I bought a book in the middle of the pandemic called Simply Living Well and I love it. The only issue is that I haven’t started doing anything with it. When I move, I plan on using it so much that it’s probably going to get wrecked, but right now, with my roommates, I find being out of my room sometimes suffocating and there’s just mess everywhere. I also hate it when people touch my things without asking and so haven’t done anything yet. I don’t even cook in the kitchen anymore because I can’t stand it, but because I’m not good at confronting people, it’s kind of too late to say anything, and so I’m just holding on until we move. That’s something I’m going to have to get better at. It’s not good for either parties involved for me to continue living like that.

Things to Do

SAVE SAVE SAVE. I need to save a lot more money than I have been. It’s really about having that nice lump of money so that I can actually go back to Japan, I can travel more in general, and I can start taking more than toddler steps towards saving for a house deposit with my partner.

Building my “portfolio”. I want to gather some more qualifications/experience so that I can start levering myself into my ideal career, even if for now it’s just on the sidelines of some more casual work. Right now, my ideal career pathway is heading into proofreading/copy editing or assistant teaching. In the long run, I want to write and be able to help shape the lives of children for the better.

Take a breath and get ready for the studies I intend to do in 2022. So, I have a pretty good idea of what I want to go back and study in 2022, the reason I’m not undertaking these studies in 2021 is because I’m not ready to go back to study just yet. My brain is too fried and needs to be re-wired throughout 2021 so that I’m ready for 2022. I plan on completing a Masters of Teaching and then going to complete either a Masters of Education (First Nations Education Practice Specialisation) or a Graduate Certificate in Education (First Nations Education Practice). Or I could do a Graduate Certificate in Education now that I look at things a bit more … It really depends on how far I want to take teaching. Right now, I’m interested in becoming a teacher’s assistant (TA), but I think I would like to take the extra years in study in case I want to become a full-fledged teacher in the future … although the experience from being a TA would give me a leg up … I think I need to have a chat with a career advisor, haha.

There are a bunch of skills that I want to learn that I’ve put up because I’ve felt that it’s ‘too late’ for me or ‘too hard’ for me, but I’m starting to get over that mentality. Here’s a list of the skills I want to develop, including both the ones that I worried I shouldn’t bother doing and the ones that I’ve always wanted to learn but haven’t made time or new skills I want to develop. Some of these not everyone will regard as skills, but I’m going to pop them on here if I need to dedicate time getting better at it.

The issue I have

• Cooking
• Australian Sign Language
• Martial arts (I’ve always wanted to learn a martial art but thought that post-school age might be too late)
• Tea making (traditional, normal etc.)
• Sustainable living (making my own cleaning products, etc.)
• Japanese and Spanish (continuing)
• Arts
• Yoga
• Gardening (indoors this time)
• Learn to play an instrument (either guitar or piano because I already have experience with those)

For some skills, I’m going to look at signing up for classes for the ones I don’t think I can learn past foundational skills on my own.

Language

I think I also might start dedicating a year (or two, depends how slow I am) to learning a different language (but of course still polishing and practising the others on the side). I don’t intend on being able to speak fluently in all the languages I learn, I imagine that I can only hold so many, but I want to be able to at least hold my own in a general conversation, especially for countries that I plan on visiting at some point in my life. On that list is Japan (I’m going back! No one can stop me!), Germany, Tonga, New Zealand (mostly speaks English, but I would like to learn Maori), Spain, the Scandinavian fingers, Korea, Italy, France, Egypt, Hawaii and Russia. Those are the places that I know has something I want to see, whether it’s a landmark or just their culture. I’ve already learnt a bit of Japanese, German, Spanish and Tongan, but it’s dwindled away to where I can really only greet people or ask very general questions.

Cooking

I want to start cooking food with more care and consideration to both the planet/meat industry and nutrition. When I move, I’ll have control over the kitchen, and so I really have no excuse to not finally start learning more about cooking and making healthier dishes. I also want to get back into bento making and ensuring that I have proper meals. I’m cutting down on meat again, and this time I need to commit to it. I really enjoy baking (I’m a lot better at it than other types of cooking) and so I would like to get back into that.

Art

I want to do a lot more artful things, like when I was younger. I want to improve my drawing skills, traditionally and digitally, and also want to start doing things with clay, as well as making cosplay items again. I also want to learn how to crochet, and improve my knitting and sewing skills because these will help me live more sustainably, as well as allow me to create things for myself and maybe things for my family if they want. I’d also like to do a bit more with more “finger-art” kinds of things like origami and dioramas.

Gardening

I’m not great at outdoor gardening, but I will be doing indoor gardening when I move. I want to grow a lot of herbs and maybe have some smallish balcony pots for things like tomatoes and beans. This is also part of becoming more sustainable. I also want to grow more flowers and would like to have some succulent terrariums.

And so, to wrap up this post, the things I want to do in 2021 are:

• Upskill myself
• Build a portfolio
• Save a lot of money
• Get healthy
• Take a breather to prepare for 2021