Advocate For Life

I was head-butted by a four year old today. I cried - she didn't. I'm pretty sure I was crying from laughing so hard (right in the middle of sacrament meeting), but I'm not 100% positive... Also, I cut my finger tip open with scissors last night. It was weird. I knew that I was bleeding, but I had to literally stop and think about what I was supposed to do to stop it. You'd think after watching all 6 seasons of Grey's Anatomy in a month and a half, I'd know right off the bat to put pressure on it... Like I said, it was weird.

You want to know something pretty cool? In 2007, my dad anonymously donated one of his kidneys (he did end up meeting the recipient). In 2009, I wrote a poem about it for a creative writing assignment. And now, in 2011, my dad's inspiring story AND my poem are going to be published in a book about organ donation. I'm a pretty big advocate for organ donation and to this day, what my dad did amazes me. The recipient, Melanie, and her mother, Kris, are from Australia. In 2008, when I was a mere 16 years old, I was able to go to Australia and spend a month with Kris. It was an amazing experience and I met amazing people down there. It was amazing to see all the lives that my dad had changed by donating his kidney to Melanie. I was  introduced to everyone as, "Ali, daughter of the donor".

It messes with my formatting if I try to add captions to the pictures, so I gave up on that. The top right picture is of my cousin Alysha, me, and Kris at Byron Bay on Kris' birthday. The bottom right picture is of Alysha, Franko, and I at Byron Bay. Franko worked with Kris and he was kind of like our Austalian dad. The bottom left is a picture of Melanie and Kris. And the top right... yeah, I just like peacocks. Also, my parents donated their truck to Kidney Cars. I guess there are a number of ways that that helps fight kidney disease. I posted a couple of links below. The first one is a link to the Kidney Cars website (if you are interested in that). The second is a link to my dad's story about his experience donating a kidney. It's kind of long but so inspirational and so worth it. The third is a link to my poem... which is posted on this blog (November, 2010).

http://www.kidney.org/support/kidneycars/donation.cfm

http://uradvocate4life.comxa.com/index.php?p=1_8

http://alihancey.blogspot.com/2010/11/kidney-shaped-cuff-links.html

Wake up and smell the fabric?

Do you ever get really mad over really little things? I do. Like not being able to donate plasma, for example. I went to the store with my room mate after the plasma people turned me away. She could tell that I was mad... actually, anyone could probably tell that I was mad. I felt like I had just been told that I couldn't have children. My room mate, being the sweet girl that she is, tried all sorts of things to make me feel better. As we were walking down the shampoo aisle, she would pick up different bottles of shampoo, hold them up to her nose, take a big whiff, and then tell me to smell them. I angrily told her that, "I already know what they smell like", and carried on with my horrible attitude.

I have three tests this week, so naturally, I'm not going to be in the best mood. Well, I was talking to my mom today about applying at a restaurant that's going to be opening next month. I was telling her that even if I got a job there, I would just have to quit after two months because I'm moving back home when school gets out at the beginning of May. She told me to go and apply anyways because having a job for two months is better than not having a job at all. The whole situation was stressing me out, and then I remembered all the studying I have to do for my exams this week which added even more stress. I tried to tell my mom that I just didn't have time to go to today and that I would just do it later this week. However, she finally convinced me to just get it done today. I discovered when I got there that a Jo-Anne's fabric store is right next door to this restaurant (I also found out that you have to apply online...). So naturally, I went inside. You know how smelling shampoo doesn't make me feel better? Fabric does. Touching it, looking at it, smelling it. Ahh, the smell of new fabric! I also love looking at scrapbook paper and Jo-Anne's has a wonderful supply of that as well (they even have Disney Princess paper!).

The moral of this oh, so wonderful tale, is that I spent my afternoon walking up and down the aisles of a fabric store when I should have been at home studying. And I would do it again in a heart beat. Yep. Good story, huh? Oh, PS I did get an application to Jo-Anne's... so at least my afternoon was a little bit productive.