Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Blogathon 2009 - Support my blog, support RAINN, 24 hours of joyful blogging coping Comic Con!

This Saturday I will be participating in Blogathon 2009, which means I will be posting on my blog every half-hour for 24 hours, from 6 am (Pacific Standard Time) Saturday, July 25 to 6 am Sunday, July 26. Blogathon is to raise money for charity. The non-profit I chose is RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network). RAINN is the nation's largest anti-sexual assault organization, provides hotlines and other support to survivors, and publicizes the cause. I think what they are doing is incredibly important considering how widespread sexual abuse and rape is, yet there is still a lot of shame and misunderstanding around it in part because it's so hard to talk about and survivors are humiliated into silence. This is one of the main reasons I started blogging about it myself, and organizations like RAINN associate real faces and voices to the damage sexual abuse and rape causes. This helps victims and is hugely essential to our entire society. Fellow survivors! You make the world a better place just by living your life and being your strong, inspiring self. All my love to you.

If you're interested in sponsoring my blog, please go here to sign up for an account (it's easy!), and pledge an amount. You will not have to pay at this time. After the blogathon, you will receive further instructions on donating your pledged amount to RAINN. To see a list of ALL the blogs and charities participating, go here. There is no minimum amount to donate, so if everyone donated just $5 we'd have a HUGE contribution! You can also donate anonymously.

I will be at Comic Con in San Diego this Saturday so we will have a fun adventure with remote blogging. On the half-hour I will give an update on Comic Con, post a picture, make some witty observations, that sort of thing. This is actually very timely because I have a writing assignment from The Courage to Heal to write about coping strategies I've used. So for the hourly updates, I made a list of coping strategies from the book and others I've used at some point in my life. On the hour I will blog about one of them. I even have a schedule (because I'm organized like that):

6 am - Disassociation
7 am - Lack of integration
8 am - Reading
9 am - Role playing
10 am - Black and white thinking
11 am - Pack rat
12 noon- Safety obsession
1 pm - Grade grubbing
2 pm - Minimizing
3 pm - Disappearing
4 pm - Stealing
5 pm - Suicidal
6 pm - Cutting
7 pm - Horror movies
8 pm - Drugs and alcohol
9 pm - Eating difficulties
10 pm - Sex
11 pm - Punk rock
12 midnight-Tattoos
1 am - Writing
2 am - Chaos
3 am - "Saving" people
4 am - Support groups
5 am - Hockey
6 am - Humor

Here are the Comic Con events I'm planning to go to:

11 am-12 noon Lost with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (I would be going to Women in Manga if it wasn't at the exact same time. Curses!)
1-1:45 pm Futurama: Life or Death?! Supposedly they will decide during this panel if the show is returning or not.
1:45-2:30 pm The Simpsons- Matt Groening will be at this and Futurama! What I'll be missing: the comic book artist Charles Vess from 1:30-2:30.
2:45-3:45 pm V Pilot Screening and Q&A (At the same time, so I'll miss- previews for the new movies Zombieland and 2012, and 3:30-4:30 Entertainment Weekly's Totally Lost, and Ray Bradbury)
4-5 pm Fringe screening and Q&A
5:15-6:15 pm True Blood panel and Q&A (Missing Adventures in Voice Acting workshop with Michele Rodriguez from 5-6. Sounds intriguing.)
7:15-8:15 pm Myth Busters (missing Comic Books and Social Commentary from 6:30-7:30)
8:30 pm-12:15 am Watchmen: Director's cut, plus sneak peek of Batman: Arkham Asylum with Mark Hamill (missing Torchwood/Doctor Who screenings from 7:30-10 pm)

Wow, that's kind of daunting but I'm going to do it! Even if you can't contribute financially, please visit my blog on Saturday, and leave comments. I don't know if I've ever said it, but I LOVE comments.

Thanks for your support! I really appreciate everyone who reads my blog. Knowing that there are people out there paying attention to what I have to say really helps me keep writing and trying to grow. So thank you.

Here are the relevant links again:

To sign-up to sponsor my blog- http://www.blogathon.org/pledge.php?blogid=246
To see all the participating blogs and charities- http://www.blogathon.org/list.php?sort=charalph
To learn more about Blogathon!- http://www.blogathon.org/
To find out more about RAINN- http://rainn.org/

2 comments:

opal said...

FYI...I just signed up to sponsor your blog and RAINN...am looking forward to reading your posts during the blogathon.

Tealrat said...

Thank you! Yay! I am excited. :)