Suffocated by dark grey walls. (Are they dark grey, or just grey and dark because of the lighting.) Even though it’s winter, the air is so thick that I can smell the dampness, or maybe it’s the silence.

Only it’s not silent. A small TV in the corner of the ceiling emits the white noise from some news program. The volume is just enough to discern audible phonemes, but not quite for comprehension. That’s ok, no one is watching anyway. The xerox machine rhythmically hums its bland soundtrack.

Outside the late afternoon sun backdrops the beginning of rush hour traffic. The kind of sun right at that angle where you can’t quite block it out of your driving view with the, who knows what those things called anyway.  Dark orange penetrates the blinds of the sole window, and leaves its footprints in neat parallels on the mauve carpet.

Fourty-four black cushioned chairs lined side-by-side, back to back. Always those black cushioned chairs! On them, twenty pairs of eyes, but none of them directed at me. Some young, some old, but most belong to young to middle-aged adults. An old man in a navy baseball cap and black faux leather jacket is the only other Asian – everyone else is Hispanic. Most of them are overweight. No one looks at each other. The children’s occasional hysterics are our only respite.

On the other side of the wall are the nurses. Through the windows peeking into the work room, the fluorescent light reflecting off their bright purple scrubs are the only source of color in this microcosm. They don’t look at us either, only occasionally call a name. Another one of us disappears to the other side.

Description of my experiences at Planned Parenthood clinic

“How did you do number 4.a?”  I don’t look up from my book. Time is limited, and I am tired.

“What?”

He’s staring blankly at me, clearly distracted. “Oh.. I don’t know, I think it’s in the lecture slides somewhere…”

“You really don’t look like you want to work on this problem set.” Oh underclassmen…

He’s grinning that guilty smile, like he wants to tell me something.

“It’s my birthday this weekend. My boyfriend is taking me to the San Jose Sharks game.”

“Oh cool!” I’m smiling. They had only recently gotten back together, so good for them.

“And then I’m going to donate blood in the blood drive organized by them and Stanford.” He looks so happy and excited…

“Oh..” Try not to show your thoughts, Crystal.

“I don’t know if you know this but…” How am I supposed to explain this to him?

“They don’t exactly…

allow…

menwhohavehadsexwithothermendonateblood.”

There, I said it.

“What do you mean? Why not?”

“They’re paranoid of HIV.”

He’s not responding. Maybe I should keep talking.

“It’s a really stupid rule. It’s just a relic from the old days when they didn’t know what was causing HIV and the blood supply would get contaminated.”

Still no response.

“You see, these days they test for HIV in everyone’s blood after it’s collected, so there should be no risk. But still, they won’t accept you.”

Finally, he’s about to say something.

“What will they do if I show up?”

“They will literally turn you away. They will say, ‘I’m sorry but you cannot donate blood in the US.’”

“But not all gay men have HIV. I don’t have HIV.”

I don’t know what else to say. I can’t explain it to him, because there really is no explanation. I’ve never experienced a silence so loud before.

“Guess I’m not doing that then.”

Read Bad Blood Part I

I drove down to Office Max with my boyfriend and a large brown paper bag advertising 15% off for everything that cant fit. I generally enjoy browsing the aisles of the office supply store, but that day, I had a mission. (1) white poster board, (7) fine-tip colored permanent markers, and (1300) sparkle stickers later, I had created my very own “Goal Calendar”

My goal calendar

This is all part of my project this quarter to become more organized. As evidenced from the clutter of my desk, I am your proverbial messy roommate. Sometimes it’s quaint, and my roommates don’t mind; but sometimes it becomes a problem – like when my boyfriend dropped me off at my dorm on his way up north to a party in San Francisco so I could finish my oceans of homework. When I reached the front door, I realized the keys were inside my room – and I ended up accompanying him to the party after a 30 minute detour. (It ended up well though, because the party had the most exquisite variety of cheeses to offer.) I’m sure my roommates also aren’t too pleased whenever I call and say… can you come back to the dorm, I’m locked out. I’ve always been absent-minded, but I was never motivated enough to do something about it until my quaint traits started to interfere with and frustrate other people’s lives.

General Clutter of my desk

I first identified my goals:

1. Floss every night. I never got into this habit as a kid and my dentist tells me it shows.
2. Get enough sleep (and don’t fall asleep in class). I hate falling asleep during class, because it’s disrespectful to the teacher and also because it’s a waste of my time. I also hate plodding through my day tired.
3. Write. I enjoy writing in this blog, because it helps me to organize and express my thoughts. However, I tend to fall into spurs and lulls; sometimes writing every day, other times neglecting my writing for months at a time.
4. Don’t forget keys. A simple one, but tangible and will make a big impact.
5. Don’t be late to anything. Part of my desire to become more accountable. I grew up pretty much always running late to things. In college I learned firsthand that being late shows disrespect – I hated when others were late on me

Next, I created a method to track my progress.

The goal calendar assigns one start color to each goal and contains one cell for each day of the remainder of the quarter. Each row represents one week, starting from Sat to Fri. The rows are numbered on the left with their academic week numbers (four through six). For each day, I apply the appropriate stars if the goal was completed. By the time I reach the end of one row, I can celebrate on Saturday if all the goals were completed for the week. My boyfriend has offered my reward for completing the week as taking me out to dinner.

The goal calendar works so far, because:

• it’s right in front of my desk, so I see it everyday
• it looks so pretty I just want to make sure it gets used. (colors!)
• putting stickers on the calendar is fun
• investing the 30 minutes to make it furthers my dedication to the overall project
• the rewards are enticing

Finally, I implemented ways to help me carry out the specific goals.

I haven’t fully figured out how yet, but so far I’ve made significant progress on the “forgetting keys” goal.

1. Before we leave anywhere, either my boyfriend or I will remember to ask each about the key. Two people remembering will have a higher probability than one alone.
2. When I enter my room, I will hang my keys on a thumbtack next to the door. It helps that the lights are right there too, so if I have to turn them on then I will immediately remember to hang the keys.
3. If the keys are not there, a cleverly placed note reminds me right as I leave the room.

Unrelated to my goals, but in line with the general process of becoming organized, I created a board of weekly assignments. It’s permanent marker on white board, and lists the recurring assignments I have every week. Once I complete it, I can cross it off with dry-erase. At the end of the week, I simply erase and the assignment list remains – fresh as ever. (Don’t worry, when I need to erase the permanent marker, I can simply write over it with dry erase and wipe of the permanent marker – a useful trick I learned in teaching high school debate.)

my assignment board

I’m not sure how effective these methods will be, since I only implemented them recently, but I will provide an update a few weeks into the project. For now, I’m just looking forward to placing a blue sticker on Monday Jan 25th for the “write” goal.

(continuation of the migrant worker thread)

“Let’s take a gamble,” he whispered.

“Let me come inside of you, and if you are pregnant, we’ll marry and live the rest of our lives together.”

Any objective 3^rd party would look at this situation and warn the girl, “DON’T DO IT! ARE YOU CRAZY?!” In any case, that’s what I wish I had told myself. There’s something numbing about sexual moments that leave any trace of rationality in that fuzzy place far away. It’s there, but you can’t quite make out its outline, like an old friend from long ago. In its place tugs my guilty desire for romanticism and adventure. The thrill of a risk, and the remote chance of abandoning my ivy-grown life for the simple, rustic lifestyle in the Chinese countryside – like one of those princess-meets-peasant type fairytales. Truthfully, I almost wanted him to get me pregnant.

As soon as we finished, I fell back down to reality. Well, not quite. I went to the opposite extreme and obsessed over the paranoid possibility that I was now HIV positive. My researcher-hat thinking took the reins. He came from a low-income, low-education background, I reasoned, both factors associated with HIV infection. He had had one other partner before, and they didn’t use condoms. He’s never been tested for STD’s. I was going to die of HIV.

That was the last time I saw him, because the next day I flew back to school. I immediately made an appointment for an HIV test. The nurse was nice enough, but I was turned off by her – perhaps a little too unfairly.

“Why are you getting an HIV test today?”

“Because I had unprotected sex.” Why else…

“Was this consensual?” Her straight-faced detachment almost annoyed me.

“Yes, of course.” Why is she asking so many questions. I thought I could just get the test and leave.

“Have you thought about taking emergency contraception?”

I hadn’t even thought about the risk of pregnancy. She showed me the relative risks of HIV and pregnancy. In 20 years, she had seen nine students test positive for HIV, while pregnancy? Too frequent to even remember. Pregnancy was the much more real possibility, but somehow in the whole paranoia mess, I had completely neglected it. I just hear so much scare-talk, about how AIDS is so deadly. Everybody’s talking about it nowadays.

Later I thought about what made me so uncomfortable in the nurse’s office. She was just trying to help. I was defensive – I knew I had done something I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t really want to explore why I did. However, I didn’t really have any protection against repeating that behavior – other than vowing to “never again”. There was also the hypocriticalness of my role as a researcher on HIV, someone who should know the risks, someone ultimately hoping to promote safe practices – and here I was encouraging others to do something I couldn’t even do.

I am now an HIV counselor in my school, providing students with counseling and testing. I don’t tell them what to do. I try to understand and reframe their behavioral motivations. Sometimes, prescriptions can only go so far.

Written as an empathy building exercise for my class on HIV.