donation – Books, Music, Photography, & Movies

(slán – Bye, in Irish)

That box over there is close to 20-25 kgs in weight and consists of books that I am donating. They just picked it up. I have retained very few of them which I couldn’t let go but gave away the rest. It has been so many years since I started buying them. Over the recent years, ever since I moved to e-books I haven’t bought as many as I did earlier. Since I am moving, there was no point in leaving them here and I had been thinking of donating the lot for some time now. It was a bittersweet moment when they came for pick-up but I am happy that someone will be able to read them. I did save the Harry Potter series for my nephew. I should initiate one of the kids into the wizarding world soon. I would definitely miss them all 😦

Yesterday after almost a year and a half, I qualified for donating blood. I always wanted to do blood donation, but everytime they organize it and I go to the registration counter where they would check my hemoglobin level, it usually will be 10 or 11 which was slightly low and they would send me back. Once I returned back very dejected and started to find out ways to increase my hemoglobin and infact had some prunes and stuff like that and then it was good for once and I donated. But again it kept going up and down. So I was little worried when I went yesterday. Thankfully it was 14.5 and I was so so glad. It is always a nice feeling to be able to donate blood. And I usually don’t feel too bad after too. I have pretty good stamina most of the days. I don’t know why they do it, but they give this certificate of appreciation after we donate blood which has the below text which gives a good feeling more than anything else to know that may be , just maybe there is a chance that it will help someone somewhere.

Apart from that, yesterday they had an option to register for Stem Cell Registry. I had been checking it out for sometime and I was glad that it came to me. I opted for the same. I am yet to get the confirmation on it (guess they will be doing some tests for that). I have had so many cancer patients around me recently that I always wanted to do something that I could really do for them in any small way. And I think this is as small an effort that can count. In case you are interested here are some links that might help you

Delete Blood Cancer

Bone Marrow Donors World Wide

Be the Match

In case you are in Bangalore and want to register for these and donate blood you can contact BMST India