5 year and 10 year Plans (mine, please share yours)

[Peter Harris]

So I'm young and idyllic, of course. However, my feet have been fixed to the ground so i know i'm unlikely to be a millionaire or WSOP winner (or both lol).

Here's my plan for the next 5 to 10 years. It's rough because I don't have a path i really want to follow yet. I know I dislike the idea of office work, my passion is the study of games/gaming (but haven't looked in to how to make this a career etc.), but here we go.

October-December 2006: Work in pub in Essex. Earn money to pay rent, start paying off £2000 student overdraft [ignoring the £16k loan that i don't need to repay yet].

January-May 2007: continue to work, either still in pub or in a temp job. Take TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course in nearby town. Rewrite dissertation into a) newspaper article and b) Social Anthropological Journal article.

June-August 2007: sell flat in Edinburgh. repaint, market, sell. Search for TEFL posts in a Chinese city for me and partner. If politically expedient, marry (i know, what a romantic).

September 2007: buy new flat in Edinburgh with remaining capital [i.e. post mortgage] from sale. With this mortgage-free property, lease, using profits (after maintenance/agency fees) to fund travel around China [we will get paid too, see below].

October 2007-September 2008: Teach English in China. We will be paid to do this, have holidays and a spectacular time. Write a weblog including articles on food and chinese culture for Anthropological readers, also for newspaper readers. Conveniently, be there for Olympics [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

October 2008-September 2009: Go to Istanbul to do TEFL course. See similar to China. This is Jenny's part of the deal as she loves the Middle East and I love China. We do it together. [this part of the plan could be altered so I do China *whilst* she does Turkey. We aren't 100% yet.]

October 2009 - June 2014: Return to Edinburgh. Unlease flat, move in. Jenny to take Arabic degree. Me to do Msc and Ph.D. in Social Anthropology, assuming I can get 1+3 (i.e. full) funding to do something i am relatively (if not very) interested in.

Aims-

Jenny: to get a job either in the translation or (higher hopes) diplomatic circuit in Middle East

Me: to be a successfully published writer in either food, travel, or anthropology. Play poker on the side. If i can find £10k and 8 weeks free, take a Padi Dive Master SCUBA course so I can instruct SCUBA. End up somewhere warmish, with great diving. should jenny and i blend our two desires to a mutually acceptable and lucrative place, so much the better.

How feasible does this plan sound? comments welcome.

Also, I have a friend who is not fully satisfied with his job. Hopefully he'll chime in some of his ideas and we can help him.

Pete

[punkass]

I find all of your plans to be well and good.

But I find that any long term plans longer than a few years almost always go off schedule, for some reason or another. Your plan looks good, but also don't forget to be flexible. Being off a year or more is to be expected.

[XXXNoahXXX]

As I see it now. Will probably change tomorrow.

I just turned 22.

Present-Spring '09- Law School

Summer '09-Summer '14- BigLaw Firm job killing myself working 8am-11pm. Get married somewhere in this point.

Fall '14- Reevaluate whether i want to stay and try to become partner or leave for a more fixed/easier schedule. Start having kids.

[daveymck]

I have a plan till the end of the year and probably until next April, if my contract is renewed.

After that its impossible to, although in 10 years I would hope to be debt free and able to only have to work 6-9 months a year max, with some buy to let properties and maybe some business on the side.

The life of a contractor no chance to make any concrete plans at all.

[Badger]

My 5 year plan is don't die.

[Peter Harris]

[ QUOTE ]
My 5 year plan is don't die.

[/ QUOTE ]

with only one focus, i wish you well. Hopefully you can succeed and post a trip report in 2011.

[TimM]

I'm 40 and have no plan for more than a month or two out. Almost everything depends on how well I run at poker and the effect of the recent legislation.

I am looking into getting a master's in education and teacher certification (42 credits) so I could teach high school physics or calculus. The idea is I would start towards the certification, but get a job teaching at a private school. It's not required by private schools, but they do like you to have it or at least be working on it.

The problem is that while I have a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, the guy at the school I visited said I needed more undergraduate credits in physics and other sciences. This is ridiculous as he didn't count any of my EE classes as sciences. He said with the course description I might be able to get them counted, so I have to speak to someone who can actually make these decisions before I can decide if I want to do this. On top of this I'd have to take 6 foreign language credits. I don't want to have to spend a year taking undergrad courses before I can even get started.

[Peter Harris]

couldn't you do correspondence credits in some of those? winning poker players have to be intelligent, I bet you'd breeze through doing-it-yourself courses.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
couldn't you do correspondence credits in some of those? winning poker players have to be intelligent, I bet you'd breeze through doing-it-yourself courses.

[/ QUOTE ]

Part of the reason for doing it is to get out of the house!

[Peter Harris]

ah haaaaa, duh. Then, get hooked up with a cute but dumb chick in community college who can breathily whisper whilst you say "je t'aime"