Things I wish I believed were true

I am not fat. I have fat.

Watch the full talk here » Piya Sorcar, founder and CEO of TeachAIDS, teaches about HIV/AIDS in parts of the world where even local educators get the basic facts wrong — countries where the need for HIV education is vital. Sorcar discovered that the materials themselves were the biggest problem, and she revamped them to pair accurate information with culturally acceptable images. Her results were truly impressive. Watch here »

"It is important to maintain your equanimity. You cannot let yourself get too ‘up’ or too ‘down’ based on your circumstances." “Too ‘down’ I understand. But why not too ‘up?’” “Because the higher your mountains are, the deeper your valleys will seem. You should not react to the world. You should respond, but not react. A response is an action based on logic. A reaction is an emotional state. Your reaction will not change the world. Your reaction only changes you. Your response will change the world.”

—From Chimamamda Ngozi Adiche’s TEDxEuston talk, “We should all be feminists.” Watch her entire talk below:

Cool jacket + bookmark idea!

From Amy Purdy’s TEDxOrangeCoast talk, "Living beyond limits.” Amy is a professional snowboarder who lost her legs at age 19 due to bacterial meningitis. In her TEDx talk, she describes how she dealt with this loss, and encourages us to take control of our lives — and our limits. Watch Amy’s entire talk below, and learn more about Amy and her non-profit Adaptive Action Sports, dedicated to introducing people with physical challenges to action sports at her website.

Tiredness is an understatement. One more day before my 21 day work stint is over. Bring it on!!! ~Kay

When I was 4 years old I realized that I was different: [I felt like a boy, but everyone] perceived me as a girl. I was born female. Biological female. I learned that I would never grow a penis and for that I could never change into a boy. This was one of the bitterest insights I had in my life… [Yet] I had a happy childhood. I loved to play outside and my parents were very open-minded … I had a carefree life and the little difference between my legs didn’t really matter. But then, my puberty starts and everything started to change. My body changed [in] a direction I never wanted and I felt very alone and misunderstood. They brought me to psychiatrists, but they didn’t find out what really was going on in my head. I fought an inner, silent battle with my soul and my body… [Eventually] I asked myself, ‘Am I really happy? Is this my life?’ No, it was not my life and I was not happy at all. I made my biggest decision in my life. I took heart and started to write letters to my friends, to my patients, and even to my colleagues, and I explained that I wanted to live as a man — not only inside, but also outside…I started hormonal therapy and my body responded very well and very fast to this treatment. After a few months I could look into the mirror and I saw my soul in my face… Could you imagine, in this world, that people get killed because of that? Because they want to be true to themselves? It is a crime that every year hundreds of transsexual men and women have to die because they took heart to live in another gender role than the one they were assigned to at birth. Only because they look different and do not fit into the gender binary or do not fit into the categories… I think we have to break down the taboo of transsexualism…I think we have to become visible to gain acceptance, and with acceptance we will earn understanding. And, so, I believe we can make the world a better place for all of us… Being transsexual or transgender is not a matter of pathology, it is a matter of diversity…I found out with my visible masculinity, it is not necessary anymore to find if I’m more female or male. I finally can say, I feel as myself. I stand here in front of you because I want to encourage everybody to become true to his or her life — and to accept the truth of everybody’s life.

From Dr. Niklaus Fluetsch’s talk, “My true gender identity,” given at TEDxZug. Born biologically female, Niklaus took a leap of faith in 2007 — after years of struggle — and now lives openly as a man. For more on his story, watch his entire talk here. (via tedx)

No means no.

who taught you that the value of a woman is the ratio of her waist to her hips and the circumference of her buttocks and the volume of her lips? Your math is dangerously wrong her value is nothing less than infinite.

‘Greater than’ by Della Hicks-Wilson   (via jazzylittledrops)

May be needing a few of these over the next few weeks.

Working 2 jobs in two locations about an hour apart from eachother.

Give me strength!!

~Kay

Long Distance

Just realised that I'm not going to see him for more than a few hours over the next three weeks. That kinda sucks. Just gotta suck it up I guess. I'm also not going to see M or C. That also kinda sucks. I thought I had done with all this not seeing people?! Gah!

The World Oyster complex

The problem is... I want to do everything. EVERYTHING. I want to travel. Teach. Teach and travel Study an MA. Study a research Phd Read every book ever. Live in London. Live abroad. Live in a cottage. Build my own house. Have a family. Get married. Set up my own theatre company. Act. Direct. Learn a few languages. However I know that things change so quickly. Circumstance. Finances. God the finances! Will I ever get to do it all?! I hope so! Exciting.

I want to go here!!

Searching for an image for our show titled “Reading the Rocks" and came across this awesome photo of the Prince of Wales Hotel, nested in the Canadian Rockies in Waterton National Park in Alberta. Must visit!

~Trent Gilliss, senior editor

At TEDxBrum, a poet who writes love letters to strangers

At the age of 23, TEDxBrum speaker Jodi Ann Bickley was performing her poetry in venues all over England. But after a performance at a music festival, she contracted mengo-encephalitis, a brain infection that led to a mini-stroke, and things changed. Left with daily chronic headaches, exhaustion, and dizziness, and without the ability to write or walk, Jodi had to teach herself how to live after illness. She re-learned to walk, and write, but many things remained a challenge.

At TEDxBrum, she told her story of starting over.

From her talk:

The bit about long-term illness that is not explained to you in the discharge lounge is the sense of loss you feel for your life before. Certain friends disappeared. Simple things like answering the phone, checkout noises at the supermarket, you know the beep, beep, beep, it leaves me close to passing out. Some days I’d spend trawling Facebook and Twitter, seeing what my were up to and beating myself up because I wasn’t doing the same.

…[One night a small distraction] made me realize I could either sit here and let this consume and potentially kill me, or I have to do something a little bit magical.

So, what could I do? All I have is me and a lot of time and my love of writing. I’d always left little notes around for people, whether it’d be on my mum’s fridge or on the back of bus tickets left on seats for the next people to find.

What about if all these notes found the people they needed to? What if they weren’t notes? What if they were letters? Within half an hour, I’d set up onemillionlovelyletters.com. The aim is that if I can actually talk one person down from the curb, then that’s a success. The way I’d do it? Through letters.

…So I sent a call out to every person on the planet other than me: If you or someone you know needs reminded how amazing they are, I’ll send you a letter.

Within one hour of the website going online, I had 50 emails from all over the world. I was opening emails to stories ranging from 14-year-old girls who had just started to self-harm due to bullying to the elderly women who had just lost their husbands after 40 years. Stories of abuse, loneliness, grief, self-doubt, exam stress, depression, long-term illness, lost souls, heartbreak, and people who just needed to be reminded that they matter…

What onemillionlovelyletters has shown me is how similar and strong we all are … I haven’t been divorced, or abused, or experienced many of the problems people have written to me about. But I have [experienced] that moment when it feels like the world is starting to crumble. And I have learned that, sometimes, all you need to be reminded of is that you are loved and that you are not alone.

Through onemillionlovelyletters, Jodi has sent over 700 letters with still 600 waiting to be written as of June, and the project is still going strong. Above, Jodi’s letter to everyone watching her talk. Below, Jodi’s entire talk:

"We need to consume less. A lot less. Less food, less energy, less stuff… And yet, every decade, global consumption continues to increase relentlessly." ~ Stephen Emmott, Ten Billion

Book is on Amazon.