well, here i am in kenya.

By some miracle, I managed to watch all of Pres. Bush’s speech to the…oh, I forget who it was to. One of the veteran-type organizations in Amercia. Anyways, it was his speech wherein he further threatened, kind of, Iran, and said how great things were, relatively, in Iraq, and then made lots of justifications for not reaching the Benchmarks, which maybe would have sounded better if he hadn’t had that whine in his voice.

So, in that spirit, let’s revisit those August goals:

Fill out career counselor forms
Find some breakdancing!
Get office to have a potluck

1. Career Counselor tests: Yes! I did fill out the career counselor tests. And they were FASCINATING! There were 3 of them – the first one was a straight forward Strong Interest Inventory Test, the second involved picking between kind of straight forward choices (ex: I would rather write a major novel or play than be the chairperson of a board. A. True; B. I don’t know; C. False); the third one was just crazy. You had to pick between 2 choices which one was More True for you. Example: A. When I get mad, I feel like throwing and breaking things, B. I like to avoid responsibilities and obligations. Example: A. I like to help people in need, B. I like to do a job as well as I can and thoroughly. So the whole thing was extremely interesting, and complicated, and I surely am curious for the results.

2. Breakdancing: See, now, it was not really about finding breakdancing. It was about finding out if there is breakdancing in Nairobi. And I have effectively found out that, no, there is not breakdancing in Nairobi. I know this because I just helped with a training on explaining EPAs to some of the underground hip hop artists in Nairobi. No breakdancing.

3. Potluck: Again, I think we should look beyond the simple fact of whether I did or, as the case may be, did not have a potluck, and we should look to the reasons for a potluck. Potlucks are all about getting people together outside of the office and fellowshipping. So while a potluck did not happen, Valerie did have a going-away shindig at a lounge next to Club Afrique, and most of the office showed up.

September goals:
- talk to career counselor, gain new perspective and motivation for my life
- have a party for my new coffeetable (oh but it is so beautiful)(Valerie gave it to me when she was packing up her stuff)(I had always complimented her on it/demanded that it be used for doing puzzles)
- cut back on consumption of refined and processed sugar