May 28, 2009

Make smoking history campaign in Australia

"Make Smoking History" is an anti-smoking campaign, established in 2000 as an initiative of The Cancer Council Western Australia. The campaign "aims to contribute to efforts to drive down the prevalence of smoking among Western Australian adults".

The video shown below has been described by the campaign as being a ‘shock and awe’ montage of well known, smoking-related diseases taken from anti-tobacco campaigns shown in Australia over the last decade and aims for smokers to seek out support services to help them quit.


Mar 29, 2009

Jamie's skydive (Orange ROCKS)

I met Jamie at the LIVESTRONG summit in Columbus, Ohio last year. He was one of our track leaders for the Orange grassroots and advocacy track (Orange ROCKS, Livestrong), and a constant source of energy and motivation.

Jamie's father passed away after battling brain cancer for twenty-two years. Jaime himself was diagnosed with Stage 4b lymphoma in March of 2007.

He celebrated his 2 year cancerversary by jumping out of an airplane. It's his return to life...


Watch A Journey of Hope in Aktivismus & Nonprofit | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Mar 16, 2009

Game on, cancer....

Just watched the newest LIVESTRONG Challenge video... so many familiar faces of people I'm lucky enough to call friends.

We need to challenge cancer until nobody needs to suffer and/or die from this horrible disease, anymore. Pick a fight with cancer today and support those who are currently in treatment and those who are in their final stages of their lives.

Feb 21, 2009

To everyone who doubted my ability to finish this semester...

During the last months, I received a lot of advice from a lot of people. Some of it was helpful and supportive, some of it not so much. Just imagine being in an accident at the start of the new semester and after a difficult year with thyroid issues. A lot of people told me to relax and concentrate on my recovery, get better slowly, forget about the semester and start again next term. After all, if you can't concentrate and/or read, what's the point in going to classes?!

Due to doctors' orders, I missed 4 weeks of classes, and even after I got back I had troubles with my concentration and my ability to memorize and process information due to my head injury. A lot of times I got frustrated because it took forever to just read a page of information or to even listen to and follow lectures. To be honest, I wasn't sure I'd be able to write my finals and I had to reduce my workload for this semester to 4 classes.

2 weeks ago I was done with my two finals and I can't express how proud I was that I didn't give up or listened to people doubting my ability to go through with this semester (even though it hurt at times). Today I received the information that my political science final grade was online. I got a 1.7 (A/B). After all the setbacks of the last weeks and months, this makes my day!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! Thanks for all the notes of encouragement- I really appreciate it.

Feb 4, 2009

World Cancer Day 2009

Today is World Cancer Day.

Cancer is a leading cause of death around the world. The WHO estimates that 84 million people will die of cancer between 2005 and 2015 without intervention.

The World Cancer Day promotes ways to ease the global burden of cancer.

From the UICC webpage:

"On 4 February, World Cancer Day, the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) will launch “I love my healthy active childhood”, the second full-year theme in our “Today’s children, tomorrow’s world” cancer prevention campaign."