Here it is...the new year is at hand. What will 2002 bring?
I pray for peace across the world. I realize it is unlikely, but prayer cannot hurt.
I pray for good health to all those I care about--family, friends and co-workers.
I pray for good times.
I'm thankful for all the blessings that 2001 brought despite September 11th.
I raise my glass to toast the new year....even if it isn't champagne, lol.
God Bless the World.
I'm alive, just engulfed in the busyness of the holiday. My birthday was a good one with lots of good prezzies. More later. :)
Happy Birthday to me. Can I go back to bed? It's pretty gray out and I didn't want to get out of bed. It would have been a good morning to sleep in.
Still not online much. I'm not sure what kind of mood I'm in, but I'm definitely not in an online mood. Instead Brian twisted my arm last night to play Rampage on Sega Dreamcast.
I'm very much ready for 16 days off at Christmas. I need a break to relax and wind down. Once the New Year arrives I will be getting busy at work. Can you believe it's going to be 2002? Where did the time go? I certainly have trouble believing I'm 29. And I think my mom is having even more trouble believing it. But how is it that on my Birthday I'm stuck going to work and she and dad are in Jamaica? *Whine*
I better get ready for work. The only good thing is we're going out to lunch for my birthday at work. Otherwise I'd rather go hide under my covers.
Did a Yahoo search for some research I'm doing for the Music Page, and lo and behold my blog comes up as a match proving to myself yet again that blogs are not private. While I like to use this blog as a record of stuff that is going on, there are somethings I cannot write about, such as more detailed accounts of work. Makes me consider pulling out a journal I bought a few years back and actually writing in it. Only problem I have is the journal lacks any word processing capability, because inevitabily I skip words or phrase something poorly and have to scratch it out.
Meanwhile I have a cat purring on the chair next to me. :)
Been offline for a bit. Needed a break and I've just been enjoying reading the next couple JD Robb books way too much, lol. Finished Ceremony in Death and have gotten half way through Holiday in Death. Skipped Vengeance in Death since I read that already. It was the first book I picked up of the series. Holiday in Death seems appropriate at the moment since it is set in the Christmas Holiday Season. Murder committed by Santa Claus in 12 Days of Christmas style.
Can someone stick a Roarke under my tree? Or another yummy man willing to satisfy me will work in a pinch. ;)
Any hopes of going on a short vacation over the Christmas Holiday have been dashed after spending over $500 on my cat. Turns out she doesn't have stones but there is some inflammation. She seems to be back to normal, other than being pissed at me for leaving her at the vet for an ultrasound. She was stuck in a cage between two very vocal siamese cats. I think that would have pissed me off, too.
To show her displeasure at me, she ripped a small plant out by its root from its pot. Not something she's ever done before. Hopefully she is over the ordeal now and will stop taking it out on my plants.
I've got about half my shopping done so far, but still have a good bit to go. The short trip to the mall today with my brother accomplished nothing. He managed to buy things for himself--games and accessories for his new Sega Dreamcast. It was too damn miserable to attempt shopping anymore after that. Maybe tomorrow I can give it another try.
Quick entry. Seems all the record warm weather we have been having has caused the cherry trees to begin to bloom. How messed is that? I wonder how that will affect the cherry trees next spring.
Cat goes for ultrasound tomorrow. Hopefully will get answers. Of course, Tabitha has been doing better the last couple days. But its best to have this checked out because it still could be bladder stones.
Other than that I went to the gym tonight and have been reading JD Robb's Ceremony in Death. That ends my fly-by. Oh, almost forgot to mention folks at Kinkos recognized and apprehended the nut that was threatening abortion clinic workers and sending hoax anthrax letters. One less wacko on the streets, thankfully.
Dinking around with the layout more. I'll leave up some of the HIV links for another few days. Then I'll be making more changes. Hopefully by the New Year the blog will have a completely new look once I figure out what that will be, lol. :)
I never did get to blog about working in HIV drug discovery. Maybe another time.
Otherwise my life these past few days involved dealing with a sick cat who may have kidney stones and trying to complete my Christmas shopping. I did make it to the gym tonight for a spinning class. Now I just got to make it through the rest of the week. Tabitha will get her sonogram on Thursday and then I'll know if I'll be shelling out big bucks for surgery to remove stones. If Christmas wasn't draining my finances enough. When it rains, it pours. What else is new, lol. Murphy's law.
Is your life worth risking? Is your future worth protecting? Educate yourself about HIV. Dispell the myths and get the facts about how HIV is transmitted and how it causes disease and eventually death in those it infects. Current treatments may prolong life, but they do not cure the disease. On December 1st 2001, there is no cure. Researchers have made progress in learning about the virus and it's pathogenesis. But a vaccine or a cure still elude us.
Abstinence and condoms are the only ways to protect yourself. Know your partners' history. Get tested. A moment of pleasure today is not worth trading in many years of tomorrows.
And besides sex, blood transmission is another route of infection. Coming in contact with infected blood will put you at risk for not only HIV, but also Hepatitis B and C. Hepatitis C is another deadly virus that has no effective treatment or cure that is rising in numbers of infections worldwide. It too can be sexually transmitted, but is readily transmissible from using a previously used needle as is HIV.
Both safe sex using a latex condom and abstinence protect not only against HIV, but Hepatitis and STDs such as Herpes, Chlamydia, Syphilis, and Papillomavirus. Recent studies have shown that unprotected sex with multiple partners from a young age puts women not only at a risk for HIV, but also cervical cancer. Papillomavirus which can cause genital warts is also responsible for a large percentage of occurances of cervical cancer. Cervical cancer, untreated can also kill.
It's scary, but a little fear can be good. When we become complacent, we put ourselves at risk. And unfortunately I see the world getting complacent. I see the world saying this can't happen to me. Yet we never would have thought three planes could crash into the WTC and the Pentagon and a fourth in the woods of Pennsylvania. We were complacent that the US was a safe place. But now we know its not.
The same goes for HIV. It does not discriminate based on race, creed, color, or sexuality. It affects even those too young to understand what HIV is or even what sex is. HIV infects and kills without malice or hate. It just sees its victim as a host in which to replicate and be propagated and spread. The goal for you is to not become a victim.
Get educated and don't put what you know aside when the hormones kick in. Your life may depend on it.