A few years ago, a co-worker and I worked out our New Years resolutions on our first day back to work following the holidays. We both posted the resolutions on our bulletin boards at first…after a few months, I relegated mine to the back of a picture frame. Wierd, I know. But, as some have said, I march to my own drummer and it worked.
Last year, G and I made a joint mid-year resolution to continue on our steady path, but to start working toward a few long-time dreams–like moving abroad and earning my MBA. Unlike my previous “plan” of hiding the resolutions, we prominently posted them within our home.
On January 1, 2007, we looked back on our resolutions and realized that all had been met. Continuing on my progession toward making my resolutions more and more public, I’ve decided to post one here 🙂
During the first few months of grad school I was blessed with a learning group of 7 native english speakers from the UK and US. Despite my efforts to move so far from home in order to meet folks from different nations and cultures, I somehow managed to insulate myself within a group that was so familar. It was a dream–we worked well together and submitted good work. We were very hesitant to break up when it was mandated at the end of last term.
On Monday of this week, I reported to campus for my first day of classes in Spring term. As entered the classroom, we each drew a random number to determine our new learning group. I’m now in a learning group of 7–all 7 represent different countries.
To this theme, my New Years’ resolution is to stop insulating myself. While sometimes it’s difficult to overcome the language and cultural barriers and much easier to congragate with others much like myself, I won’t truly achieve the goals that I set for myself when leaving the US until I open myself to the ways and beliefs of other cultures.
I’ll keep you up to date on my progress…