Life Goals Timeline

I'm the kind of person that likes to have everything planned out, even years in advance; so, I thought it would be fun to write about where I'd like to be at five-year milestones in my life and see what your goals are as well. And if you are beautifully-aged, add on what your goals were when you were younger and how you reached them or why you didn't!

This would pair well with a bucket list!

What I want to have accomplished when I'm...
>>25 (3 years from now)
Be fluent in French.
Travel to 15 new countries. (see next item for the reason for the high number)
Accomplish at least 20 items on my Bucket List (because there are a lot of traveling in Europe items that I could reasonably do next summer with some time to travel).

>>30
Be fluent in one-two additional languages.
Start or have started a graduate program.
Be married.
Have or have on the way at least one child.
Travel to 5 more countries.
Accomplish at least 5 more items on my Bucket List.

>>35
Be fluent in four foreign languages.
Be called Dr.!
Have three (or more) children.
Accomplish at least 5 more items on my Bucket List.
Buy my parents a cruise trip.

>>40
Be fluent in six languages. (!!!)
Accomplish at least 5 more items on my Bucket List.
Publish a book (which is actually on my Bucket List).

Top World Languages & My Favorites

The order of the most used languages in the world cannot be accurately determined because of the decision to count only native speakers or all speakers, the lack of current data, and the source of the data. A chart of some differences can be viewed here. They all, however, leave out Indonesian, which should be somewhere in the top 10/12.

For my purposes, I'll use the Ethnologue's 1999 statistics:
1. Chinese (including 5 dialects)
2. English
3. Spanish
4. Russian
5. French (including 2 dialects)
6. Portuguese
7. Arabic (including 10 dialects)
8. Bengali
9. Hindi/Urdu
10. Japanese
11. German

Ranking by total number of countries the language is spoken in:
1. English: 115
2. French: 35
3. Arabic: 24
4. Spanish: 20
5. Russian: 16
6. German: 9
7. Mandarin: 5
8. Portuguese: 5
9. Hindi/Urdu: 2
10. Bengali: 1
11. Japanese: 1

I like looking at these lists because I like to think about what new languages I should try to learn when/if I have the opportunity to do so. All the languages I've considered learning in the future include (in no particular order): French, Spanish, Russian, Latin, Italian, Mandarin, ASL, German, Irish Gaelic, Arabic, Portuguese, Old English, Middle English, Sanskrit, Hindi, Japanese, Greek, Hebrew, Swahili, and Zulu. It's quite a list, huh?!

For now, my highest to-be-fluent-in languages are French, Russian, Spanish, Latin, and Mandarin. I know the most in French and am obviously going to improve on it during my time in France. I also took four and a half years of Spanish and one year of Russian, so I would like to continue my progression in those. For my interest in reading and writing, Latin simply makes sense as a language to learn, and it could come in handy for future novel writing. Mandarin would also be good to learn since it has the most speakers worldwide and because of China's growing influence; you never know when it could be useful!

Realistically speaking, I don't know that I could be fluent in more than my top five foreign languages (because even that will be a huge challenge), but I dare to dream!

What is your opinion on what languages are the best to learn?
If you're bilingual or a polyglot, which language is your favorite?

Bucket List

I have always wanted to make a bucket list, and having reading someone else's on a blog, I decided to start my own. I'm sure that I will continually add to it as I discover more things that I want to do, but there's nothing wrong with that! And please don't hesitate to suggest things for me! After reading a lot of other Bucket Lists, I decided to make sure mine isn't ridiculously long, doesn't have anything so ambitious that it's practically unattainable, or anything that could actually get me in trouble or put me in danger. I plan to blog about these as I complete them and link those posts back to this post.

Happy reading, and tell me about your own Bucket List!

Misc.

Go sky diving

Ride in a hot air balloon

Go rock climbing

Drive a car at top speed/Drive a race car

Run/Bike a marathon

Go cave scuba diving
Get Dive Master certification

Make own paper and notebook

Make pasta

Go to a drive-in movie

Send a message in a bottle

Learn to ice skate backwards

Stay in an underwater hotel

Attend and complete graduate school

Learn to knit

Learn the Thriller dance

Eat spaghetti like Lady and the Tramp

Kiss under mistletoe

Swim with dolphins

Participate in a murder-mystery dinner

Donate blood

Tie a note to a balloon and let it go

Make at least twenty things that I’ve pinned on Pinterest

Help with an animal birthing

Attend an opera

Language

Be fluent in at least three languages

Be conversational in at least six languages

Write and publish a book

Read the entire Bible

Make a list of Must-Read-Classics and read them

Read 100 books in a year

Travel

Live in France for six months

Travel to at least thirty countries

Make it to at least six continents

Visit every state in the U.S.

See the Aurora Borealis

Throw a dart on a map and travel where it lands

Watch the Symphony of Lights in Hong Kong

Float in the Dead Sea

Walk where Jesus walked

Cross the International Date Line (not by plane)

Attend Comic Con

Visit all the places in song “Kokomo”

Go dog sledding in Alaska

Watch an Olympic event live

Celebrate major holidays/festivals in their countries

            Carnival in Brazil

            Mardi Gras in France

            Oktoberfest in Germany

            Carnival in Venice, Italy

Australia:

            Dive in the Great Barrier Reef

            Find 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney

            Try Vegemite

            Visit the Sydney Opera House

China:

            Walk the Great Wall

Egypt:

            Visit the pyramids and Great Sphinx at Giza

            Dance to “Walk Like an Egyptian” next to an appropriate statue/drawing

England:

            See the Changing of the Guards

            Ride the London Eye

            Partake in Afternoon Tea

            Walk across Abbey Road

            Stand in a red phone booth

            Stroll through Hyde Park

            Visit Buckingham Palace

            Visit the Tower of London

            Ride on the upper level of a red double-decker bus

            Visit Stonehenge

France:

            Visit the Eiffel Tower

            Visit the Louvre

            Visit Notre Dame

            Don a horizontally striped shirt and a beret for a photo-op at a cafe

Germany:

            Touch the Berlin Wall

Greece:

            Visit the Parthenon

India:

            Visit the Taj Mahal

            Get henna covering hands

Ireland:

            Kiss the Blarney Stone

            Stand in a Ringfort and look for fairies

Italy:

            Make a wish at the Trevi fountain

            Eat traditional pizza

Scotland:

            Scout for Loch Ness
            Watch Highland Games