World AIDS Day

In preparation for World AIDS Day, I did a lesson on HIV/AIDS with my classes and showed the movie, "Philadelphia," which was well received. To be honest, I was surprised with how much my students already knew about HIV/AIDS and was glad to know that they were mostly well informed. Anyhoo, I just wanted to throw it out to y'all that World AIDS Day is this coming Saturday, December 1st. I am sure that there is an event: memorial service, candle light vigil, etc. happening near you. I found that this website has a list of events worldwide: World AIDS Campaign (Its listed by country in alphabetic order) or check local papers for events. Tell your family and friends and get involved!

Solitary Kidney

I have 2 classes of seniors and most of them are frantically searching for jobs, which entails shelling out money and shoving their way through different job fairs. It sounds pretty stressful as I am sure thousand of students are making their way through the job fairs in the region. Consequently, the other day, only 2 students showed up to my class because everyone else was wrapped up with job hunting. I didn't mind as this made for a very intimate class. The three of us went over some of the lesson I had prepared and we chatted about gender roles, life, and how the job search was panning out.

One of my students was telling me she was offered a job in the South. However, she was ambivalent about accepting because it is so far away from home and the high crime rate. I think the North's views are that the south is full of drugs, murders; basically, that its chock full of the seven deadly sins. She the proceeded to tell me that ubiquitous horror story, ending with someone in the bathtub full of ice, horrified to find that a kidney had been removed.

My students asked me if it was possible to survive on 1 kidney. I explained that our bodies would be able to handle living minus 1 kidney. Then, I thought this was cute; she asked me, "Won't that kidney become tired?"