HIV -- First Person

AEGiS -- original mission

The AEGiS system was founded in 1990 because there were lots of people in rural America who didn't have access to good sources of information.

Now, AEGiS is the largest HIV/AIDS database in the world. Those in rural areas of the U.S. and other countries now have access to the biggest and most up-to-date knowledge base anywhere on the planet.

But, people can't survive on facts and figures alone.

Expanding On The Idea

One of the fundamental ideas of Alcoholics Anonymous is that members share their experience, strength, and hope with other members. Instead of being full of experts and scholars, AA has members who can say "Yeah, I've been through the same thing, and here's what I did about it...."

That's the purpose of First Person.

What "First Person" Is

It's a place where creative folks who have HIV can share their experience, strength, and hope.

AEGiS and the Sisters of St. Elizabeth of Hungary want to invite you to take part -- to share your experience, your strength, and your hope.

How To Get Involved

• complete web pages (HTML). To get you started, there is a web page template below.
• plain text (ASCII). If you use a word processor, make sure you save your document as "plain text."
• drawings, photos (JPG or GIF)
• motion pictures (AVI or MOV) Short, please!
• sounds (WAV)
• any combination of the above

• "Foreign Lesion" -- Overcoming O.I. fears
• "Bob and Carol, Ted and Bruce" -- How to name your T-Cells
• "101 Ways I Found To Keep Retonavir Chilled" -- The now-famous list genre
• "ACT this" -- Some growing experience at an activist event

Other things to keep in mind --

• Serious, upbeat, funny, probing, pensive -- it's all okay here. Remember, you can be serious without being solemn.
• Essays are great. The formal definition of an essay is a short piece of prose in which the author learns something that changes her (or him).
• All submissions are subject to editing, and they become the property of AEGiS.
• We do not shy away from issues involving same gender relationships. Be yourself -- whatever that is.

• Copyrighted Material, unless you hold the copyright and are willing to sign a release.
• Opinions. Anybody can have opinions. Opinions are cheap.

  We want you to share your experiences. Please word any medical advice carefully (e.g., remind the reader you are not a doctor).

• "Over The Line" Content. We want you to be creative, and we want you to be frank and honest.

  However, AEGiS is not the forum for you to "push the envelope." For example, please don't ask us to publish pictures of a crucifix in a glass of urine on our web site.

  "4 Letter Words" will get us in trouble, so please avoid them.

  We aren't prudes. No, really -- we aren't.

Submitting Your Masterpiece

1. Build your masterpiece (text, graphics, etc.)
2. Send an e-mail message to journal@aegis.org. In your message include the following --
   • Your real name (even if you want your work to remain anonymous).
   • An alternate way of contacting you if we have any questions [optional, but helpful!]
   • A brief description of what you are submitting.
   • A list of all the files you are attaching, so we can make sure we get everything.
3. Attach all of the files that make up your submission.

If your e-mail system doesn't let you attach files, let us know about it. We'll come up with Plan B.

Also, some e-mail systems have a maximum file size for attachments. If you run up against a wall like that, send us multiple messages (clearly marked "PART ONE OF THREE" etc.)

HTML Template

If you know how to write HTML, that's great. It will save us some time! Here are some guidelines --

• Please try to make your material usable to the widest variety of readers by avoiding exotic web widgets, such as Java and ActiveX.
• If you use embedded images, please include them. We don't want to link to images on another web server.
• Any images will be in the same subdirectory as your HTML file, so please avoid path information in your <IMG SRC=... statements.

To make writing a multimedia web page simpler for you, here is a bare-bones template for you to use. If you are striking out in some daring direction, feel free not to use this template. However, using this will give your masterpiece the same look and feel of the other articles.

  <HTML>
  <HEAD>
  <TITLE>AEGiS -- Journal</TITLE>
  </HEAD>
  <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">
  <TABLE BORDER=0>

  <A NAME=top> </A>
  <A HREF="/">
    <IMG SRC="./images/aegis-globe.jpg" BORDER=0>
  </A>
  <H1>YOUR TITLE GOES HERE</H1>
  <HR NOSHADE SIZE=2>
  <TABLE BORDER=0 WIDTH=90%>
  <TR><TD VALIGN=top WIDTH=125>
  <A HREF="/">
  <IMG BORDER=0 SRC="./images/buttons/home.jpg"></A>
  <BR><A HREF="/samples/search/aquery.htm">
  <IMG BORDER=0 SRC="./images/buttons/search.jpg"></A>
  </TD><TD>

  YOUR ARTICLE GOES HERE.

  </TD></TR>
  </TABLE>
  </BODY>
  </HTML>