28 for 28

28 marks yet another year in my time here on earth.  My birthday was Sept 11th, but better late than never I say.  I'm very comfortable with getting older; I'm a bit of an old soul anyways and sometimes it feels nice to have the number start to match how "mature" I feel.  I've always tended to bond with people who are older than me and as a teacher having a an extra year between me and my students helps garner some respect (which can be handy).  That being said, I find it odd that there is less and less of my 20s left and that my high-school and college years are safely in the last decade now.  When I was young I always spent time looking into the future and wondering what was next, but now I have more years to look back on as well and that shifts your perspective.

Last year I created 27 goals for my 27 years. You can read more detail on how I did on those here!

The tally:
Check! 15
Almost  5
Made an Attempt 1
No, not really 6

While I didn't accomplish every single one, I enjoyed creating, focusing and working toward many of them, so I figured why not do it again.

1. Run a sub 30 5K! - I'll do it one of these years! (yes! - twice I might add)
2. Run a sub 60 10K - much harder, but I'm currently optimistic (almost, had a 60:36 - so close!)
3. Finish 2nd Marathon in less than 5:12:22 (done!)
4. Get A's and B's in my classes this fall and going forward (yes, but mostly B's, oh well)
5. Research appropriate grad programs (I pretty much know what I'm doing here)
6. Make connections and new friends at school (I'd say so, actually ran into some old friends too)
7. Complete the Rubik's Cube (yes, but I needed help, still not perfected)
8. Learn how to do strength training (yes!)
9. "Strength Train" (yes! - a modest effort, but yes)
10.  Do an Olympic Distance Triathlon (not quite, did a longer than sprint tri though)
11. Eat at one new restaurant a month. (no, and this one was easy - lol)
12. Try an ethnic cuisine I have not before. (I did, I think it was peruvian)
13. Learn how to make ice cream (nope!)
14. Keep the blog "updated"(pff!)
15. Do a blog giveaway (nope!)
16. Continue to grow blog readership (doubtful)
17. Get better at Writing Thank you notes (better, still sort of a needs improvement thing)
18. Volunteer once per month (yes)
19. Remember Birthday's. (bettter)
20. Bake something for my coworkers (nope!)
21. Have friends over for food semi-monthly (close)
22. Accomplish a small sewing project (pff!)
23. Read a couple fiction books (not audio, not blogs, not non-fiction - I do plenty of that already!) (pff!)
24. Seek out Live Music (I think so, though the bf helped a lot with this.)  
25. Organize/Update iTunes selections (pff!)
26. Seek out professional development (I have a conference in mind) (I looked into this conf, but it was both a work scheduling challenge as well as difficulties in getting funds.)
27. Learn more about public policy (I've paid more attention to politics, most of what I've learned depresses me)
28. Move Successfully. (done!)

It's hard to specify 28 goals! Good practice, but hard.  A lot them ended up having vague terms like better and more, I thought about ways I could quantify them, but in some cases I would really be okay with simple realized improvement (nothing more/nothing less).  I have a few "life" categories represented here.  Fitness goals, those were in someways the easiest to make, because they are so easy to quantify.  Academic and Professional goals, I've decided to take the steps necessary to pursue my long awaited dream of going to grad school, which involves taking some undergrad courses first.  Blog goals, I want keep the blog active, but I know with my school pursuits I have to be realistic.  Also, longer post needed, but I will have to move in December, so I think that will be really hard.  Moving isn't really my thing, I'm not very organized like that, so wish me luck!