MY PLANS FOR 2023

1). Start an EFL course

Ever since I started teaching English to Brazilians living in England, thanks to my bosses' initiative to make an advert in a magazine, I have been thinking about how I can get an EFL teaching qualification. In late 2020, I found an online course which, if all is successful, will give me a qualification to teach online and even abroad. 

However, due to the pandemic and an influenza infection that has lead to over 2 years of uncontrolled asthma and restricted lung capacity, I have had to delay the start of this my course until I have felt well and strong enough to start something new. 

Once I have passed the course, I can look forward to teaching people from around the world through my laptop. 

2). Return to over-the-board chess

Another thing that has been delayed because of my health issues is my return to over-the-board chess after announcing that I am coming out of retirement on 5 August 2021. My reason for leaving real-life tournament chess was the fact that I thought that I would start a new career as an EFL teacher for certain. However, there were times last year where I thought about quitting my EFL career due to the stress of working with other people in a foreign language of which I had some unsuccessful relationships with. Since that time though, I have received compliments form some of my students who thanked me for my efforts in helping them with their English ,which have inspired me to take on the profession.

3). Keep going to the gym

One of my biggest struggles of my life is finding a gym that is suitable for my auditory sensory needs and is easily locatable. During the spring and summer of 2022, I had put on a lot of weight due to inactivity because of my uncontrolled asthma and having too many sweet foods. The doctors advised me to got the gym in order to try to lose some other the excess weight as this will help ease some of the symptoms.

Thankfully, I was in luck! In October 2202, I found a new gym located around the corner from my food shop; but what was even better was that it was very affordable and the music inside the gym was of a reasonable volume that did not offend my sensory processing.

My new gym has been a real blessing for me and I intend to go there as frequently as possible.  

4). Get back into meditation and yoga.

One thing that I was doing regularly prior to my volunteer work in 2019 was meditation and yoga. I first discovered meditation in December 2009 when I discovered a book on Amazon called 'The quiet' by Paul Wilson which spoke about the benefits of meditation and gave some basic but really life transforming practices for the readers to try for themselves. 

Since then, I have visited Buddhist centres to have meditation classes where I can talk to other people about their meditation experiences after the class. 

I first started to do regular yoga in the late summer of 2017 when I saw a flyer about Friday night yoga classes in a Hindu temple. The classes would normally last 2 hours and were free for everyone, although donations were encouraged. 

I've recently gone back into doing yoga at home. However, because of my uncontrolled asthma at the moment, I am only doing standing asanas in order to reduce the stress on my lungs.

5). Keep learning languages

One of the joys that I have had in my life over the years is learning foreign languages. From the days of learning French at school form the age of 10, to now being a daily language learner from the comfort of my own home. Learning languages means leaning about new groups of people and new cultures. It has also given me a higher level of confidence speaking to other people.

I have been learning Portuguese since encountering my Brazilian managers in my old volunteering job in 2019 and I have not looked back since. I am still using various materials to improve my Portuguese and I have now helped many Brazilians with their English as part of language exchange. I now have online Portuguese classes to make sure that I am making progress in the language.

I started 2022 by launching a life blog in Portuguese where I share various life and cultural experiences in the Portuguese language.  https://vidaricharddavis.blogspot.com/

I hope to take online classes in other languages too like Spanish and French so that I can improve my comprehension of those languages too.