(Time to take this blog back from Twitter updates!)

Last week SS and I had our two year anniversary. Among other festivities, we had dinner in a nice quiet restaurant where we were able to have a good long talk. Our topic was our careers, the future. etc. You know the type of talk.

For SS, her current goal is clear: to finish her MBA program. Some of the English involved may be a challenge, but we’re both confident she can do it. (Her English will also get much better as a result.)

For me, the topic centered more on my hobbies than my work. SS rightly pointed out that I’m trying to do too much in my free time. In my free time, I was doing all this:

• 1-hour gym workouts, about 4 times per week (I go in the morning, but that means I go to bed earlier)
• Sign language language exchange (biweekly, Sundays)
• Chinese lit class (biweekly, Sundays)
• Spoken Japanese class (weekly, Thursday nights)
• Piano class (weekly, Wednesdays)
• My blog (several hours a week, squeezed in where I can)

When I made the plan, I felt that if I had the time and could actually do all that stuff, I’d be making great progress. After 2-3 months of this, though, I find that: (1) I’m always playing catch-up, in almost every single one of the activities, and (2) as a result, I don’t really feel like I’m making big progress in any of them. Basically, just spreading myself too thin.

So, no-brainer… time to cut down. SS helped me to prioritize. She thought I should only do three of them, but I insisted on holding onto sign language, even if only once a month. The two I’m dropping are Japanese and Chinese lit.

I do want to continue to improve my Japanese and Chinese, but I’m going to have to find other ways. Movies or TV series and reading might be the best way, at this point. Those are both very flexible ways to study, but I’ve always struggled to find the discipline to routinely make time for them. (That’s one reason a tutor helps… there’s someone waiting in class for you, so you have to go.)

The final thing I hope to be freeing time up for is socializing. Not just hanging out with my current friends, but meeting new people (both Chinese and non-). I don’t meet enough new people these days, and social skills are something vital to my long-term survival here. So I’ll get on that.