Honolulu AIDS Walk

April 17th is the 20th annual Honolulu AIDS Walk!

This event benefitsThe Life Foundation is a local organization that does amazing things. They're the state's oldest and largest AIDS-related organization and, as such, serve over 75% of the state's people, providing rapid HIV testing, education and prevention programs, and support services for patients of HIV/AIDS. This doesn't just include counseling and medical care, but home care, groceries, and a wide variety of other essential services. They currently serve over 60% of all HIV/AIDS patients in the state including men, women, and children from every income level and ethnic group. They operate an extensive peer-to-peer prevention effort that targets people at the most risk for contracting HIV, offering support and education. They go out of their way to reach people in the community; if you need an HIV test but can't or don't want to go to their office, they will send an inconspicuous employee to meet you anywhere on island for your cheek swab.

I've volunteered for them in the past, and this is really amazing considering that they operate out of one tiny office the size of a small apartment in Honolulu. Now I'm the captain of team Psychic Unity of Anthropology. We're the UH anthropology department's team and, the event being so far in advance, we are woefully short on people and donations.

You can help by spreading the word about the event or donating directly to our team page. I don't receive any compensation for bringing in donations, this money goes directly to Life Foundation programs.

Thank you very much for anything you can give and any efforts to help us reach more people. You are helping us create a safer, healthier Hawaii and for that you have our great appreciation.

Mercy Corps

As many of you may or may not know, I am a huge fan of Mercy Corps. They are a wonderful organization and are a large part of the reason why I want to get into global health-- one day I hope to be a part of one of their programs.

In the meantime I'm encouraging people to support their development and relief efforts all over the world, and of course right now the big issue is the earthquake in Haiti. Since you're all probably getting pressure from everywhere to donate to this and that, I'd just like to throw out two things: 1) 89% of Mercy Corps resources go directly to their programs and 2) all donations are tax deductible. Unlike other organizations, Mercy Corps stays in areas affected by natural disasters for as long as it takes to re-stabilize. That might not sound like much, but they still have programs in Indonesia helping rebuild economy and infrastructure after the tsunami in 2004.

Anyway, I can't donate as much as I could back then so I made a fundraising page to help encourage people I know to donate. So go here to donate if you want to donate to Mercy Corps and it will tell me how much the people I know have raised. I don't get anything for this so if you have another charity in mind go ahead and give to them instead. As long as the groups involved get the funding they need I don't really care who gives to what.

Apologies for the solicitation.

Public health: Keeping you alive since forever

I am very gradually making peace with the knowledge that, even when presented with every fact about a situation, the majority of people still will not give a rat's ass about what is happening to other people and will actually go to every extreme to prove why it is a non-issue and how I shouldn't care either. This attitude it starting to be okay with me-- that should not be okay. That kind of BS should be met with public ridicule, not acceptance. What the hell, people? I'm increasingly beginning to worry that my career is largely going to be a long, uphill battle with the apathy of the average person.

Oh sorry. Today, I guess I am Dromiceiomimus. I'm still mad about thatjob I missed out on, too. I lost out on the position at the doctor's office I'm sure because I want to work for a nonprofit doing global epidemiology. I sent my resume/cover letter and got an enthusiastic response asking about my career goals and when I sent that back suddenly they stopped contacting me. I don't know why wanting to prevent people from dying of cholera offends people so much. Shit.

In less crappy news I found out the public health school has one class offered to undergraduates that's like a survey of public health issues for people interested in going on to get an MPH. Since the two anthropology electives I wanted filled up (because the d-bag registrar put me in the VERY LAST registration period for Sophomores instead of the first one for Juniors like they should have, then refused to change it because they were just SURE that any profs would add me to a class I wanted even if the class filled, and then the class filled and the two profs refused to add me as an extra student. For the record someone with my class standing should have registered on Thursday, they put me on Monday afternoon, meaning all the classes I wanted filled up four days before I could even try to get in) I replaced them with that class and Japanese. Weee. Hopefully when I apply to MPH programs they'll notice that and it will add points in my favor.

You know what cheers me up, though? This T-Rex Squishable that they just started making. If no one gets it for me for Christmas I WILL BUY MYSELF TEN and pretend that everyone got me one. Then I will pile them all on my bed and they will be my new friends.

Twert twert

Okay so I got a Twitter, you can all shut the hell up now. ESPECIALLY YOU, MOM. Jay kay mom. You're cool mom. No seriously you spend too much time starring at glowing rectangles with blue cartoon birds on them, mom.

Anyway you can find my chirping right hurrr right hurrr but it will mostly consist of non sequiturs. That first one's for you, Momoko.

And now I can't decide whether "Twitard" is better for Twilight fans or overenthusiastic Twitter users. Hm.

Women hold up half the sky

I've been reading Half the Sky for a couple of days now and it's hard to put down. I'm actually going to be pretty mad when I finish it.

The piece I like to use to summarize the subject of the book is this: 107 million females are missing.

"[In] normal circumstances women live longer than men, and so there are more females than males in much of the world. Even poor regions like most of Latin America and much of Africa have more females than males. Yet in places where girls have a deeply unequal status, they vanish. ... This has nothing to do with biology ... Every year, at least another 2 million girls worldwide disappear because of gender discrimination. In the wealthy countries of the West, discrimination is usually a matter of unequal pay or underfunded sports teams or unwanted touching from a boss. In contrast, in much of the world discrimination is lethal."

What I love about this book is that it's not preachy. It's not a sermon, it's not trying to tell you what you should do or tell you what the solutions are. It acknowledges that this is a multifaceted issue and that there is no obvious fix. Kristof and WuDunn (New York Times reporters who famously witnessed and reported on the Tienanmen Square massacre) are not interested in making us feel guilt or sympathy, nor do they attempt to fabricate some kind of idyllic future that's only a bit of volunteer work or a small donation away. They give you the stories objectively, explaining proposed courses of action and weighing the pros and cons of each. Ultimately the fact that weighs on you is not the atrocities suffered by the women they interview but the knowledge that, even with everything done right, this will continue for a long while before it can even possibly be resolved.

The stories are not usually tragedies. Despite the kinds of horrors some of these women have been through, they are not ruined. For the most part they do not break and they are not afraid. They are constantly fighting back and, sometimes, they triumph against those who would force them to suffer in silence. I don't finish a chapter feeling upset or angry but rather hopeful and inspired. If Mukhtar Mai can outlast the government that tried to lock her away, if Usha Narayane and the women in her town can take down a brutal gangster when their government would not, if Meena Hasina can lead a raid on a gangster's home to get her children back, these are not tragedies. They are a window of the kind of justice that will continue to develop if we support it.

The key is not just humanitarian aid; It is also political pressure. No society will change of its own volition without pressure, both internal and external. With increasing internal support for women from aid organizations the remaining piece is for us in the West to demand certain changes. Action will only be taken if we insist on results, not just legislation. Policy change is largely irrelevant because there is little influence of the law in the rural areas in which most of the brutality takes place. No government wants to be shamed on a global scale.

I guess the important thing is that change is already happening, and hopefully with the support of people like you and I it can continue to happen. There are girls out there right now that are fierce and resilient but they can't do it alone. Not all issues will be resolved, of course, but for every small step there is at least one more woman who will be safe. And if that seems insignificant, remember-- you are just one person, too.

The Guild

After much prodding I finally watched all of The Guild that's online so far. I recommend you do the same even if you're not into MMORPG type games because it's still pretty funnay. Admittedly the first couple of episodes (which are only like 7 minutes long) aren't that appealing but it gets better. Felicia Day writes/stars as Codex. She started the show after a few years of dealing with internet addiction.

Here's the promo they did for season three, which is catchy as all get out:



And if you want to start watching, here's the first episode.

In case of emergency...

... You better hope I like you! :D

Because I am, as they so delightfully phrased it in The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, a disasterist. I am determined to learn things that will allow me to function in case of a city/state/country-wide disaster and potentially be self-sufficient thereafter. I can build fires, build shelters, forage for food, and help treat injuries, and so on. I intend to be able to field dress game, drive 18-wheeler trucks and boats, repair necessary electronics, etc.

Why?

Because if anything crazy happens you're really going to wish you knew how to do a lot of things you don't know now. I'm not gonna say that I'm planning on a zombie apocalypse or anything, but I am gonna say that if that ever happens I am going to rock because I am scrappy lady. I will ninja in your damn window armed with a fire poker and a really heavy lamp base and be like COME ON THE BUS IS WAITING and then you will pile in with the other survivors and then I will drive you all to a heavily fortified hiding place up in the mountains. THIS IS THE APOCALYPSE OF MY DREAMS, GUYS. I'm not gonna say I want a zombie apocalypse, I'm just saying that if there was a zombie apocalypse I wouldn't be all that upset.

Of course it might not turn out that way, but this is my fantasy world and I choose to believe that I will be a badass. So there.

Fun fact: While looking for that comic in the archive, I ctrl+f-ed for "side" and when I found "The Tasty Side" as the name of a comic I knew that must be it. looool forever.

Since there will never be a zombie apocalypse (QUESTION MARK) I guess I will just learn that stuff to be a bigger badass in the real (read: boring) world. Although actually that may all come in handy if I really do decide to go to some insane place to do public health (I'm looking at yoooou Myanmar) or in the entirely likely event of World War III. And it would definitely be handy in case of a natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake.

Now you all think I'm insane, I'm sure, but I'm really just an ESFJ. Or, more appropriately for this scenario, an ENTJ. I tend to get one or the other when tested depending on how excited I am about a zombie apocalypse. I guess I'm walking the line somewhere between "Do you folks want some homemade cookies?" and "TUCK IN THAT SHIRT, SOLDIER."


P.S.
There's still hope!
A small warning about A Softer World: Most of the comics are either funny or just plainly poignant, but some of them can be downright upsetting. Each one tells a whole story and sometimes those stories are very dark. It may not always be for the faint of heart. Just a note.

Today is my birthday

We got that boom boom pow

One really weird/cool thing about UHM is that there's constantly music everywhere. This is good because in NJ I would ask people "hey have you heard the new Radiohead yet?" and they'd be all "lol who." Usually I answer the blank stares I sometimes get when Radiohead comes up by going, you know, I'm a creeeeep, I'm a weirdo... but that didn't work there as apparently none of them had ever heard it. What the crap, even my mom knows the words to that song (hi mom, sorry mom).

Anywhoo there's been a DJ booth outside Campus Center all week for some reason and tonight there was a live band in the little square between the four Hale Aloha towers next to my dorm. I get woken up every morning by people driving around playing loud music starting at 5am which, while annoying, is still cool because at least the people out here are alive.

The downside is that living in a dorm and not having a car means there is NOWHERE I can play loud music and sing without anyone hearing me. Yes the no one hearing me part is important. It's not fun if you know your neighbor is sitting in their room griping about your bad taste in music.

This is unrelated to anything else but I just have a love affair with this video and I would like to pimp it as much as possible: