Help Me Reach My Fundraising Goal!

Greetings!


You can help contribute to the mission of FACE AIDS and the Ride Against AIDS 2012 by:

1) Donating to the Ride on my behalf to help me reach my personal fundraising goal of $5,000. You can donate either on-line or by writing a check to FACE AIDS.

• To donate on-line, visit my Citizen Effect page to donate on a secure website that helps me track my donations and gives information about me, FACE AIDS, and the Ride.

• Checks should be made out to "FACE AIDS" with my full name ("Nina Sobotka") in the Memo line. This ensures that your generosity counts towards my fundraising quota. Checks should be mailed to:

FACE AIDS

P.O. Box 46

Palo Alto, CA 94302

2) Telling everyone you know about the Ride and my fundraising efforts! Encourage others to donate. Feel free to post, call, text, tweet, and/or e-mail your friends and family about the Ride. Pass along this blog address and the Ride website (www.faceaids.org/rideagainstaids.html) to spread the word.

3) Educating yourself and others about HIV/AIDS and the work of FACE AIDS. There's a wealth of information about the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the work of FACE AIDS and its partner agencies in every medium imaginable. If you want to read a book, see my post "Recommended Reading." If you want to do some reading on-line, FACE AIDS and Partners In Health  have great educational resources and are wonderful starting points.

Thank you so much for your support!

Cheers,

Nina

Ambassador Leader

Greetings!

This has been an exciting week thus far, and it started in an inspiring manner. Monday evening I had the privilege and honor of being able to interact with Ambassador Joyce Leader. Ambassador Leader came to speak and share a meal with a student group that I'm involved in called Carnegie Global Oregon (http://oregoncarnegienetwork.uoregon.edu/category/global-oregon-learning-community/). She inspired me because of her eloquence and poise--a very good female figure to look up to. Her career path is especially relevant to the Ride Against AIDS because she worked in the State Department for decades and was in Rwanda just prior to, and during the first 48 hours of, the genocide that was committed in the country. All the money raised by the Ride will go directly to FACE AIDS grassroots programs in Rwanda. Through conversation about an incredibly complex topic and dialogue over the dynamics of the nuanced conflict, I came closer to grasping a part of Rwanda's history that is recent enough to still impact the individuals FACE AIDS works hard to support every day. I now feel more connected to the people I have claimed to empathize when telling people about the Ride.

Here's a great photo, taken by a friend, of Ambassador Leader and I along with another member of the CGO:

Monday was a beautiful reminder that in every human conflict or strife, there are humans involved. Their narratives and stories matter, and so do their histories. Suffering is real, but so is hope--and FACE AIDS is providing that hope to youth in Rwanda and their communities.

I am renewing my commitment to use my energy and skills to honor those who I can help to empower.

Cheers,
Nina

Daily Emerald Article!

Hello!

I am incredibly lucky and grateful to have had an article published about my involvement with the Ride Against AIDS in the Daily Emerald, University of Oregon's campus newspaper. This is really exciting for me because it will help to generate a lot of publicity about my fundraising efforts. Please read it! Both the writer and photographer who I interacted with did a wonderful job.

http://dailyemerald.com/2012/04/17/student-to-ride-across-america-for-hivaids-awareness-and-support/

In other news, I had my second bike maintenance class today and it was AWESOME! I learned how to do hub overhaul and bearings replacement--scary at first, but then I felt SO empowered after the class had ended and I had completed the entire process!

I love my bike, and am getting more excited for this summer, every day.

Cheers, and thank you!

Nina

Photo!

Sorry I haven't been giving as many updates as lately. I went for a GORGEOUS 50-mile ride with a friend this morning through beautiful, Oregon countryside. I am both exhausted and empowered by the fact that I was on my bike for four hours--both through flats and up hills. Today's ride made me feel lucky to be living in such a beautiful part of the world with so many natural resources, particularly water. Even though it rains a lot where I live, if it weren't for the rain I wouldn't have enjoyed so many vistas of rolling green hills, horses, and goats!

Here's a photo of Jim, Stu and I at the country store in Crow last weekend. (Bob took the picture!)

Cheers!

Nina

Country Store Corn Chips

Hello!

I went on an exhilarating 40-ish-mile adventure today. I rode out to Lorane Highway in west Eugene and met three new friends and riding partners! My friend's grandfather, Jim, lives in Eugene, and I met him and his friends Stu and Bob today! Our route was sunny, had a good mix of hills and flats, and was filled with country roads. We experienced a multitude of wonderful and not-so-wonderful things: way too much road gravel, potholes, collies and schnauzers chasing us, sweeping vistas of green grassy farm hills with mountains in the distance, joking about needing to slow down while climbing up a hill when we passed a "25 mph speed limit" sign, going 35 MILES PER HOUR down a different hill (made the brutal climb so worth it), stopping at a country store in Crow (a small community about 15 miles out of Eugene), chatting about HIV/AIDS in Rwanda and South Africa over a pile of Fritos corn chips, and bugs in our mouths. Ok, maybe that last bit about the bug was unique to me, but it was gross and I learned my lesson: don't ever, EVER open your mouth while biking fast. Even if you can't breathe otherwise. Just don't do it.

Jim, Stu, and Bob were inspiring company, great conversationalists, and generous new friends--for I got lost on the way to our meeting spot and was 40 minutes late. There was a stressful element to today because I had to ask four groups of people for directions because Google Maps led me astray (getting a hardcopy, ACCURATE map of Eugene and surrounding areas is now on the top of my to-do list). A big thanks to the family who kindly informed me that I needed to be on West 29th, and not East 29th Ave. A big thanks as well to my new friends for supporting me as I train. We plan on going on more rides together, and I will post pictures when I finally remember to get a handlebar bag so I can start bringing my camera on our rides!

Many cheers to new experiences,

Nina

Springfield Anecdotes

Greetings!

The last few days have been awesome because I've gotten to ride my new bike several times. I rode twice, about a total of 25 miles, on Thursday. On Friday I rode about twenty miles. All my previous rides have been with a partner, but today I rode solo at least 25 miles and it felt great! Above all, I have not fallen even once yet since I started using my clipless pedals. Today, though, there were some stumbles and rather frightening moments when I was climbing a hill and didn't have enough momentum and was so weak that I didn't have enough energy to get out of the clips in time before I stopped my bike. But I ended up not falling, so I count that as a victory! Today I went past Eugene into Springfield, through Springfield, and beyond into some very hilly, steep neighborhood roads. Notable moments from today included (not in chronological order):

-Wanting to throw up (but not) and almost falling over by the time I reached the top of a hill, and then suppressing a panic attack over the fact that the prospect of climbing the Rockies this summer is starting to sound very, very scary.
-Running out of water and having to stop to ask a middle-aged man doing yard work if I could fill my waterbottle. After several awkward pauses, he offered to take it inside his house and fill it. He'll never know this, but I loved him in that moment because I was THIRSTY (this is after climbing hills).
-Biking past a boy that looked eerily like Justin Bieber from the Bieb's early days.
-Stopping to rest near a house in which someone was very enthusiastically rehearsing with their full drum set.
-Realizing that I didn't have any food and that I was famished because I had been riding already for an hour and a half and had only just turned around--I proceeded to walk my bike into and through the aisles of a "Save-a-Lot Food Store", a weird little market off of the road I was on, and bought a single apple for 38 cents. This store also carried what they labeled "Cello Carrots," which is super exciting because I play the cello.
-IT DID NOT RAIN ONE DROP WHILE I WAS ON MY BIKE TODAY. And I was on my bike for.....3-ish hours. High-five, Eugene!

More stories to come tomorrow, for I have a 30-35 mile ride planned with a group of older gentlemen that I know through a family friend. I expect to have interesting conversations, and to be sore after having to keep up with them.

Cheers,
Nina

Goals for Rest of The Week

Schedule for The Rest of this Week (I'm posting this so that I am forced to hold myself accountable):

Wednesday: workout twice (completed!)

Thursday: Circuit Training, Yoga, and Biking to REI for cycling shorts (will end up being about a 10-12 mile ride!)

Friday: 20+-mile ride with friend in the afternoon. Send sponsorship request e-mails to managers of local Eugene bike shops. 

Saturday: 4-hour ride with UO Cycling Club (my quads hurt just thinking about this...). Finish draft of letter for fundraising campaign. Mail out at least 50 letters on Monday.

Sunday: 1.5-hour ride with the UO Cycling Club. Send press releases to local papers. Advertise my Citizen Effect donation page.

Monday: Mail out at least 50 letters. Work out 2 hours if it's raining too hard to bike outside.

Tuesday: Bike maintenance school begins in the evening! 

Whew....That's as far ahead as I can think right now.

Cheers!

Nina :)