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( child sponsorship update! :) )

~ Round-up of other news: later this month I am going to Calgary to meet my cousin's baby boy, and in preparation I bought him a baby-sized shirt that says "I [heart] UVIC"; this fandom!secret makes me stupidly happy only because of the Cate and Jude characters in my novel (this is the only reason why I ship it, too xD; ); this article about the phrase "the customer is always right" makes me happy because it's someone outside the customer service world recognizing how much it can suck to be inside it; and, after hearing it on my manager's iPod last night, I am now rather obsessed with Kelly Clarkson's "Haunted," despite the fact that it's exactly like every other song she's ever released. :D

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In a way I suppose this is a continuation of my sponsorship entry from last night, but ah well, I just discovered this now so I'll put it in its own post. Through a thread on the Children International Google group, I found out about an organization called Kiva. Their mission is to "connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty" - through their web site, you can loan money to entrepreneurs in the third world in order to help them start or continue a business, in the hope that, through this business, they will be able to lift themselves out of poverty. Over a set period of time, the entrepreneurs repay their loan, at which point you can lend out your money again, or get it credited back to you.

I just thought I would mention this since a couple of you seemed like you were kinda sorta maybe interested in child sponsorship, but were maybe a bit wary of the financial commitment involved. A minimum loan to a Kiva entrepreneur is $25US and you should eventually get it returned to you, so it's a way to help someone in need without having to commit yourself as much as you would to child sponsorship. I've just made one loan so far, to sort of test it out. You can take a look at my lender page, even though I haven't really done anything with it yet. x);

Now to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my day ... :///