been discovering that with personal attention from people I respect, it is possible for me to learn. So this decade, I am going to take up water polo, tennis, jai alai, volleyball, skateboarding, archery, competitive horseback riding and the extreme sports I have previously listed. Humans beings are vessels of unlimited potential. It’s what separates us from the animals and I am going to exploit it to its fullest.

Never be satisfied with what you achieve, because it all pales in comparison with what you are capable of doing in the future.

Rabbi Nochem Kaplan

5 I’m sincerely hoping that being a grad student doesn’t mean I have to live in poverty until I get my PhD…I wanna indulge myself in material dreams as well. It’s funny how the first thing that pops into my head is a red-hot convertible. The other thing is a really, really sexy motorcycle (black with veins of blue). Those two are within my five-year plan. One of my long-term ones is to get a really sick penthouse apartment in Vancouver, but I’d settle for a jazzy-looking boho flat. Within this current year, I wanna get snowboarding equipment, scuba-diving equipment, a surf board, and a hot tattoo on my right shoulder blade. There, I got those out of my chest.

Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

John Updike

6 Musically, I wanna accomplish more than I foresee is possible. I want to be able to belt a high A without flinching. I don’t want to be a good singer…I wanna be a good singer. If you’re Broadway savvy, think of Darius de Haas’s “Lost in the Wilderness" in Children of Eden, Shoshana Bean’s end note in “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, Lea Salonga’s “On My Own,” Colm Wilkinson in “Valjean's Soliloquy” and Philip Quast’s “Javert’s Suicide” in Les Miz. Put them all together and you’ve got an idea of how powerful my voice has to be. On top of that, I wanna kick ass playing piano…maybe learn more technicals. And I swore a pact with one of my Rent-head friends that we’re gonna take a year or two off in between degrees to make it on Broadway...and I am not backing out on this one. Next stop: Fiyero.

Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission.
Neil Kendall

7 I want to experience the minutest details of life to its fullest. What I’ve previously described are things that send blood rushing to the head...I want to enjoy the opposite. You know that feeling when you first go somewhere you’ve never been to before? That sense of awe and wonder? If you’ve ever gone on vacation, moved to a new house, or flown across the ocean, you know what I mean. Everything is new. Everything is unexplored. Everything in your eyes is fresh. I want to live life as if a different light is shining every day.

Upon touching sand, may it turn to gold.
Greek Proverb

When I think of the collective magnitude of everything I'm about to do, it sometimes seems daunting. But really, this is all gonna be a piece of cake. About half of this list are clubs at UBC, and I've got a good 8 years left in school. Other people have accomplished these. What separates me from them? NOTHING. Edmund Hillary, Octavian, Joanne Rowling...they all started from nothing, but they weren't stupid enough to do nothing and therefore remain nothing.

Do, or do not.There is no try.

Yoda

This is the official unveiling of the next 10 years of my life.

And so these shall be.

These are no longer just dreams.

Dreamtime has ended.

Dreams,
Goodbye.