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Day 417
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. – Sir Winston Churchill
It’s 7: 09 PM on day 417 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, publish my Disability of the Day feature, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – feed myself baked beans on toast for breakfast, listen to music, go to physiotherapy–my physiotherapist was not impressed at all my lets were so stiff because I only exercised 3/14 days– watch TV, feed myself yoghurt for dinner and brush my teeth once more.
For the past few weeks I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of ways to keep this blog going while I’m in India with my family and yesterday when I met Jenelle Ramsami – a South Africa model who just happens to have a hearing impairment (see her picture and more about her below)– through Ramon Thomas via Twitter I knew that she would be the perfect person – inspiring, determined, confident – to write on this blog – I will be creating a ‘Guest Posts’ page just for her so that there is no confusion as to who is writing – while I was away so today I asked her if she would and she said yes the reason I’m SO excited that she agreed to do it is because she takes the dis right out of disabled by doing everything she does which is what I aim to do every day of my life. Do you see the opportunity in every difficulty or the difficulty in every opportunity?
Determined, intelligent and confident – these are all attributes that make Durban’s Jenelle who is an inspiration to those around her. Despite the fact that Jenelle was diagnosed with hearing loss at the age of 12, this has not stopped her from successfully becoming one of South Africa’s most inspiring up and coming models. In the last two years she has been a finalist in the Miss Deaf South Africa pageant, was awarded the ‘Fresh Look’ title at Miss India South Africa KZN 2010 contest, and recently made the Top 5 and ‘Miss photogenic’ for the Xtreme Models Search competition in February 2011. “I have always believed that modelling is a stepping stone to something greater for me. I want to motivate those who are both ably hearing and hearing impaired,” explains Jenelle. Achieving her goals is definitely not a foreign concept to this budding model. She was the first hearing impaired person in her school to pass her Matric with a merit and distinctions, thus enabling her to attend a mainstream college where she passed a national diploma in Business Management. It was this need to inspire and to show people that being hearing impaired is merely an obstacle that led Jenelle to becoming LifeSound’s newest ambassador & ambassador for House Of Tai Tei Lija (cosmestic)
Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360
If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu
Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.
Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!
Day 416
Common sense is just not common enough anymore – that’s what I learned today 😦
It’s 7: 17 PM on day 416 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, publish my Disability of the Day feature, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – Michael (@USMMariner) made a donation – what I love about Michael is that he didn’t even know me yet he offered to make a donation and kept his word after he came across my story through a mutual Twitter friend – thank you SO MUCH Michael YOU ARE AWESOME 🙂 – feed myself scrambled eggs, sausages, tomato and toast for lunch, exercise for a couple of minutes, watch TV, feed myself rice and curry for dinner and brush my teeth once more.
As you may or may not know the COP17/CMP7 United Nations Climate Change Conference 2011 will be taking place in Durban, South Africa 28 November-9 December and although I think it’s great for the country I can’t help but marvel at the irony of the whole situation – world leaders are coming here to discuss among other things how we can as a collective reduce our carbon footprint while they themselves will be leaving a giant carbon footprint just by attending the conference (if I were a world leader I would ask my counterparts if we could stay in our respective countries and conference via Skype) – having said that I support the intention of this conference and have compiled a list of things we can all do to live a little greener starting from today. Take a look:
Going Green without Going Extreme: 5 Easy Ways You Can Make a Difference in the Environment
1. B.Y.O. Bag
Bring your own cloth or fabric bags when you shop!
If you grocery shop once a week, in five years you’ll have kept about 250 to 1,000 grocery bags out of our landfills. When one ton of plastic bags is reused or recycled, the energy equivalent of 11 barrels of oil is saved! By bringing your own bag to the grocery store, you can save thousands of plastic bags from ending up in landfills, or even worse in ecosystems where they can harm living creatures.
2. B.Y.O. Flatware for a Green Workplace
Plastic silverware might be convenient, but consider this: an office of 100 people can contribute nearly 250 pounds of plastic waste to our landfills each year. Reduce meal-time refuge by bringing your own lunch utensils—and encourage your office to replace plastic forks with their biodegradable counterparts.
Modernize your life by taking control of your stuff. Monitoring the mail you receive is a great way to cut down your clutter. You’ll have less to dispose of, you’ll feel less overwhelmed, and you’ll take a step towards helping to save our environment.
4. Don’t pollute – Telecommute
Here are just a few ways you can help our environment(and yourself!) by telecommuting:
Working from home lowers gas consumption, which preserves natural resources, reduces polluting emissions such as carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons, and lessens polluting road ‘run off.’ (And think of the money and stress that’s saved!)
Cool the globe! Less commuter-related car emissions can help reduce global warming. Carbon dioxide is the major contributor of global warming.
See more clearly: Nitrogen oxides produced by excessive car emissions combine with volatile organic compounds and sunlight to produce ground-level ozone (otherwise known as smog).
Help preserve our food sources – ozone and nitrous oxides contribute to an estimated annual crop yield loss of two to four billion dollars.
Less commuting can equal more green, open spaces. Fewer cars could reduce the demand for new or wider roads, which use up land and natural resources.
Enjoy the silence. Less traffic means less noise pollution.
Become an ‘e-commuter.’ Working from home encourages use of electronic communications like email, intranet sites, and phone – significantly reducing paper use and waste.
Live on a mountain top! If you telecommute full-time, your home base is almost irrelevant – you can live where you decide your quality of life will be highest…and in the long run, this may also help reduce urban sprawl.
Write or research for a living? You’re an ideal telecommuter candidate! Talk to your employer about a flexible schedule that will allow part- or full-time telecommuting.
5. Eat Local
Buy fruits and vegetables from your local farmers market to ensure that only a minimal amount of carbon dioxide is imitated into the atmosphere during its transportation.
(Note: Tips 1-4 are courtesy of earthshare.org)
Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360
If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu
Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.
Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!
Day 415
As you grow older your theories change – that’s what I learned today 🙂
It’s 7: 13 PM on day 415 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck other than the donation Chrissy (@ChrissyPappas) made yesterday – thanks again Chrissy :)–publish my Disability of the Day feature, feed myself All-Bran Flakes with banana for brunch, tweet about my campaign some more–still no luck – watch TV, feed myself a baked bean sandwich and grilled chicken for dinner and brush my teeth once more.
Today I read a tweet to me from Amber-Lee (@girlygrizzly) which said I’m SOOOOO sick, but doin! How are YOU doing? Are we getting closer? Are you happy? I’ve been loving your site lately… and I asked myself am I happy to which the answer was yes because four of the following components two of which – gratitude and giving – were components in my original happiness formula come together six out of seven days:
1. Being present: I never think I wonder what my life would been like if I could walk because it’s pointless it won’t serve me in any way although that doesn’t stop my mother from saying things like if my daughter could walk she could have done so many things in front of me when no one else is around.
2. Having faith: I don’t know the Bible off by heart and I am not perfect but over the last couple of years I have learned not to question God after all He has done more with my life than I could have think about it I can’t even go to the bathroom by myself and yet I wake up every day and try to change the world if that’s not God working through me I don’t know what is.
3. Gratitude: In today world where it’s all about accumulation of money and material objects I have found that it’s not how much we have that matters but rather how much we are grateful for my dad is the perfect example of this he has his family, a job, a house, a car, basically everything you would need to live a great life but since all he can see is what he doesn’t have he might as well not have even the things he has.
4. Giving: Once you see all that you have by being grateful you will naturally want others to have as much or more than you do so you will give and when you do give you will realize that that hole in your heart you’ve been trying to fill with things could only be filled by the joy of giving.
Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360
If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu
Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.
Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!
Day 414
When you take the words I can’t out of your vocabulary nothing’s impossible – that’s what I learned today 🙂
It’s 7: 28 PM on day 414 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself All-Bran Flakes with banana for breakfast, publish my Disability of the Day feature, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – feed myself yoghurt for lunch, watch TV, tweet about my campaign some more– I finally got around to making a donation with the money my mom owed me for typing for her so I’m 87% to my goal I’m so happy 🙂
Yesterday I was watching an episode of 3 Talk, a popular talk show in South Africa, where they were discussing diabetics and the consequences of it suffice to say I was scared (excuse my language) shitless because although I tested myself a few months ago and everything come out fine – my sugar level was 5 (anything between 4 and 7 is healthy) – I still had two of the three risk factors someone needed to have to get diabetics – I was not physically active and I had a positive family history meaning people in my family had diabetics – so I decided to dance lying down (I probably looked so stupid doing it but hey at least I broke a sweat nobody ever said you had to be standing up to exercise) why am I telling you this you may ask to show that if a person who has Cerebral Palsy can dance you can do ANYTHING. Do you use the words I can’t as a synonym for I don’t want to?
Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360
If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu
Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.
Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!
Day 413
Your platform, if you do nothing with it, is useless – that’s what I learned today 😦
It’s 7: 13 PM on day 413 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – feed myself Idli – a south Indian savory cake popular throughout India – and Sambar – a dish common in South India and Sri Lankan Tamil cuisines, made of toor dal – for breakfast, listen to music, watch TV, listen to more music – I LOVE Galaxies by Owl City (see lyric video below) – feed myself a tomato and pepper salad for lunch, watch some more TV, feed myself bread, baked beans and grilled chicken for dinner and brush my teeth once more.
Yesterday I posted i only need $1 078.46 more 2 build a well in India/Africa. Will you help me? http://bit.ly/hC7vOu #Water #HumanRights on somebody’s – I won’t mention whose – Facebook wall and he sent me a message saying Nisha, Please do not post requests for money on my Wall. That is not its purpose. can somebody please tell me what’s the point of having 1 000 Twitter followers or 500 Facebook friends if you’re not going to use it to help people I suppose that’s the problem with people these days no one will help anyone even if it’s at no cost to them. Are you using your platform, whatever it is, to make this world a better place before you kick the bucket?
Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360
If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu
Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.
Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!
Day 412
You shouldn’t go somewhere where somebody doesn’t want to take you– that’s what I learned today 😦
It’s 7: 06 PM on day 412 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself Idli – a south Indian savory cake popular throughout India – and Sambar – a dish common in South India and Sri Lankan Tamil cuisines, made of toor dal – for breakfast, publish my Kid of the Week feature, prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – go to the party –it was the funniest thing this woman came up to me and said I saw your website (my fundraising page) and even now, a couple of hours later, I don’t know what she wanted me to say to that seeing as she saw it and did nothing to help I suppose that’s how most people are these days all talk and no action – tweet about my campaign some more–still no luck– feed myself spaghetti with sauce for dinner –when I done I had spaghetti all over myself oh well 🙂 –and brush my teeth once more.
This afternoon just before we were about to leave for the party my dad said why don’t you guys just go – he knew my mother would never be able to load me on and off the car – and I found myself saying please come please come please come in that moment I felt like something he stepped on and promised myself that I would never again go anywhere with him unless it was absolutely necessary and that I guess is my message to you guys when people treat you with less than the respect you deserve just decided that they will never have the opportunity to treat you in that manner ever again. Have you ever sacrificed your pride and gone somewhere somebody didn’t want to take you only to wish you hadn’t?
Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360
If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu
Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.
Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!
Day 411
Some people don’t deserve to have kids – that’s what I learned today 😦
It’s 6: 49 PM on day 411 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth,tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign –no luck – feed myself scrambled eggs, sausages and fried tomatoes for breakfast, prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, prepare my Kid of the Week feature for Sunday – I really like this week’s Kid of the Week she is proof that you only need a huge heart to make a difference :)– and finish reading Captive of my Desires by Johanna Lindsey – It’s a good book I would recommend it to anyone who likes romance novels 🙂
As you know my father and I don’t have the best relationship but today after I saw him, not for the first time, raise his hand to my mother over something as small as asking him to pay somebody money so that we could go to a community member’s farewell party tomorrow–everybody who is going to the party is expected to contribute a certain amount which will go towards buying a farewell gift for the family that is leaving – I thought to myself what kind of a man would raise his hand to his wife in front of their child and lost all respect for him as a human being which is not to say my mother was a complete innocent in all this after my father stepped out of the house my mother started having a candid conversation with my eleven-year-old brother about how horrible she thought our father was which I promptly put a stop to because although I didn’t respect my father I believed that my brother deserved a chance to make up his own mind about him without my mother’s influence. Are you behaving in a manner that is consistent with being a parent?
Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360
If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu
Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.
Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!
Day 410
You can complain about your life and still be grateful– that’s what I learned today 🙂
It’s 7: 28 PM on day 410 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself spring rolls for breakfast, prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, feed myself raw mixed vegetables for lunch, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – continue reading Captive of my Desires by Johanna Lindsey feed myself spaghetti with sauce – I used a fork and made a mess oh well 🙂 – for dinner and brush my teeth once more.
Last night as I struggled to turn myself over so I could get a decent night’s sleep I realized that I would have to work twice as hard to live half the normal life and that made me burst into tears which normally I would have felt guilty about because I would think to myself what do I have to complain about there are kids right now dying of cancer but yesterday I just thought I am grateful but this is so unfair muffled my tears with a pillow – if my family heard me all they would think to say is we’re sorry and frankly at that precise moment I didn’t need that because they don’t get it they’re only affected by my “disability” when they’re with me other times they can go places with stairs and do things without a second thought whereas I on the other hand don’t have the luxury of taking a break from my life I have twice as hard as everybody else does every minute of my life – and went to sleep. Do you put on a brave face and solider on because you fear being labeled an ingrate?
Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360
If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu
Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.
Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!
Adventures of me 