My 2007 New Year’s Resolution
There’s an old saying, “Aim high, if you miss, at least you achieve more than when you aim low”. This year I’m not going to aim high, I’m just going to aim as best as I can ;) so here’s my new year’s resolution:
- Finish my final paper. I already pinned down what I wanted to write, it’s just a matter on putting it on paper. I hope that I can finish the undergrad “thesis” early this year and graduate sometimes around May.
- Trade options more seriously. I planned on moving all of my equity to US market over the course of this year (March maybe?). I know that the US market isn’t as interesting as in 2007 mainly because they increase in market size without breathing at all (meaning that their growth is very intense without much stopping for correction, pretty much like IHSG) but I can make profit on both market (sideways, bullish, bearish) so that shouldn’t be a problem at all.
- Learn a new human language. I’ve studied Japanese, German, French, and Mandarin to no success. I took the course for 1-2 levels and then quit without studying it further (which makes my understanding of those languages nearly useless). I’m planning on studying French or Japanese this year (extensively that is). Which one do you think is preferable?
- Learn math. NUMB3RS inspired so much of what math can do. It’s probably a little bit late since I’m already 20 (21 in March) but nonetheless, it’s not going to stop me from doing it ;). I’m currently reading Prime Obsession (just early chapters) and it already captivated me. Let’s see where it goes from there.
- Learn a new computer language. Still in accordance to #4, I’m thinking on learning a new language. I can code some simple script under PHP but it’s not powerful enough to run a complex simulation that you can usually find on a equity market pattern research. So I’m gunning for C++ (it’s been a long time obsession but I haven’t have the time to dig deeper to it and lack previous motivation) or C#. Which one do you think is suitable? (PS: I’ll be running it under Macintosh since the algorithm between C and Cocoa isn’t that much difference).
- Churn out more and better articles everyday. I’m going to go exclusively foreign market after March so hopefully I can concentrate on certain market and write deeper analysis on those market as well (instead of options, US equity, and Indonesia equity market like now).
- ngeblog.com. Enough said, just wait and see. It’s done when it’s done (isn’t that a typical engineer’s answer?)
- Write a book. About anything, be it a novel, a computer book, a financial book, anything as long as it’s a published book.
- Body building. Don’t laugh! I contained quite alot of fat during 2005-2006 and I intended to turn that fat into muscle :P
I know someone that can do more than 40 things a year on their new year’s resolution but for me, these 9 is suffice. Let’s hope I can fulfill them all (some of the list came from last year’s resolution so it’s been postponed quite long).
About the language… hmm it depends on what your ‘future’ is going to be… e.g. in the middle east, french is the 2nd most important language.. bcoz many countries in there were colonised by French. They still use the language extensively particularly in Lebanon, Morocco, etc. But I dunno if it’s the same thing with indo.
About the programming language… if you want to learn and be very “stressful” about it, then C++ is very good. C# is just “a copy” of java.. and even a bit easier than java.. If you’ve learnt C or C++, C# is a piece of cake :P