Transitioning Out of Travel Mode

I wanted to revisit the goals I set before I left for Argentina to see what I followed through with, and what fell to the wayside these last couple months:

Followed through:

Handled the pain-in-the-ass that is getting your own health insurance.
Paid-off close to 50 percent of my loan.
Finished the Fulbright application in Argentina - with help back in the states.
Took my trip to Argentina.
Met my six-months worth of reserve funds.

Fell to the wayside:

I’m behind in the book, and therefore, my plan for publishing. There are numerous reasons, but they’re all just excuses, I suppose. I’ll try and finish the first draft by the end of December, and I’m exploring my marketing plan now.
I didn’t become conversationally fluent in Spanish, which I wrote about here.
I also need to accept I won’t be rid of my loans by February. With the market going the way it did/is, everyone’s finances are on rocky ground.

All in all, I feel okay about what I managed to do with my first six-months out of university. Not spectacular, and certainly not awful. Just okay. But transitioning out of travel mode means they’re plenty of new challenges to undertake, and these will keep me from rehashing what I’ve done in the past. One of these challenges was finally buying my own domain and hosting it on a server - in case you didn’t notice, you’re looking reading this on a different URL. So update your RSS feeds, bookmarks, and let me know what you think about the new design!

I still have a few posts about Argentina, namely, a real shoestringer’s guide to Buenos Aires, but soon I’ll shift gears and focus on blogging about self-publishing a book. I’m not 100 percent sure I’ll take this route over traditional publishing, but like I mentioned before, my desire to spite all the nay-sayers is the only motivation I need to do things the hard way.

So that’s my main project for the next six months. If Argentineans taught me anything, however, it’s that one of the most important things is to make time for friends and family. The month before I left, I cut off all contact with everyone, and stuck myself in my own bubble. I think it was necessary and I don’t regret the decision, but it’s not something I’ll do again. In the midst of all these changes, I need to really remember that family and friends come first.

What won’t be changing? I’ll probably stick with Crossfit, and go back to recording my WOD’s on the Crossfit page, as well. Crossfit put me into the best all-around shape I’d ever been in, and it’s quick as hell, so fits nicely into my schedule. I see no reason to switch now.

That’s it. Time to get to work.

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