I went to a field trip with Upward Bound today. It was to the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute. What was surprising was that all the lab workers there were concerned about the AIDS issue too. And everybody knew in the lab that Africa’s AIDS is among the most deadly. When we were separated into smaller groups to explore different lab sections, I couldn’t wait to see the lab for the HIV/AIDS disease. Right now, the workers explained to us that they are trying to create a vaccine for it, and the process is still generating constantly. What made me felt excited, was that the people in my group had great questions to ask and were really interested in the topic too. One major thing that the worker continuously explained to us about was the issue with children in Africa suffering with AIDS. So the vaccine is an urgent need. I just hope that the discovery of an AIDS vaccine will enter in our world soon.
July 25, 2003
Today during class, we had a lecture about bio-hazard. So one of today’s
main focus was based on the AIDS disease. It was a cruise for me to understand
because I have been doing research about AIDS for the last four weeks.
One thing that really caught me was when the lecture teacher compared
the AIDS is sue with Africa and the U.S. It was useful information because
our website is about Africa, and it is interesting to know the comparison
with the U.S. I can see from many students becoming really engaged with
the topic, and that they felt it is an important issue to talk about.
There were gasps from students when they heard that Sub-Saharan Africa
had up to 25 million people infected with AIDS.
July 27, 2003
Our website project is almost coming to an end and we are supposed to
make the deadline by Thursday. Seeing our site now, I still think we need
a lot more work. Looking back on the first day, the class was frustrating.
But now, I wish it could last longer. Reflecting on years ago, I remember
the issue of AIDS was a sensitive topic to me. The first time I actually
heard about the HIV virus was around the year 1992 when Magic Johnson
told the world that he has HIV. Back then, I was just in first grade,
and the virus to me seems like just a cold. I had no idea why the community
took it so seriously when they heard that Magic Johnson had the disease.
So about five years later, I was finally exposed to more information about
AIDS. It was a book that I read in a diary format about a girl who has
AIDS. I remembered that I could not put that book down because it was
a true story about what happened everyday in her life. It was about the
beginning of her regular teen life to the dreadful days of living with
AIDS. That was finally the time when I realized how serious the disease
was. And after the girl’s true story, the issue of AIDS was always
in my mind. When I went to high school during my sophomore year, we had
a unit about Africa in World History class, and during biology class,
we had discussions about the HIV virus and the AIDS disease. From this,
I got really engaged from the topic. So when TTQ came up, I knew it was
the time to make a topic out of AIDS in Africa so people can be more educated
about it. I’m glad I chose this topic…