Last week's Blog

Last weekend I saw the movie Philadephia. I've heard of the title before but heard nothing about the movie itself as I can recall. I knew it had something to do with AIDS given this class. I thought it was a great movie. My favorite part was when Andy was in the library and the librarian suggested that he do his research in a private room because of his AIDS and Joe was there and witnessed it. It was the most significant changing point for Joe in the movie. In part of the movie right before the party scene, there is an exterior shot of the building. The clip inside the window appeared to be vacant but yet the next scene there is a party going on. I wonder if anyone else caught that?

Thanksgiving was fun. I went to Columbia, SC to visit my moms side of the family and we had game night friday consisting of a game of Pokenno on my dads side.

I can't believe the semester is almost over!! I look back and realized I could have did things differently and much better. Even though this class has been a rough ride with me, I'm so glad I took it. I thought I knew almost everything about HIV/AIDS, but know I feel like I have more of an understanding on the subject!

DID
YOU
KNOW

Ok, this is going to sound completely crazy and I don't see how anyone can fully understand this but apparently there are some people that belives having sex with a virgin will cure HIV/AIDS! Yeah, I know. South Africa have an estimated 4.5 million people with HIV/AIDS and about 580,000 of new infections are from childeren under 15 years old. Why is this? It is of the notion that an intact hyman and a smaller vaginal secretions in young girls prevents transmission through sexual intercourse.

(Earl-Taylor, M. (2002, April). HIV/AIDS, The Stats, The Virgin Cure, and Infant Rape. Retieved November 29, 2009 from Science in Africa.)

Mens Panel Week

This week I attended the mens open panel that took place on the main campus. We had 4 volunteer speakers that share with us many different aspects of living with HIV/AIDS. They spoke on how they found out about their condition, dealing with famiy members reactions, dealing with their sposes and how some of them took care of their spouses throughout, their medications and coctails, and personal health issues such as their reactions to some of the medicines and hospital stays. I found it to be very informative especially for people who has never knowingly encountered anyone with HIV/AIDS. The most important information I left with was the stress that they were were placing for us (the younger generation) to get out there and continue to spread information on HIV/AIDS. We now need to start with elementary school age to get them informed. I wish I would have went to the womens panel.

F
Y
I

This is a video I found on the sterotypes of people with AIDS. It is in a talk show theme and the host is known for his satire. Everything the assumes about the man in the audiance is a misconception from the man being a around phycially weak person to him classyfing "good AIDS and bad AIDS", which there is no such thing. This seemed to be role played and not real.

(www.youtube.com)

Invinsible?!

This week I've just been getting my paper ready to turn in. There are alot of proofreading and mistakes I need to fix. We had a good question of the week this week. They've been getting better and better. I feel that I'm thinking a little differently about the fact that HIV/AIDS is affecting people's lives,their community, and their country. This weeks question of the week pertained to how should the U.S continue the fight against AIDS. Clearly informing our community and classrooms isn't enough. The infection rate continues to rise! Why?!

I think most people know about HIV/AIDS but for some reason they don't think it pertains to them. Like they are invincible or something. How many times have you heard HIV/AIDS DON'T discriminate?! At this point, everyone should know someone who has died of AIDS or has HIV/AIDS. That isn't enought to scare you straight? Oh, I forgot, because they don't live like you or they don't have the lifestyle like you, that's why they have it. Get for real people! It's not until YOU find out that you have HIV/AIDS that you ended up knowing it's real. By that time, it's too late. Take a hint, everything about having the disease is not positive.

That brings me to

Did
You
Know?

I read this article from a peer reviewed journal about controlling the spead in India. They were talking about how it is spread and how they try to prevent it and then they mentioned something that should have been quite obvious to me. They suggested "the local and reginal celebrities such as political leaders, movie stars, and beauty pageant winners, in the indiansubcontenent to get involved in helping people with HIV and educating the public, which would certainly raise awareness amung the rual public more quickly than current efforts." Duh! Who do most american follow, want to be like, and who they look up to? People we see everyday, people in entertaiment. If alot of intertainment people get involved in this, I truly feel it will make a huge difference!


Controlling the Spread of HIV/AIDS in the Indian Subcontinent. 2005. PLOS Med2(12): e420 www.journal.pmed.0020420

M&M project week

Oh my goodness. I just want to start off saying that I have been swallowing about 10 plain and peanut M&M's for the past 3 days! It makes me depressed and it is very painfull. Have you tried to swallow half of a peanut m&m. Not fun. This assignment is for us to imitate how our daily life would be if we were HIV positive and had to take many different medications as many people already do.

I like experiences like these because I get to experience what it would be like to actually feel the effects of HIV/AIDS. I say that because infected people, if they choose, has to take these pills everyday a couple a times a day just to be or feel somewhat normal. I get to experience HIV/AIDS without really experiencing it. It's different because you mentally know people take medications for their condition but to actually take a placebo make it reality. This could be me. I determined that this would be painfull for me and was tired of it by day 2. I do NOT want to know how this would feel for the rest of my life.

DID

YOU

KNOW

There is a slim to none chance you can get infected with HIV/AIDS outside the human body. There has been laboratory studies on high concentrations of a laboratory grown virus. The CDC has shown that even the drying of these high concentrations of the virus reduced the infection rate by 90 to 99% in several hours. But be cautious because the amount in the study is not usually found in humans and there has been no case of anyone contacting it from environmental surfaces.

(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2006,October 20). How well dose HIV Survive Outside the Body. Retrieved from www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/qa )