Well hello 2011, nice to meet you.

Last year I posted my 2010 New Year's resolutions and was proud to say that I accomplished all 3 of them!  There were:

1) Get south of the equator - achieved in May with my trip to Peru and again with my move to Brazil

2)  Complete a century (100 mile) bike ride - completed the Montauk Century ride with my good friend Gavin

3) Improve my Spanish - after finding out my move to Brazil, I changed my goal to Portuguese and I went from zero Portuguese skills to more than zero!

In the spirit of continuous improvement and goal setting, here are my resolutions for 2011:

1. Travel more within Brazil.  I am here for 6 more months and I have not seen or done nearly as much as I would like to.  
• Rio for Carnival
• Brotas or Bonito for rafting
• Foz de Iguasu for seeing the triple boarder with Argentina and Paraguay
• Manaus for a visit to the Amazon
• Anywhere else my weekends and my friends might take me!
2. Succeed in being promoted to a manager
3. Read more and be more aware of current events
• I have a Kindle and LOVE it and am open to all suggestions for books.  Comment your favorites for me!
• I am thinking of subscribing to Globo newspaper for current events (and Portuguese practice)
4. Improve my still weak Portuguese
• I take lessons 1 day/week
• Work on speaking Portugeuse with my friends whom I normally speak English.
• Conversational is the goal here

Four goals seem achievable!

Now, in the spirit of "That which is measured is managed" I think I need to have ways to track some of these more soft and feely goals such as being more aware of current events and improving my Portuguese.  The other goals are more of a binary yes/no type goal (was I promoted? yes/no, did I travel to these places in Brazil? yes/no).

So I think for current events I will measure the number of articles or books that I read in relation to current events.  No, I don't mean I will have a spreadsheet and count that today I read 2 articles on google news, but it at least gives me a metric to follow.  And for my Portuguese skills, I have decided to work on learning one new verb a day and to revisit my flash cards.  Did I do my flash cards today? yes/no.  What is my new Portuguese verb for the day? (Verb)

On a not totally unrelated note, I am also still working on improving my self image in a number of ways.  Physically I can say for the first time in my memory that I am happy with my body.  I'm wearing a bikini for the first time in my life.  Am I perfect?  Far from!  But I am happy with it and happy for what it can do for me.  Emotionally I am getting much, much better from where I was when I first moved to Brazil.  Having friends and doing fun things has helped enormously with this.  The effort now needs to be focused on continuing the momentum and growing my network of fun people to ensure that Brazil continues to be the great experience that I know it can be.

What are your resolutions for 2011?  How can I help?  

Sending love and happiness to all of you, wherever you may be.

Beijos e Abracos!