One year down, four to Go

I'm now one year in to my 5 Years to 5 Dan plan!  That means it's time to look both back and forward.

Looking back:  I went 4-2 as 2 dan at the Canadian Open, and my AGA rank is officially 2 dan (for now, at least).  I think that's pretty good for the first year (having started at 1 dan last year).  If I continue at this rate, I'll meet my goal.  :)

I did not meet my goal of 357 games for the year.  I clocked in at 285, which is 80% of my goal.  (Actually, I stopped counting at the end of August, so this was short of a full year by 2 weeks, though I certainly have not come anywhere near meeting that goal in the past two weeks.)  But my summer got congressed, which was a huge contributing factor to not meeting those goals.

Looking forward:  My next medium term goal is to be 3 dan by this time next year.  I'll consider that goal met if I get to AGA 3 dan and/or I play with at least an even record as 3 dan in some kind of significant tournament.  (That means I'll need to be playing in tournaments...)

I have a lot of things working in my favor.  I'm doing AYD during the academic year, which is totally insane.  I'm having a really hard time playing decent games at night after a long day of work (more on my particular games coming soon).  But I'm playing and getting games reviewed, as well as getting lectures to go along with them.  So that's great.  I have An Huang in my department, so I'm getting regular games with a 6 dan.  It's clear that I have a lot to learn from him, so I'm really happy about that.  I'm so lucky to have him there.  And, of course, I have the best club in the country, full of strong and fun players to learn with and from.  :)

So I have all of that during the academic year to get ready for next summer, when I plan to go to the Osaka Go camp.  To that end, I'm starting to learn a tiny bit of Japanese, using Mango through my library, combined with making flashcards for Anki.  Sukoshi nihongo o hanashimasu!