pelf-ism is contagious

Would you be interested to light a candle on the 3rd Annual Light to Unite website?

For every candle lit, Bristol-Myers Squibb will donate $1 up to $100,000 to the National AIDS Fund. For more information and to light a candle, visit www.lighttounite.org. And after lighting a candle, you may click on any of them to read a story (or personal account).

The National AIDS Fund one of America’s largest philanthropic organizations dedicated to eliminating AIDS/HIV as a major health and social problem. Learn more about National AIDS Foundation.

In 1996, a group of students from Universiti Malaya (UM) has gotten together to create and increase public awareness on issues pertaining to AIDS and People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). As a result, the annual Minggu Kesedaran AIDS (MKA) which was held for four consecutive years morphed into something stronger, the Inter-varsity AIDS Conference (IVAC).

The objective of this conference is to instill HIV/AIDS awareness among teenagers and adolescents so as to decrease the stigma and discrimination that the society has towards People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). And the theme for IVAC 2007 is “Understanding Makes a Difference”.

Now, the IVAC is an annual event organized by the 7th Residential College of Universiti Malaya. But this time around, the IVAC organizing committee in UM will work together with UPM’s Nutrition and Dietetics Club to host the 4th IVAC in UPM from 2nd to 4th 9th to 11th February 2007. Registration fees is RM 40 RM 30 and includes lodging, food and transportation. For more information, or if you are interested to participate, please contact the organizing committee at ivac7rc@gmail.com.

To add another feather to their cap, the organizing committee has also started not one but two blogs to spread the awareness concerning AIDS and PLWHA:

• Inter-varsity AIDS Conference (IVAC)
• All about IVAC

I think the students had been a tad too slow in coming up with the blogs/websites considering World AIDS Day is on Dec 1st, eventhough the conference will only be held in February next year. Nevertheless, I reckon we should give them our moral support, no?

They may not have much information right now but do check their blogs out and visit the AIDS-related links they provided.

That’s the least you could do.

Lorelle on Wordpress is one of the blogs that I silently read without ever leaving a comment or a trackback. No matter how tempted I was. And I have no idea why. I always made a mental note that I will work on the challenges that she puts forth every week or so, but I never had the time to do so.

So to those of you who have recently complained of the lack of blog ideas, allow me to introduce to you Lorelle’s Blogging Challenges, if you have not already heard of it In Lorelle’s own words:

Each week, give or take, I will be posting a new blogging challenge for all you bloggers. They will range from writing about a specific subject or topic to cleaning up your blog and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques. Some will be just plain fun and giggles, and others will rock your world so hard your brain will slosh.

So.. I am going to start with this week’s Blog Challenge - to list 30 things that a normal human being can do in 30 seconds that will change the world.

1. Smile, even to a stranger. Never underestimate the power of your smile.
2. Sweep and clean your house compound. Imagine a million people doing this.
3. Make sure you dump your rubbish bags into the bin, not outside the bin.
4. Before taking out the trash, make sure the bag is tightly tied.
5. Refuse plastic bags when you shop for groceries. I read somewhere that we use enough plastic wrap to wrap all of Texas every year!
6. Refuse polystyrene foam boxes. Bring your own lunch box.
7. Recycle papers by printing on both sides. Recycling each tonne of paper saves 17 trees and 7000 gallons of water!! And did you know that every year enough paper is thrown away to make a 12′ wall from New York to California??!!
8. Recycle envelopes instead of throwing them away.
9. Shut the tap when brushing your teeth or washing your face.
10. Switch off the lights, fans and air-conds when nobody’s in the room or office.
11. Pick up the pieces of paper you see on the floor in your office eventhough they are “outside your area.”
12. Call a friend whom you have not seen for a while and tell her you missed her.
13. Bring a box of chocolates and share it with your colleages. And the cleaning lady who vacuums your office.
14. Send a short email to your high school friends asking them how they were doing lately.
15. Surprise your sister with a gift the next time you go shopping.
16. Water your plants instead of allowing them to dry in the air-conditioned office.
17. Buy your neighbour’s son an ice cream.
18. Call your aunt or uncle who lives in another town.
19. Call your grandparents.
20. Send an SMS to a friend you’ve not heard from recently.
21. Speak nicely to the Customer Care Consultant the next time you call TM to complain about your Streamyx connection.
22. Write a short email to a blogger and tell him/her how much you have learned from his/her blog or how much you enjoyed reading it.
23. Clear your own table after eating at KFC or McD. If the Westerners can do it, why can’t we?
24. Say “Hello, Good Morning” to your colleagues first thing in the morning when you see them in the office.
25. Give away your old shoes or clothes to the cleaning ladies.
26. Say “Thank you, I appreciate it” to anybody who has just done you a favour. No matter how small that favour is.
27. Write and send a postcard to a random friend.
28. Buy your other half a surprise gift. This you can do while shopping for other stuff.
29. Say “Have a nice day, everybody” before you leave the office.
30. Separately dispose of your aluminium cans and recycle them. Or give them away to the cleaning ladies so that they can recycle them. I have read somewhere that the recycling of one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for 3 hours and that enough aluminum is thrown away to rebuild our commercial air fleet 4 times every year!

Boy, was THAT fun! *smiles*