Hands off my food! My cigarettes, on the other hand…

So, I took a personal day yesterday, did some important stuff, and couldn’t help myself and watched some TV before going out. The channel? Good old Fox News.

Well, there was this discussion after a very wary-looking Megyn Kelly questioned if the government was trying to police what people eat because Michelle Obama is pushing for restaurants to serve smaller portions, you know, the whole obesity thing.

Obviously, republicans are saying this is just one more step towards “big government” and that people should be prepared for the worse. The government wants to dictate what everybody should be eating and the free world is approaching the abyss. I don’t think I see it that way.

Having a healthy diet and taking care of themselves is seen as an infringement of their rights. If somebody tells them that there are better options to huge pizzas and freedom fries, they go nuts and simply refuse to listen and might even respond as the republican in the video did, by distorting information. I don’t think dictating is the first lady’s big plan here, but they can certainly transform this issue, which should be seen as an opportunity to debate the diet most people have and try to encourage parents to watch over what their kids eat, into a whole “nobody takes my liberty” thing. This is so stupid. And again there’s no compromise here, republicans function in a way that is either “do it and we’ll make your life a living hell” or “leave it alone”. One thing that I don’t understand, though, is that republicans are the ones that should be pushing for healthier diet, because if their electorate keep eating and packing fat and clogging their arteries and dying from heart attacks, who’s gonna vote for them to dethrone Obama?

I just don’t think the coverage is fair. I can give you an example here. I’m a smoker. I know, it’s bad for me and I’m aware of that. And for years now there’s been a battle against smoking across the world. Many countries have banned it and you have to pay fines if you’re caught smoking in bars and restaurants. Do you how painful it is for a smoker not to be able to light up when drinking beer? It’s awful, and even thinking about the possibility makes me not want to go places. Such as New York City. I might be going there some day, and just a few days ago the City Council voted to ban smoking from parks, beaches and plazas. You know… these places are outdoors… People aren’t inside a place where others eat and drink and work.

Well, you might say it’s the second-hand smoking thing that got them to ban it. Okay, what about air pollution? Why don’t they ban cars from the streets? Why shouldn’t people be riding bikes?

You know why it’s easier for cigarettes than food to get banned or controlled? Because food doesn’t affect the guy sitting next to you like the cigarette does with the smoke. The smoke disrupts people and can lead to cancer, but eating a lot doesn’t bother people around you, unless of course they have a stroke or eventually puke for eating supersized meals.

But my point isn’t that. My point is the coverage. While we may listen for days and days about the sizes of portions and how the government is taking people’s freedom away from them, this is the note I found on Fox Nation website about smoke banning in NYC. What about my freedom to make my choices and choose whether I smoke or not?

Turning point?

So, it’s no surprise that I’ve been fed up with how things are going at work. I know that everybody has good and bad days at work; no job is perfect and we need to try to address the problems the best way we can. However, the good days are rare now and the bad days are really bad, really really bad.

I really feel sorry for all the students that come to the school and enroll in a course that is poorly devised and won’t help them at all. The material is awful, it isn’t cheap, has no quality, treats the student like a dumbass, it’s disrespectful. I’m glad that I’m not part of this department anymore, and I’m glad that I still get to work with my students using material that make them think. But things change fast where I work, and if I don’t do something soon, I might either need to start selling the lie that those courses are or get laid off.

Last week I had a long conversation with one of my colleagues and we seem to agree on many things that we should be doing right now, things that we should start doing. We bust our asses for nothing, the pay we make is ridiculous and the owners think we should be thankful. It’s a complete waste of time and talent, we’re constantly tired and we simply can’t move forward. I’m tired of making other people rich while I struggle to pay the bills and get to the end of the month.

So, today two colleagues and I had a lunch meeting and we’re really willing to make the move. A lot of people say that in order for you to make the jump you need “the fear”, but in our case we’re way beyond fear, we’re desperate. So, this year we’ll do a lot of planning and research, because we truly believe that there’s more to language learning than what we’ve been seeing for the last few years. I refuse to believe that people are looking for what most of the schools offer, including the school I work for, and we’re willing to make the change! We’re gonna do something about it! And we’re taking our country back!!! (just kidding, couldn’t resist…)

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The protests in Egypt really are taking a turn for the worse. Now journalists can’t report what’s going on because of the attacks in the last two days. Even though correspondents from all over the world were attacked, hospitalized, threatened and arrested, no doubt that Anderson Cooper was the most talked about, so much so that even Stewart had to step up and say “hands off Anderson Cooper!” But I could have done without tonight’s cation on Pierzzzz Morgan, with AC360 talking on phone about the latest developments: “Secret Broadcast from Anderson Cooper”. Really? Come on, guys…