sweet bread, nantucket nectars-grapeade

these cuts on me, the blood i bleed, the tiredness i feel...perhaps i should go to the doc soon

woke up early enough to get to the meeting at borders with caleb. talked about more logistic stuff and more site design. ran an errand soon after where we headed to FedExKinkos in Harvard Square to pick up a banner fer TaskRabbit. helped them set up fer the launch party yday, learned about the word "grommet" and got to chat with a couple of folks at the party. wish i coulda stuck around more but...

got picked up by tom to go to phil's place to meetup fer dinner. caesar salad, spaghetti with italian sausage, seared salmon, and sweet iced tea-not bad. drove like a bat outta hell to the WorldVision exhibit in Hopkinton to learn about AIDS. experience-was arigh, pretty chilling at some parts, but mostly the whole thing made me feel uncomfortable on multiple levels.

unintended lulz when i was there:

seein that nurse in the exhibit-didn't expect to see any ppl there, got freaked out.
hand sanitizer after the exhibit-you can't cleanse yourself of what you learned or saw, nor can you sanitize yourself from AIDS.

andrew led us on a winding path to a Dunkin Donuts in Framingham, some folks didn't attend cause they were "lost". nice talks about the exhibit before headin back to base. took some orders while catchin up on emails. needin to prepare fer the next days, and to get some training done, even though my body's crap right now...

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if anyone has been watching my Facebook posts, you've seen that i was in a lil flurry of anger last night, due to what transpired after the exhibit. a small lil thing like reminders of folks saying Africa is so impoverished, so afflicted by malady... yes that may be the case, but it's not the ONLY place hit in the world. and yet for some reason, we divert all our pity and 2nd class citizenism towards it, whether intentionally or not.

there are other spots in the world that need help, and i'm not saying this to lessen the severity of the problems affecting Africa, but it comes to a point where you ask yourself, "are you really helping folks because you feel guilty about it, or is it a genuine call to arms to help another human being, regardless if they were hurting?" we spoke of something in how we treat these folks like outcasts, but a point made in the exhibit is that anyone with HIV/AIDS can look like anyone and look perfectly healthy; they don't have to be malnourished or frail-looking.

at the same time though, one of the problems is that there is a shunning, a social stigma involved with having or being associated with those diseases. wonder if folks could someday look at a person and care fer them first without havin to use something else as a reference point for them. "hello, this is my friend John-he has AIDS". what you should hear and note first is that this is first and foremost a friend. so what if he has AIDS? you didn't become their friend BECAUSE they had this something-you were there first, and then you learned of this, and you were still there. that's that trueness that this world ought to be lookin for.

leavin the exhibit, WorldVision encouraged folks to sponsor a child, and i gave an honest answer, that i wouldn't do it at this time fer many reasons (in no particular order)

-financial (not enough funds right now i got)

-improper method? (anyone can really donate to a kid somwhere in some far land, but i feel that if i'm really gonna help this kid, that i should be doin more than simply 3rd partying-direct involvement is what i want)

-wanting of a stronger relationship (if and when i would meet this kid, i don't want to say, "oh i met you because a social welfare group told me about your story." these folks are not charity cases-they are people.)

-not moved by guilt (if i were to do this, i'd want to it to have freeflowed thought from myself, instead of having some exhibit urging me to do so. it's nice they encouraged it, but it's not true if someone else prodded me on instead of myself wanting to really help)

but yeah, that's my 2 cents about it. i need to understand more about my world tday.

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in the same way that a lot of things don't impress me, i too am not impressive to you. ah well, i gotta keep on my grind fer now. if you wanna quicken your pace in life, or wanna stop and smell the flowers, it don't matter, cause i'll always be here if you wanna find me. it's only a matter if you are WANTING to.