Rock the Red Pump!

Rock the Red Pump!

Why?

National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is March 10, 2012.

There are more than 1 million adults and adolescents in the United States living with HIV. Approximately one-fifth of them (21%) do not know that they have been infected.

In 2006, teen girls represented 39% of AIDS cases reported among 13–19 year-olds. Black teens represented 69% of cases reported among 13–19 year-olds; Latino teens represented 19%.

You can’t acquire HIV by drinking from a water fountain, sitting on a toilet seat, hugging or touching an HIV-infected person, or by eating off plates and utensils.

However,

 here are some ways HIV can be transmitted:

By way of bodily fluids (blood, semen, and vaginal secretions) during sexual contact. Saliva is not considered a transmission route for HIV.

By sharing needles to inject drugs. Infected blood can be exchanged between the parties who are using the same needle and syringe.

Through the transfusion of infected blood or blood products

HIV-infected woman can pass HIV to their babies during pregnancy, during delivery, or while breast-feeding

Be smart. Use protection. Get tested. LEARN more. 

And don't forget to rock your red heels, you beautiful lady, you!

I am rocking my red heels to work today.

Daddy

Happy birthday. I love you and miss you everyday <3

George Clooney, Crying, and Cake

It's not Mother's Day, but I feel like gushing about my mom anyway. She is simply one of the most amazing people I know. Like I suspect other moms are, my mom is always right. I mean it. When I was a kid, one afternoon she told me that if I rode my bike up to Katie's house, I was probably going to get hurt because I was too overtired, and because I was too overtired, I challenged her theory and sure enough had the biggest bike crash of my life (don't worry, the neighbor whose house I wrecked outside of came to my rescue and called my mom). Her motherly intuition from everything ranging from bike crashes to grown up stuff is spot on. It's like some sort of power only moms possess. How do they get it, I wonder?

It's fun because my mom and I get to be friends now. She doesn't have to get me to school on time or pick me up from ballet class. We don't quarrel for the sake of quarreling, and it makes my day to get to hang out with her :) But you know what, she still gets to be my mom. I still need her to teach me how to stand on my own two feet sometimes.

I saw "The Descendants" in the theater this weekend. Have you seen it? I didn't read reviews first; all I knew was that my mom liked it and that it was set in Hawaii and George Clooney was in it. Clearly I had to go. Ultimately, the subject matter in the movie delves way deeper than just GC's pretty little smile and a lovely setting. I won't pour details out here, but I highly recommend going to watch it. And it hit a little too close to home for me at the end. When I got home and laid my head down for bed, I was flooded with tears-- something that hasn't happened to me in quite a while. When I was still in the newer years of mourning my dad, anything could trigger me. But as my grief has matured, that doesn't really happen anymore. I had forgotten what it felt like to be so sad in a single moment that when I close my eyes and the tears are coming down, I feel as small as a speck of dust. Anything could be happening in the world, and at that moment, my heart has sunk so far inside of me that I am only aware of the pull of my chest caving in and nothing else.

My mom was the recipient of a phone call with a melting little girl on the other end of it. She had plans to get ready for that night (time difference is big, after all), but she gave me as much time as I needed to talk about my dad. To recall any memories of the following months I have and to tell her the only things I remember from the day we spread his ashes in Hawaii. She recalled things for me that I have no recollection of. We chatted, we laughed, and without meaning to, I think we both healed even a little bit more. She is an angel and like I said before, simply amazing.

Also, totally separate note, but today was Kaffee und Kuchen Sunday. Even though everything else is closed on Sundays around here, a girl can always go to a café for a slice of cake. Always.

Thanks, Café Zucker.

Living the life

I walked home in a cloud tonight. Mainz is so foggy in the mornings and evenings nowadays as the weather is starting to warm up to Spring temperatures. I could only see as far as about a block in the fog tonight. Everything looks so different cloaked in the eerie clouds.

My working life in Germany has me seeing things through a whole new perspective. I really take for granted the education that I have, the ease with which I can function in my own society, and my belief I hold in myself and my abilities. I tell you what, it is not easy to make a serious, professional impression with limited language skills and different cultural approaches. I understand 50% of what is said to me in any given sentence or string thereof. I can process another 20% of the meaning from eye contact, context clues, and body language. That leaves me, in any given moment of my work day, and really of my German life, not knowing- I mean truly NOT understanding any part of- the remaining 30%. I can sit in a meeting and know what everyone is talking about and why the issue is important but have no idea whether or not they've come to conclusions, reached solutions, identified other factors, or are mostly just blowing off steam about it. Um, hello, that information is probably essential to my professional success here. 30% is a lot to be missing.

I also keep realizing that sometimes I just don't read signs when I'm out in public because I simply don't know what they say. Isn't that weird? It's like being a child in some ways. I am learning to read comprehensively, I ask people to explain the meaning of words I've never heard, and I definitely need more than 30% improvement on writing grammatically correctly in German. I wanted to use the German equivalent of "embarking on an adventure in Germany" in a sentence the other day, and I chose a verb that I guess technically would translate to embark, but it's meaning implies the kind of grand adventure like the Pilgrims embarked upon... somewhat grander of a scale than I was aiming for. I was mostly referring to my adventures in bagging up my groceries...

I miss walking into my office and owning what I do and feeling absolutely confident in my ability to handle any situation that comes my way. I miss not being scared of getting a phone call. I miss being able to make small talk easily and having deeper conversations to get to know people. I miss knowing the grammar rules, even if sometimes I don't follow them. I'd like once again to have my full wardrobe of clothes at my disposal, too, just for posterity. 2 suitcases (one big, one normal) worth of clothes gets a tiny bit dull. I miss knowing the appropriate level of professional + friendly + direct + helpful = successful in the workplace.

But I have a hunch, and this is really just a hunch, that when I have wrapped up my job here, I will find that I have become more professional than I was than before I left for Germany. I think I'll find that the barriers I'm stumbling into now are actually not barriers at all but gateways. But that's life though, isn't it? The tough stuff makes us better if we want it to. And of course, the fact that I'm in Germany and working with really excellent people in a great town for a stellar company means that these so-called barriers are actually just signs of the fact that I am living the life.

I am really living the life.