Barely Here, Barely There

So dear little blog of mine, I must start of by sending the deepest apologizes to you for neglecting to care for you at all in the past few days. I hope you can forgive me. Friends again? Great! :)

I've had a tough time the past couple of days, some of you know that, some of you may not. I had a little bit of a breakdown, which I guess can be expected, and I decided I need a change for a while. While I love L.A., the fast lifestyle, the numerous opportunities it provides for me (especially in the HIV/AIDS sector), I have to take a step back. So as of March 26th, I am temporarily departing from L.A. and heading back home for a while. I need to slow down, and be around some people that really, truly care for me and aren't always super busy with work and school. Most of all, I need my family. I feel now as if I were taking a little bit too much at first and now I have to step back for a while, still stay committed to a few things, but ease my life, at least until I can get into the swing of what life is really going to be like HIV+. For God sakes, its been almost 4 weeks and I still haven't gotten my blood drawn to give me a T-Cell (immune system) count, and a viral load (how much virus is in my body). So when I get those numbers back in a couple weeks, I'll at least have a little insight on where I stand, and what comes next.

Anyways, I had the pleasure today of watching these 4 amazing teenagers in a weekly broadcast they do about high school, sex, and HIV. They are phenomenal kids who really care about something and are informing themselves and others, while at the same time having fun. You can watch their broadcasts at http://www.blogtv.com/people/spotu_tv, and in the latest one I pop up for a few seconds to say I'll be a special guest next week...you can watch it live at 2 PM on Sundays, or watch it recorded later. Please, please, please watch them and watch me, I'll be on next week! :) They work really hard to help educate teenagers, so they deserve your 20-30 minutes of attention once a week :) Shout out to all you guys!

So I'm sure many of you are concerned about my school status; I have chosen to Medically Withdraw from all my classes, meaning I'm not disqualified from the university or anything, but I will be taking the rest of the semester off. It was a hard decision, but I was falling behind in all my classes and I had to take the stress off so I can really focus on myself. Mind you, I will be going back starting in fall, and if decide not to come back to Long Beach, I plan to apply to San Jose State, or San Francisco state.

I'm looking very forward to going back to the Chili's up in Tracy and working with all you crazy people. It was hard to leave that place, but I'm excited to go back up there and spend time with everyone. I think you guys have been a create support system. Heather, definitely you are such an angel. Debbie, your kind words fill me with love you so graciously spread. Desirae, you are the most amazing person I know and I look forward to seeing you next week!!! Disco lemonade, baby! haha...and Nikki, you don't know how hard it was to tell you about my status. Besides my parents and Daniel, I knew how hard you would take it and I know that now we have been through everything! Yet you still have the deepest spot in my heart as friends, and I know that you will be there until we are old, and gray, still finding ways to lose weight while being force fed in a nursing home :)

Commitments. I have given myself a couple since I found out about my status. The first and foremost is the Long Beach AIDS foundation. Garry Bowie, I am so gracious to have came into your presence, even under such unfortunate circumstances. You inspire me, and I will continue to be faithful to your foundation, doing as much work for you as I can up north and when I'm here in the LBC. I'm speaking March 25th at a panel at Cal State Long Beach. I don't have the room number down, or much information yet, but it is from 5-7 PM. So for all my LBC friends, please please please request work off and come. It would mean SO much to me! I am still working on my donations page, so that will be up soon so you guys can donate to the AIDS walk that I will be participating in. And I'll be making a flyer that you can give to your friends and family and force them to cough up 5, 10, even 20 bucks if it's possible. It's all for a great cause. Please visit http://www.lbaidsfoundation.org/ That is the organization I am volunteering for, and they have a lot of different amenities that are great. Also, if you guys could e-mail garry.bowie@lbaidsfoundation.org and just give him a simple thank you. Tell him what I am to you, a friend, family, co-worker, and just thank him. Because he has been the biggest part in keeping me from just giving up. He is the one who has inspired me to do such good work, thru the work I see him do.

Anyways, I'm going to wrap it up. (Shoulda done that 2 years ago when I got this damn thing, huh?) :) NEW RULE: I will update every single day. Even if it is a small update, just something for you guys to read. So please check back daily. I haven't blogged the past couple days cuz I was really down, but even if I'm down I'm dedicated to blogging every day. Please comment though you guys. Give me some feed back. Good, bad, supportive, constructive, just anything!! And please leave it here, instead of on my myspace, it's just easier for me to read it here. I love you guys, and I'll see you Tracy people in just a few weeks!!