Year 20
I wanted to start this new direction that I’m taking by looking at all I did in the last year and all that I want to do going forward. There’s a lot that I want to do within the next year, I don’t know if I’ll have time for it all. But I hope I will because there's a lot to learn and I never want to stagnate, to stop learning.
Reflections for the Next Year
This past year, I went to school from September - December. I did a few challenges, mostly physical and I started this blog and a Youtube channel as well. I wasn’t as focused on learning, but was mostly focused on fast results, on the outcome instead of the progress. I think that I’m in a better place in that regard and am more focused on learning and knowing the material instead of just getting good grades. I think that this will help my grades in the long run too.
Over the past year, my grandpa on my dad’s side died. That hit me pretty hard. But I came out stronger and I’m doing better now.
I completed all my generals at school this past summer, still trying to push myself further out of my comfort zone. I started gymnastics, playing tennis again, and boxing. I joined clubs and am still looking for more to join because there’s so much I can learn from my peers. I also continued to volunteer at my church and that has helped with my confidence quite a bit. I hope that I can continue to find opportunities to grow like that.
I also started an internship at a news station where I worked on filming and helped with different podcasts and projects that they did. It’s been a lot of fun and a great experience and I learned a lot in that time that I hope to carry with me into the next steps of my life.
Plans for the Next Year
Within the next year, I’ll be almost done with my undergraduate degree, having one semester left after this year. I also want to learn Computer Science and complete the ‘MIT Challenge’ as coined by Scott Young. It’s a challenge where you go through the CS undergraduate degree in a year (or less) and I think that it will help me in the future to know Computer Science. I’m doing this along with my current studies. This next semester I have Organic Chemistry II, Biochemistry, Neuroanatomy, Physics, and a child psychology class (I think adolescent Psychology). I’m really excited for all of these classes and I hope I can juggle it all. Along with that, I want to keep up with my fitness routines and make sure that I don’t miss out on fun and try to get some volunteer positions and internship experiences. I also want to spend more time writing and filming about experiences and thoughts on life and just getting other people’s opinions on different topics. I think that will help me to make more informed decisions and I love hearing people’s thoughts on different topics.
I also want to get better at public speaking. Right now, I am looking for more opportunities to publicly speak. I want to learn more about improv and understanding an audience and being able to adjust to different audiences. It’s a good skill to have and I hope I can learn it. I also want to get more confidence and be more comfortable talking to new people. It’s also one of the reasons I’m doing so many different challenges, to push myself and make myself go out of my comfort zone.
I’m also hoping to be able to write better left-handed. A little silly, I know, but I think that it’s important to learn and use both hands for similar tasks. I’ve always been able to write decently well with my left hand, but now it’s just refining that and trying to make me ambidextrous. I’ve had a lot of fun with that and I’ll be putting out a video about that specific task and how I’m doing it later.
Overall, I want to be more confident and learn as much as I can. In the future, I hope to travel and learn different languages by fully engaging with the different languages. There’s a lot to learn in this world and I feel like I haven’t fully explored all those opportunities yet.
For all the things to come in the future,
All the best,
Alex Risdall :)
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