project for awesome: donate your body!

Project for Awesome? Say what?

I guess I haven't really found "my" charity yet. I know what I want to do, which is volunteer for the Peace Corps at some point in my life, but it's difficult to pick one thing to dedicate all this time and money to. The world has so many things wrong with it, how can you choose just one? Should you spend more time curing diseases or fixing the environment? Which genocide should you try to stop first?

I suppose the charity that I'm really feeling the love for right now isn't actually a charity but an action, a movement, a something-something. Regardless, it's organ donation! Specifically, the donation of organs after a person dies (you can donate a liver or something while you're alive, but that's a bit different, I think).

Organ donation always seems to sound a little on the illegal side, although I don't think that there's a big underground body-part-selling movement going on in the black market. However, in real life, (legal) organ donation is not unsanitary or twisted or anything crazy like that; in fact, it is extremely generous and EXTREMELY awesome, because it's life saving!

Death is almost always sad. No matter how a person dies, it's hard on their families and friends, or perhaps - if applicable - the person who was responsible for their death, especially if it was an accident. With organ donation, however, the death of one person can lead to the life of another. I'm not trying to minimize the sadness associated with death and I certainly don't want people going around committing suicide so they're eligible for organ donation, but if you decide to be an organ donor, you could give after you're gone, so to speak.

Basically, organ donation is when certain organs or tissues are taken from a dead body and transplanted into the body of another person who has a health problem with that organ. Organ donation can give somebody another ten or twenty years to live. In some cases, it can even restore sight. When you donate organs, your body isn't mutilated or mishandled; the surgeons take special care to make sure that the body is restored so that the person can have an open-casket funeral if they so wish. Currently, the waiting list of people who need an organ in America is huge, and there simply aren't enough organs to go around.

Tonight, I'm signing up to be an organ donor in the event of my death. I don't plan on dying anytime soon, but unfortunately, things happen, and if for some reason that thing happened to me, I'd like to be able to help somebody.

(Also, I don't want an open casket at my funeral, no matter how old I am. Once I'm dead, I'd like to stay dead and not be propped up in front of a crapload of people who are probably all feeling pretty sad/frustrated/distraught and don't need nausea added to the list. Or maybe that's just me. I have an issue with corpses. Just let me biodegrade or something.)

I'm not clear on the process of organ donation in Canada, but it's pretty similar throughout the United States. This website - http://www.donatelifemaryland.org/ - has tons of information on organ donation and the information is almost exactly the same from state to state. If you decide you want to sign up, I'd recommend finding your own area, but that website is an excellent place to start.

Just think - it doesn't cost you anything, but it could potentially save a life. :)

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I somehow managed to accumulate about eight hours of homework last night. This seems ridiculous to me as well, but I started at 3:30 pm and finished at 1:15 am (minus two-ish hours, which were lost to dinner/procrastination/the return of my sister/various other distractions/procrastination) so I suppose it's accurate. I had about six hours worth of homework from my seven classess, and then I worked on the rough draft of my MYP Personal Project Report, which was due today, for two hours. As it stands right now, it's roughly seven hand-written pages of almost complete BS. As far as I'm concerned, it's terribly written, but at least it was completed on time! It's a relief to have it started, though, and the final draft plus my actual project are not due until January 15, so I'm not killing myself over it quite yet.

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Depending on who you talk to, we're supposed to get anywhere from six to twenty inches of snowy goodness this weekend. I'm excited! We haven't had a white Christmas in quite some time and I think all of us - students and staff - could use an extra three (snow) days of winter break.

Q: What is your charity of choice?