Mission: 199 - Introduction

What is Mission: 199? The completion of 199 meaningful yet random tasks by a (currently) 18-year-old girl (me) before my 30th birthday on February 10, 2020.

Without further ado: my 199 life goals...

1. Graduate from university
2. Drive to the Gold Coast and ride the Lethal Weapon (something I was too chicken to do when I was 13)
3. Learn to play something other than the opening riff of “Smoke On The Water” on guitar
4. Learn to play the piano properly (by that, I mean actually knowing the notes , and not making it up as I go along)
5. Rent and watch the following: The Matrix trilogy, the Mission Impossible films, the James Bond films, the Indiana Jones films & the SAW films
6. Learn to surf
7. After learning to surf, take a surfing trip with friends along the east coast of Australia for at least two weeks (if not a month)
8. See 30 live bands/singers/gigs
9. Spend an entire day in an art gallery
10. Bake a cake from scratch (without destroying the kitchen)
11. Stop mooching off my parents and move out of home
12. Learn to make my grandmother’s family recipe of egg & bacon rolls and vegetable soup without using a recipe
13. Take a round-the-world trip
14. Abstain from alcohol for 100 consecutive days
15. Meet Daniel Radcliffe
16. Visit London and New York
17. Become fluent in French
18. Read every Jane Austen novel
19. Do not visit MySpace or Facebook for at least a week
20. Climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge
21. Complete a basic mechanics course
22. Take a yoga class
23. Take a lead role in a play/musical
24. Make a portfolio of semi-professional photographs
25. Dye my hair red
26. Find an ‘Edward’
27. Find a way to convince Mum that reading my text messages is not in her best interest
28. Take a trial kickboxing and/or taekwondo and/or karate class
29. Kick a football like the AFL players on TV do... not rising half a metre, than thudding along the grass
30. Make at least five issues of “The Dub” (note: up-and-coming newspaper with the layout of the Herald Sun and the class of the Age, and produced with Christie)
31. Convert 5 more people to Collingwood
32. Search for my kindergarten friends on the Internet and see if they remember me
33. Visit the elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka
34. Hold ten events for charity and raise $1,000 at each
35. Go to a Rugby League and professional soccer game
36. Go to the Olympics
37. Re-pierce my ears (and, if I’m brave enough, my navel too)
38. Get a tattoo (but a meaningful one)
39. Beat the Dementor level on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban PS2 game
40. Play a game of golf
41. See the Muse live in concert
42. Ditto for Getaway Plan
43. Finish one of the many stories that I’ve been planning over the years
44. Make a banner for Brent Macaffer and Chris Dawes and take it to the footy when they receive senior selection
45. Track down, and purchase, the first season of The Animals of Farthing Wood on EBAY
46. Take something of minimal value to Cash Converters
47. Sell something on EBAY
48. Receive a HD in one of my university classes - COMPLETED!
49. Buy a home
50. Become an extra for film or TV
51. Get a motorbike licence
52. Get a boat licence
53. Catch a fish of substantial size
54. Write in a journal for an entire year (one journal entry per day)
55. Host a “Twilight” party for the release of Midnight Sun
56. Abstain from take-away food for six months
57. Visit 30 restaurants/cafes/bars in Melbourne that I’ve never been to before
58. Go to the Melbourne Film Festival
59. Go to the Melbourne Comedy Festival
60. Visit Paris and climb the Eiffel Tower
61. Do work experience at a major Victorian newspaper
62. Take a ride on the Ghan
63. Visit the seven wonders of the world
64. Go skydiving
65. Do the skydive in Auckland, NZ
66. Swim with dolphins
67. Swim with sharks at the Melbourne Aquarium
68. Travel with Greenpeace
69. Go horse-riding on the beach
70. Listen to nothing but The Doors for a whole week
71. Investigate Buddhism as a religion
72. Fill an entire sketchbook with drawings, not cartoonish figures or half-finished sketches
73. Go ice-skating
74. Dye my hair blonde for a week
75. Go to 30 live protests
76. Do the 40-Hour-Famine each year until I’m 30
77. Take a meditation class
78. Watch a documentary on the History Channel and/or Animal Planet
79. See a movie at La Premiere (or equivalent)
80. Buy a pet mouse
81. Visist the ANZAC Day Memorial at ANZAC Cove
82. Convert at least 5 people to the Twilight phenomenon (1/5)
83. Bust out my clarinet from the basement and play once a month for six consecutive months
84. Move down to the basement, and create my own little zen palace there
85. Refurbish the amazingly-cool yet ancient pirates chest I found in my grandparents’ garage
86. Live debt-free for a whole year
87. Complete at least a Level Two First Aid course
88. Be an audience member in a television show
89. Be a contestant on a television show/game show
90. Visit the Cannes Film Festival
91. Take a beginner’s ballroom dancing class
92. Take a Porsche for a test drive
93. Go to Chanel in Melbourne and pretend to be a million-dollar heiress
94. Take a ride in a horse and carriage in Melbourne
95. Take a ride in a horse and carriage in Central Park
96. Gamble money away at Crown Casino
97. Take a sightseeing cruise along the Yarra River
98. Learn to shuffle cards properly
99. Take a ride in a hot air balloon over the Yarra Valley
100. Learn the “scissor” version of the Nutbush
101. Go to a psychic and have my future predicted
102. Go to an ANZAC Day game at the MCG
103. Donate blood
104. Find my dad’s name on the plaque at the Immigration Museum
105. Spend one day of the weekend for four consecutive months gardening
106. Go to the Boxing Day test at the MCG
107. Become an organ donor
108. Watch a professional ballet performance
109. Take up knitting and make a scarf for a homeless person
110. Go paintballing
111. Join the SES
112. Learn basic sign language
113. Write and have published an article on conservatism and liberalism
114. Go on a peace-keeping mission to the Middle East
115. Sponsor a child for World Vision
116. Get my teeth all fixed up
117. Read all of The Lord of the Rings books
118. Take a beginner’s pottery class
119. Break a Guiness World Record
120. Serenade someone with KCI and JoJo’s “All My Life”
121. See a lunar eclipse
122. Go to the Melbourne Writer’s Festival
123. Watch every movie that has won a Best Picture Oscar
124. Watch an entire season of Robin Hood and Doctor Who
125. MYSTERY GOAL! (whoever messages me first with an idea - I will do it, whatever it is)
126. Drive a convertible with the top down and music blaring
127. Own a Dalmatian
128. Go to the races during the Spring Carnival
129. Learn to speak with a English accent
130. Ditto with an Irish accent
131. Ditto with a Cockney accent
132. Meet Robert Pattinson
133. Write a letter to Lemony Snicket as a disgruntled fan
134. Have an absinthe shot
135. Try frog’s legs and snails
136. Finish an entire ‘game’ on the SIMS
137. Touch a tiger
138. Learn to make bacon & eggs
139. Use five pick-up lines from the Facebook group ‘Harry Potter and the Bad Pick-Up Lines’ on someone in a nightclub
140. Take a cooking class
141. Watch a sunrise on the beach
142. Go Go-Karting
143. Go bike-riding on the Warburton Trail
144. Learn to ski or snowboard
145. Go skiing at Mt Buller or Mt Hotham
146. Learn to drive a manual car
147. Have a marathon ‘Charmed’ weekend
148. Buy a motorbike
149. Write to a pen-pal once a month in a faraway land
150. Visit the New York Public Library, and check out the first Harry Potter book
151. Study American history
152. Sleep under the stars
153. Watch the launch of a space shuttle
154. Be someone’s mentor
155. Drink beer at Oktoberfest
156. Shower in a waterfall
157. Adopt an animal from the RSPCA
158. Ride Kinga Ka – the tallest and fastest rollercoaster in the world
159. Celebrate Chinese New Year
160. Ride a Gondola in Venice
161. Save a life
162. Parasail over the warm, blue waters of Mexico
163. Deliver a letter by owl post (a la Harry Potter!)
164. Go cliff diving
165. Take an African safari
166. Elope with the love of my life
167. Go on holiday with no luggage
168. Sing along in a music store loudly with those silly plastic headphones
169. Turn my mobile off for a week
170. Bury a time capsule
171. Blow one month’s wages on shoes
172. Go to the opera
173. Host a cocktail party
174. Play an elaborate practical joke
175. Spend Christmas Day helping out in a charity
176. Spend a week out at sea
177. View a house I can’t afford
178. Skinny dip at midnight
179. Spend the night in a haunted house
180. Make my own pasta
181. Resign by all-staff email
182. Learn to throw a boomerang
183. Build a tree house
184. Pash a policeman on New Year’s Eve
185. Go to a bedding store in my PJs
186. Leave a love note on a windscreen - COMPLETED!
187. Spend one hour in a lift
188. Help out at a soup kitchen
189. Spend Christmas Day in Lapland
190. Make a pile of autumn leaves
191. Walk through knee-deep mud
192. Smile at 100 strangers - In Progress
193. Make a kite and fly it
194. Send a message in a bottle
195. Persuade the security guards at Buckingham Palace to talk
196. Plant a tree
197. Tell someone the story of my life, sparing no details
198. Queue for something for at least 24 hours
199. Climb to Everest base camp