World AIDS Day (WAD), every December 1st  is much like a New Year’s Day for those of us who are infected and affected. The day itself was, for me,  not normally a day of action.  Every year I used the date as a benchmark to see what I had done in the AIDS response, reflected on the year, and thought about what more I could do. I remember for WAD 2004 I had tied to my hair a sign that disclosed my 21 years old HIV-positive status to those who sat behind me in university. The next December, I saw the AIDS Memorial Quilt for the first time and promised to “do something” above and beyond survival by the time WAD 2006 came around. I have kept that promise every year, ever since.

In March 2009, I lost my first friend to AIDS-related complications. While normally WAD for me is a day off, this year I will have a day on. I will be traveling to Hays, Kansas to speak at a university that has not had a Quilt display since the mid nineties. Bringing the impact of HIV to the geographic center of my country – I cannot think of a better way to spend December 1. What is your World AIDS Day resolution for 2010?

This is a guest blog post by Nina Martinez

Nina Martinez (pictured below on the left), 26, is a public health student at Emory University in Atlanta with a focus in epidemiology. Nina’s premature birth facilitated the need for a blood transfusion that infected her with HIV when she was six weeks old in San Francisco, California.