A bit of introduction, I have played go off and on for a long time with varying levels of seriousness but with the US go congress being held in NYC this year i feel as this is the time for me to take an active aim at improving from "a guy who plays go occasionally" to an actual dan level player. My previous highest rank has been kgs 4 kyu but much to my dismay my current kgs rank with my new nick is right now a solid 8 kyu.... so 8 months for 8 stones improvement (i hear people say that kgs 1d is a bit stronger then aga 1d, they both seem like "realistic" goals, but i will feel i have acheived my goal with an offical aga rank of 1d or higher by the time the US open is done). So this journal is to both hold me accountable for my journey for the next half year and hopefully share my positive results at the end of it. To that end:

Study Plan:

-Play a bunch of games to get back in the swing of playing go (fairly fast games, just to used to thinking about the game again).
i am aiming for at lest one game a day on average, hopefully more.
-Play longer time controls as the US open approaches (to train for the longer time controls at that tourney)
-Solve 20 tsumegos per day on goproblems.com
-Work through Graded go problems for beginners vol 3 and 4
-Work through Graded Go problems for dan players vol 1
-Acquire and read Fighting fundamentals
-Post games on this journal for review
-Seek to play more live games, via the groups that meet up in NYC and with the monsters that play in Fort lee.
-Acquire a teacher, atm this will possibly be the man who owns the Fort lee go hall (a korean 1 gup), but possibly with a high dan on kgs.
-watch at least one lecture from KGS, youtube (dwyrin et al), or audiogolessons.com a week, actually watching it not simply viewing it.
-replay and think seriously about 1 professional game per week, post my thoughts about it on this thread for critiques of my analysis.
-prepare an opening for the US open sometime closer to the event, i want to know a picticular opening as black like the back of my hand when the event actually comes around. This will include a lot of study on the joesekis involved in that open etc.

Hopefully this will be enough to see the improvement that i desire but i will re-evaluate as the US open gets near.

And finally a list of what i belive to be my strengths and weaknesses at the moment (which i will occasional revise throughout my study)

Strengths:
-Direction of play compared to others at my level
-Fueseki
-fighting spirit!

Weaknesses:
-everything....but ok ore to the point...
-reading, particularly in a "won" game
-avoiding blunders in late middle/endgame
-Joeseki knowledge
-being overly agressive sometimes
-whole board awareness
-using thickness, not being stuck on playing for territory.

I was hoping today's games that i played would have a "good" loss to review but all my wins were by huge margins and all losses by reading errors that i have already reviewed myself. But hopefully i'll get one to post within a day or two.

If anyone has any advice on my quest, or just wishes me well (or ill >_>), i will gladly accept all the input i can get. I have set a fairly high bar for myself, but hey you never know unless you try .

One recommendation, since you're looking for a teacher and serious games is to check out http://www.yunguseng.com. Inseong is a great teacher, and you will get lots of good games with reviews heading up to the Congress.

First few days update:

Ranked up to 7kyu as i am getting used to playing a lot again. Still very many reading mistakes but i seem to be getting at least a few less every game.

Made progress on my tsumego study, 200 problems done in GGPFB #3, and a few on various websites etc when i had down time.

posted is a game i lost and would love comments on as well as my game that i got 7kyu on.