Infohmayshun

Upon being accepted to Public Allies, which is an Americorps funded program, I was placed at a nonprofit organization in the Bridgeport area. I have two components to my job within the organization: the first is to implement its new marketing campaign, and the second is to co-facilitate sex education classes. Totally lovin' it.

Today as I and my co-facilitator were giving information on HIV and AIDS, one of the kids made a statement that Magic Johnson is "cured," because with money, "you can do anything."

1.) Magic Johnson has full blown AIDS.

2.) He is on a cocktail of drugs that are keeping him alive and as healthy as he can possibly be, plus he takes care of himself - exercises, eats well, etc.

3.)When he gets tested for the virus, it does not appear in his test results because he is on drugs that suppress its appearance.

4.) He will still die, eventually, of an AIDS related illness.

5.) You do not have to be exceedingly wealthy to be on the same drug cocktail that he is on.

No matter what we said, though, this kid told us we were buggin', and that our information was wrong. It finally came to the point (now with the whole class in an uproar) where I told him, "Look, you can believe that if you want, but please don't go spreading it around, because you are spreading misinformation that can get people killed."

"Not if you got money, miss." Is what he replied.

And I'm buggin'???

On a happier note, today on NPR they talked about a really cool website that is dedicated to preserving words no longer found in the dictionary. If you have a love of language, even just to use funny, rarely used words, check out Save the Words where you can adopt a word and bring it back to the English language!