summer goal: organ and blood donation

Anything healthcare related always has me interested and the donation of various useful things has me particularly interested due to the ethical debate surrounding some of it. Now, personally, I'm all for donation if one is willing. I, myself, signed up for organ donation when I was 14 (seven years ago) and I duly informed my parents (even though I'm still young) that if anything unfortunate were to happen, I want as much of me donated as possible.

Now, with organ donation comes the debate about the ethics of it. However, this post isn't about opening that debate - it's about one of my summer goals. My summer goal is to donate blood and donate bone marrow.

Donating blood, for me, is something that doesn't cost much bar an hour or two and being of an ethic minority in the United Kingdom, any blood I donate may come in useful too (not that I'm saying other blood isn't useful - all blood is useful!) as I remember reading somewhere that certain blood types from some races weren't in as abundant a supply as others. (Correct me if I'm wrong, however!) Another, more personal, reason for me in doing this is the fact that before I was born, my mum had to be given blood due to a ruptured ulcer - and if it wasn't for whoever had donated blood so that her life was saved, I wouldn't even be here! I'm a firm believer in what comes around, goes around; so in essence, donating my blood will not only work out well for someone else who needs it; but will also give myself some positive energy :)

Next, the donation of bone marrow. A few months ago, someone came into the biochemistry computer room on campus while I was working and stood at the front asking people to go down to the health centre (or somewhere) to donate bone marrow if they had the time (or maybe to find out about it? I'm not entirely sure) and since then, my interest in bone marrow donation has risen. One of my friends' then decided to tell me that it was a very painful procedure, etc, etc. but upon further research, I realised that a little pain for me could end up being a massive gain for someone else who really needs it.

After all, we all live on one world where there is one race - the human race - and if we can't help each other, who can we help?

Do any of you set summer goals too? Do let me know as I have three months off this summer (with only one month of productiveness so far) so any suggestions would also be appreciated!

link exchange!

This is for any blogs who want to exchange links with me :)

Just leave a comment below and I'll link you back after exams are done for me (a few days time, yippeeee). I'll also be adding a 'links' page to the blog or something along along the lines of that so stay tuned! I have so many plans for the blog this summer... including my own domain!

new blog URL and name

So, for the past few weeks, I've been thinking of a new name for the blog and it was only a few days ago that I managed to think of one. 'Paper Lovestory'. I think this name is better than 'Paper Rush' as for me, I'm a romantic at heart (I'll make no bones about that) and I soften at a romantic story.  In my head, I have my future personal love all planned out (filled to the nines with Price Charming, long flowing hair, a wedding in the winter complete with snow, a romantic proposal) but I know that dreams rarely become reality! Still, I can dream - hence the 'love story' part of the blog name.

I've kept the word 'paper' as I feel that also fits in well with my interests. I'm a geek by nature and if I try and cover that up; I'll only be lying to you all (and I love my readers!) and also myself. Anyway, I'd better end this post before it gets too long.

One last thing: expect a new site header once exams finish for me! (28th of June at 5pm, I'm counting down the minutes, never mind hours! And then...roll on third year!)

summer goal

With less than a month to go before my last exam, I'm eagerly planning summer in the hope of making myself find the motivation to study hard for these exams. (Trust me, it's distracting - Hyde Park within a short stroll, the summer sun, Knightsbridge nearby too, High Street Kensington also nearby... I'm spoilt for choice for a place to hangout with my friends.)

Anyway, one of these goals is to get back into making 'graphics' or I prefer to call them 'graphic collages' as that's essentially what I do.

This is one I made last summer:

And I was quite proud of it as I think it was the second one I made after three years away from making any! I started using Photoshop when I was 14, so I've been using it for a grand total of just over 6 years now.

If you're interested, feel free to give me Deviant Art Gallery a browse - but I will be having a clean up of my portfolio in a few weeks time as I feel a lot of the work on there doesn't reflect my current style!

Have you got a creative side to you? It could be scrapbooking (which I love! Wish I could do it!), photography, painting, sketching... you name it. If you have Deviantart, please feel free to link me to yours as I find other creative people really quite inspiring!