First up, I was surprised by how quickly my new domain took effect for the site. In fact, it seems it has been working for people almost as soon as I had published my first "official" blog post yesterday, which seems a lot faster than my experience with past Blogger-mediated domain purchases. Good job, Google!
Second, I'm also surprised by how many visitors the site has had in its 1st full day of being active. While it's nice to think that it might involve past readers of my LiveJournal blog migrating over here. But realistically, I expect it has a heck of a lot more to do with the fact that I linked to a Blogger Buzz post, which is probably triggering a lot of backlink-derived traffic. I expect things to normalize soon enough.
Third, my first few attempts of archiving my old blog using LJ Book have failed, largely because of the continued DDoS attacks on the site. At first I was worried that I had been doing something wrong or that it was related to some formatting issue, but good thing I took the time to confirm with the developers to see what the issue might be. They confirmed it was more a server issue at this point - so far they can't even authenticate my blog access from their end given the server issues on the LiveJournal side. Bummer.
And my last little introductory bit for this post, I took the time to set up a blogroll for this site to link to a number of blogs written by friends. If you're interested in getting listed (because we bloggers all love link exchanges), then feel free to let me know. At the same time, I've also set up an LGBT blogroll for Baduy Pride as well. So if that's more the flavor of your blog or how you choose to identify yourself as an individual, then I'll be more than glad to list you as well.
And now for today's actual blog discussion. This was all just preliminary fluff, would you believe?
Beyond my usual work stuff and the happy news of a deadline originally meant for tomorrow being pushed out more than a week, my work day ended with a very rewarding 4-hour learning session about HIV / AIDS thanks to the good folks at The Love Yourself Project. It was interesting to see how everyone reacted different to some of the topics of discussion. Given the subject matter, you can imagine how a lot of the talk went into traditionally sensitive areas, especially within a Philippine context.
Still, I felt it was a pretty good session and the leaders involved walked away with a better understanding of HIV and with a fresher perspective on gender identity as well. It was interesting that the facilitators included that as part of their little training material - it's definitely a valid topic, but I can see how the discussion could still be tweaked to work a bit better in corporate settings. Still, they definitely meant well and I think they got their message across.
If anything, the greater challenge now is not just for the participants to walk away with a better understanding of HIV but more how we're going to get this message out to the rest of the company. With over 3,000 agents within the city alone and not yet counting all the supervisors and other support personnel we have in the company, finding an effective means of generating greater awareness and dispelling a lot of the misconceptions around HIV / AIDS will definitely be tricky.
That had me thinking of ways that perhaps Tobie and I can spread awareness using
Baduy Pride or even just our respective individual blogs if that doesn't fit the tone. There's a lot of solid information that people need to better understand what HIV means, how it spreads and what people should do once they find out that they have it. However a lot of this remains outside of conventional topics of discussion.
But it's definitely an important enough cause for us to invest some more time and energy into, even if it just means writing blog entries about basic HIV / AIDS facts and figures and that sort of a thing. In fact, I feel some sort of an infographic or poster campaign might work well to spread the message more, especially in this social media age that we live in.
Lastly, I wonder if it's about time that we finally got ourselves tested once more for HIV. Our last test was two years ago during our first Pride March together, but we haven't been tested since. Given that was within the first six months of our relationship together, that means we were both in the "window" period for HIV to start triggering the production of antibodies in our system. While the chances are quite small, this is more about good health practices above everything else. Everyone should get tested for HIV, especially since there are no apparent signs of infection. The only way to truly find out is to swallow your pride and take the test.
And now matter what the outcome, I know that Tobie and I will deal with the results together. We just work that way.
Third, my first few attempts of archiving my old blog using LJ Book have failed, largely because of the continued DDoS attacks on the site. At first I was worried that I had been doing something wrong or that it was related to some formatting issue, but good thing I took the time to confirm with the developers to see what the issue might be. They confirmed it was more a server issue at this point - so far they can't even authenticate my blog access from their end given the server issues on the LiveJournal side. Bummer.
And my last little introductory bit for this post, I took the time to set up a blogroll for this site to link to a number of blogs written by friends. If you're interested in getting listed (because we bloggers all love link exchanges), then feel free to let me know. At the same time, I've also set up an LGBT blogroll for Baduy Pride as well. So if that's more the flavor of your blog or how you choose to identify yourself as an individual, then I'll be more than glad to list you as well.
And now for today's actual blog discussion. This was all just preliminary fluff, would you believe?
Still, I felt it was a pretty good session and the leaders involved walked away with a better understanding of HIV and with a fresher perspective on gender identity as well. It was interesting that the facilitators included that as part of their little training material - it's definitely a valid topic, but I can see how the discussion could still be tweaked to work a bit better in corporate settings. Still, they definitely meant well and I think they got their message across.
If anything, the greater challenge now is not just for the participants to walk away with a better understanding of HIV but more how we're going to get this message out to the rest of the company. With over 3,000 agents within the city alone and not yet counting all the supervisors and other support personnel we have in the company, finding an effective means of generating greater awareness and dispelling a lot of the misconceptions around HIV / AIDS will definitely be tricky.
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| Image via Wikipedia |
But it's definitely an important enough cause for us to invest some more time and energy into, even if it just means writing blog entries about basic HIV / AIDS facts and figures and that sort of a thing. In fact, I feel some sort of an infographic or poster campaign might work well to spread the message more, especially in this social media age that we live in.
Lastly, I wonder if it's about time that we finally got ourselves tested once more for HIV. Our last test was two years ago during our first Pride March together, but we haven't been tested since. Given that was within the first six months of our relationship together, that means we were both in the "window" period for HIV to start triggering the production of antibodies in our system. While the chances are quite small, this is more about good health practices above everything else. Everyone should get tested for HIV, especially since there are no apparent signs of infection. The only way to truly find out is to swallow your pride and take the test.
And now matter what the outcome, I know that Tobie and I will deal with the results together. We just work that way.
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