they never say a word.. yet there is this pressure for you to conform.. but tell me? why should you.. its utter nonsense.. don't listen.. not buy into it...

Thursday, September 28, 2006

for the first time...

i'm going to blog my homework...

After watching a documentry...

A CLOSER WALK - HIV, AIDS

The documentry cover serveral high risk segments of society...

CHILDREN, POOR, WOMEN, YOUTH


Assignment
Pick 1 segment and use it as qualitative research evidence of the major challenge to changing risky behaviour that results in contracting and spreading HIV/AIDS
- list reasons and evidence in support of argument
- must change this behaviour because....

The documentry opened with a young Afican child, so frail, lying is a hospital bed. His mother loking on helplessly as the doctor flatly explain this boy's plight. " There is little we can do for him, except make him comfortable." and there are 10s of thosands of children just like him..

There were so many hings that resonated during my 1 hour viewing, 1 doctor explained this is a completely preventable disease, and yet it has taken millions of lives in Africa alone. It isnot a gay problem, not an African problem. It is a NATIONAL problem, there is medicine to prevent new borns from getting HIV during birth, and yet 100,00 children are born with HIV each year. it is all COMPLETELY PREVENTABLE.

risky behaviour? i believe that all but youth have contracted HIV by circumstance. In any event, its always the poor, the opressed and the helpless that are the hardest hit, and though un derserving bares the brunt.

or could it be another factor all together, education? or money?

women? maybe it is how they are not empowered to make choices. In this documentary, they piece a scenario.

In Indian culture you never amount to anything if you do not marry, so man marries woman despite the fact that he knows he has AIDS. He trys to protect the girl but she is pressured to bare a child. If not he will marry a second wife and she will be outcasted. Her options are such, and most of the time they rather get infected.

This is a fucking screwed up whole.

you only have access, if you have the right connection. By connections I mean the green stuff. Its the only thing that speaks volumes.

..................................................


The lack of education about AIDS to the high risk segment of society is perpetuating the spread of HIV. The lack of education stems from the lack of salience of AIDS in the media and the government. Possibly government does not want to admit that there is a problem and thus does little to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. This results in a cycle of ignorance in society and that disempowers those at risk. This is most evident in the segment on poor women in A Closer Walk.

Reasons
In the scenario given by one of the health worker

-Women are given little other alternative than contracting HIV
-They are ill-informed about the consequences of contracting HIV, unable to accurately weigh the pros and cons of the decisions they make.
-Women are blamed by the family as the cause of the disease, even though it is not true
-They seem unaware that though they will contract HIV, that their children do not have to do so.
- the facility that they are housed in is actually for communicable diseases, there is no facility dedicated to helping people with HIV and AIDS.
- these people have become destitude once they are found to have AIDS because peoplae are uneducated and afraid that they will contract AIDS too.

Why must this behaviour be changed?-It can prevent women and children from getting HIV unnessesarily
-There does not need to be a stigma attached to HIV and education about how it it transmitted can help change that
- create a more supportive environment for HIVpatients, more family support.
-

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

the sand between my toes...

there isnt any reason forthis post, other than the fact that i've not had one of these in ages. Ifind if so hard to compell myself to conceal everything in the literary decoding.

I feel the sand in between my toes, the cold salty air.
and ponder over the future in each grain of sand
i feel my knuckle joints stiffen and the tightening of my belt buckle
as fix it back into place
I want no one to see, I want no one to second guess what's hidden in the plams of my hand
i want to hide, walk naked down the street, be a no one

right now i shuffle up the pavement
I hang my head low, I button up and dress down
i like to leave my toes exposed
i know what comes next,
i hold my breath once again i get smacked the truth
truth hurts, truth doesnt set you free
it keep you locked up, it keeps you subservient
it makes you want to do things you never done before
it want to make you better, it want to make you try
it want to make you all these thing that would make your heart die

it forces you to smile, it makes you laugh sometimes
that it has such a grip on you it can only make the world spin faster
i cry hard, laugh hard, love hard, learn hard
it makes me so confused

Saturday, September 23, 2006

pseudo holiday...

I've had a CRaAZY week.. and i'm glad friday has finally come around.

I really want to look forward to a breather but I've got so much work to get done i'm simply crumbling at the thought. I've got jap midterms and my jap is in shambles to begin with. i've got a week to start from scratch..

I have 6 interviews to do for lifecourse and aging, so if you are over 60 and hv some free time to spare please give me a call... lol.. and

I've to interview someone of impartancce to NUS for media writing, and another report to write about the interview I witnessed for Communications class.

Lastly, I have to do a semiotic analysis of all the BRAND'S essense of chicken ads that have sprung up in the last 10 years.

I better quit complaining and start studying... Get cracking...

I'll see you when I keel over

shit! i was just reading my emails and I have to subit the ILP reports by tmr and I havent finished any of them.. well just start now right...

I've got an hour to do it before I'm going to meet andrew at 2.. hopefully i'll be back at 7.30 to get it all done up.. CRAP!

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

things are going great for me

I'm mid way through my yr 3 1st sem, Japanese is stretching my brain... but i really want to do well at it.. and work hard for it.
dance has been so much fun, so fun that I jus came home with bruises all over my leg.. we do stretchimg i really enjoy stretching... choreo was cool.. havent danced like that in eons... but who wants to hear about that right..

Andrew has been the greatest. doing things for me, and going out of his way to help. wonder what I could do to make up for it.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

what I think of...

marriage... someone asked me today, when is a good time to get married.. my friends.. I know thats probably a weird question to be asking.. but I its true i think that would me our next "barrier". Gosh! we ARE getting old... I'm enjoying my youth, my prolonged adolocense as my prof calls it. why in the hell would I want to settle down.

I meant there were many reasons we brought up about marriage inertia..

to me marriage was just a thing invented to LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT to consumate a relationship. In Singapore its the piece of paper you need to buy a HDB flat. I feel that a ceremony is in order to tie the knot, but why is the tradition such that the ENTIRE whole must know that you love someone.

i feel that commitment should be sufficient. people change and its hard to say what both partners will be like after spending many years together. If you live happily ever after, that is great. And if you don't, why should you keep staying in a relationship that is sour; just because its legally binding?

Saturday, September 09, 2006

mind over matter

I'm feeling very reactive to thiings happening in my life...
everything seems to bit to handle, I've got ILP reports to write
designing of questions from next wednesdays class...
but how can I find time to do all that if i can't seem to catch up with work...

then there is japanese that is in a league of its own, no matter how hard I work for it there is always something that I forgot to do, there is always someone who is leaps better than I am to show me just what a useless peron at languages I am and that I really dont belong.

what would I tell my ILP kids..
think positive.. I can!
I love Japanese!
break it down to simplier bits...
plan my time...
know what I have to do
SMMART...

so why arent I doing it!

so no more excuses right...
off to work!



Do you know during thejune season, someone told me that we keep falling so sick cos we always believe that its MIND OVER MATTER... and I believe that to a larg extent that is true. but what happens is that wepushed our bodies beyond that threshold and its just started shutting down on me.

In Indonesia, the last week of coaching, I had a high fever, a flu, stomach craps, a busted knee and had lost 5 kg. Not that it was indonesia..it was the month long of long hours and the emotional roller coaster. And I kept going... bordering stupid huh...

whateva it is... I going to get on top of my situation. I give myself 1 week... so I wont be screwed during mid sem break...It starts today

Ready.. Get set.. GO!