Goal!!

Now considering I'm living in Central America, one could assume the title of this post is referring to the beloved past time of futbol (aka- soccer).  But I'm not.  I'm talking about the kind of goal that one sets for themselves with the desire to achieve. 
During orientation at the beginning of the year, our principal had us write a list of goals for the year.   Personal, professional, spiritual.  And we sealed them in an envelope and handed them over to her until a later date.  And that later date happened to be today at our monthly staff meeting.  Now, when I wrote those goals I put a lot of effort into my choices.  But to be honest, I think I forgot about them approximately 30 minutes after I turned them in.  That first week was insane and I had plenty to worry about. 
Well, when I got that envelope back today and looked over those goals I had set for myself over 5 months ago, I was a little disappointed.  The goals I had set were strong ones.  And to this point, I don't feel as though I have been adequately meeting many of them.  Some, sure.  But it really allowed me to reflect on the things I valued and wanted out of this experience when I arrived.  And I still value those things. 
Fortunately we were given the opportunity to write new goals for the second semester.  And I was glad for this.  I'm not one for New Year's Resolutions or that kind of thing.  But I do believe in thinking through what you desire to achieve and goals you have for yourself.  And being home for a while, and separated from my life here for a few weeks, really allowed me to re-examine my experience here, and what I want from it and from myself.  
So I wrote some new goals today.  And I'm not going to tell you what they are.  I read somewhere that if you tell people your goals, you lose some of the motivation to achieve them because you have already experienced some sort of gratification in disclosing them to others. :) But I do have them.   And I'm writing it in this post so that I have some sort of accountability- to myself at least.   In another note, the process of this goal setting reminded me of the Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards which we read frequently during one of the LIFT semesters.  If you haven't read them, you should take a peek. (There's a lot of them, but they're good if you take the time) Resolutions

And something totally different-- but the topic of staff meetings sparked this inspiration.  I've decided to start a little series in the blog of "You know you are in Guatemala when..."  Not necessarily every post, but I do have those moments every now and then when I think to myself, "Yep, I'm definitely in Guatemala right now."   And one of those was today at our staff meeting.
You know you are in Guatemala when...
#1-- Item number 2 on the agenda for your staff meeting is "Bathrooms".  In which you proceed to discuss proper bathroom usage for 15 minutes concerning bowel movements in the teacher's lounge because a) some people have frequent pooping issues here because of food related sickness,etc. and b) the plumbing in this country is pretty weak and things don't go down as easily.