“And that man’s words mean nothing to me”

A warning, I will sound like an asshole in this post, but this woman should have let this one go. If you are reading this and are overweight or obese please don’t think in any way that I believe it is your fault alone for your weight. There are lots of reasons why people are overweight/obese and you can’t blame individuals for their lifestyle choices many of which are hard to control. Basically what fueled the idea for this post was a video I saw posted on facebook.

 http://www.upworthy.com/bully-calls-news-anchor-fat-news-anchor-destroys-him-on-live-tv?g=2&c=mrp1

 All the comments were like “this is so powerful, thanks for posting.” I think it’s a bunch of crap! This guy sent an obviously obese news anchor an email suggesting that she consider her role as local TV personality (as it is quite influential) and present and promote a healthy lifestyle. The email wasn't even that nasty. Here it is:

 “It’s unusual that I see your morning show, but I did so for very short time today. I was surprised indeed to witness that your physical condition hasn't improved for many years. Surely you don’t consider yourself a suitable example for this community’s young people, girls in particular. Obesity is one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain. I leave you this note hoping that you’ll reconsider your responsibility as a local public personality to present and promote a healthy lifestyle.” 

Granted, I don’t think sending this email was necessary, and I don’t believe obesity is a personal choice. People don’t seem to like being fat, why on earth would they choose to be that way? Surely if the obesity epidemic was as simple as a personal choice, everyone would choose to be skinny.

What irks me is the way this woman dealt with this email. She spent 4 minutes and 20 seconds of air time meant for the news calling out this writer as a bully. Bullying, I would argue is repeated attacks on someone “weaker.” After her 4 min 20 sec rant, I was under the impression this was a first time attack and an email is generally a private (until you air it on TV) and non-confrontational form of communication, different from “trolling” a phenomena of repeated anonymous attacks on the internet.

She should have just let it go instead of proclaiming to her audience that she had a thick skin and that man’s words meant nothing to her. Well obviously they meant nothing to you if you construed him as a bully in order to tie in your rant with national anti-bullying month.

What the guy said is true, she is in an influential position, and obesity is a dangerous condition. Everyone is getting fatter, even skinny people are heavier than they were 50 years ago. In effect, our perception of overweight and obesity is skewed and becoming normalized. I’ll bet you didn’t initially think she was obese, but she admitted it live on TV.

 So its ok to be fat, but it’s definitely not ok to smoke. How come we’re allowed to call people out on smoking but not on being overweight? Both are pretty equally destructive to your health, the main difference probably being, you don’t need to smoke to survive whereas you do need to eat.

 You just need to eat real food and less of it. The reason I say real food, is because I believe Western Society’s problem (actually it’s global) with obesity is the overabundance of fake food. Fake food is anything over processed, and by over processed I mean you don’t know what all the ingredients are on the nutrition label. A recent study looked at a hunter gatherer African tribe and measured their daily energy expenditure and found that it didn’t differ significantly from the average westerner. The tribe inhabitants were lean and had less body fat than the average westerner suggesting that diet may play more of an important role in weight gain rather than physical inactivity. Here’s the article:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0040503

Being physically active does play a role in weight loss tho, if you need to lose weight you should still exercise, but maybe pay a bit more attention to what you put in your mouth. Try cooking. Like old fashioned raw ingredients from the produce section of the grocery store. Many American’s don’t know how to do this (myself included) so it’s easy to see why it’s easy and convenient to pick up ready-made meals, carry out and unhealthy snacks. Luckily, I have a fiancé who does know how to cook and in this last year combined with a bunch of walking I’ve lost 10 pounds. I didn’t really need to lose those 10 pounds, but I’m not complaining! I’m down to my 16 year old driver’s license weight and the major difference in my lifestyle is that I started eating regular freshly prepared, balanced meals.

I walked just as much in Chile and gained weight. To be fair my diet in Chile was atrocious because fresh fruits and vegetables were left out. I walked a lot in College as well, but again my diet of booze probably caused me to put on weight.

Circling back to this woman who claims not to be offended but really is and took news time to air her grievances and loosely link them to national anti-bullying month; I hope this whole ordeal has made her think about making small sustainable changes to her diet/exercise routine. Honestly, I don’t think the person meant for her to take such offense; or bully her. I think he was just trying to give her a little nudge in the right direction. He probably could have phrased it more eloquently though as she definitely didn’t interpret it that way.

French Faux Pas

Being that my Scottish boyfriend is half French, I thought it would be a good idea to enrol in a French class. I’m just about done with my first beginner’s course and I’ve learned that we use a bunch of French words incorrectly in American English, particularly when it comes to food related items. I learned today something that made no sense whatsoever. We were learning vocabulary for clothing and fashion. The phrase à la mode meant in fashion or in style. And I raised my hand to ask (rather stupidly in retrospect) can it also mean with ice cream?? Everyone looked at me confused, including my French teacher, and I had to explain that in the States if you order a dessert, or pudding (as they call it here) à la mode it means they will serve the dessert with a scoop of ice cream. My French teacher didn’t know of anyone using à la mode in that respect and we couldn’t figure out how/why the usage came about. He did mention that you could prepare a meal à la mode de some region in France; it would be prepared specifically to certain standards. So I don’t know, it’s either fashionable to order your dessert with ice cream (not so for dieters ie the entire population) or somehow the idea of preparing a meal to certain standards got lost in translation somewhere. Je ne sais pas.

The other two examples Marc pointed out to me when he came to visit me in Chicago. He thought the entrées on a menu in a normally priced restaurant seemed a bit pricey, and I reassured him it would be worth the money, you could make another meal out of the leftovers. Then he made a comment somewhere along the lines of ‘no wonder you guys are so fat, I can only image the size of your mains.’ To which I replied, ‘it is the main course!’ He burst out laughing and really didn’t believe me until he noticed my blank stare. He then explained that entrée really means ‘starter.’ I was completely befuddled because my whole life I’d only known entrée to mean ‘main dish.’

The last example comes from when Marc encountered his first Italian beef sandwich, a Chicagoan classic. I told him typically you get it with au jus sauce spread on the sandwich. To which he informed me that I was repeating myself. Au jus is the juice from meat. So actually, as a waitress, whenever I asked someone if they wanted their Italian beef with au jus sauce, I was asking if they wanted the juice sauce; basically I was saying sauce sauce. I genuinely thought au jus was a special kind of sauce just for Italian beef…Come to think of it, there really isn’t much Italian about Italian beef; it comes on a Viennese Kaiser roll with au jus. We totally mixed that one up…but that I guess that is the beauty of the US of A. All these different cultures came together, melding their different traditions into what eventually became American traditions. We’ve just had to suffer the losses in translation along the way.

Tricky Treats!

BEWARE Americans! If you come over to the UK the familiar chocolate bars you’ve come to know and love are not what you think they are. Classic example is the Mars bar. Mars in the UK (and Canada apparently) means Milkyway. What does Milkyway mean in the UK you ask? It means 3 Musketeers. And Maltesers are Whoppers. I haven’t actually checked, but I’m almost positive Snickers means Snickers :) So there’s one candy bar you don’t have to worry about. Here’s a list:

US/UK
Milkyway/Mars
3 Musketeers/Milkyway
Whoopers/Maltesers
Mounds/Bounty Bar
??? Not smarties/Smarties

The other main branding issues come from cereals. For some reason the same cereal has a slightly different name, so instead of Cookie Crunch, it’s Cookie Crisp. Here’s the list:

US/UK
Cookie Crunch/Cookie Crisp
Coco Puffs/Coco Pops
Frosted Flakes/Frosties
Macaroni & Cheese/Macaroni Cheese (and a really ugly box)

WIND!

The entire city of Glasgow shut down on account of wind one day. I had a French class at noon that was cancelled. I soon found out the entire University would shut down that day for wind. So even if I wanted to be studious and do some coursework in the library, I’d have to wait until the next day.

Honestly, I think people were just keen for a day off. It was getting close to Christmas and about a month prior, half the employed population (the public sector) was on strike for a day, to what seemed little effect. Marc was the only one in the office that day and couldn’t actually get any work done that afternoon as every business he called was closed due to the wind.

We couldn’t really figure out what all the fuss was about. Sure the wind was howling against the windows but other than that we couldn’t make out any problems. So we decided it would be a great time to venture into town to get some Christmas shopping done, as we assumed people would be shut up at home safe from the dangerous wind. We were right, it was a ghost town! And Glasgow is known for its shopping so there are always plenty of people about. Not that day, the worst of the damage I saw was a lit up hanging Christmas ornament that had fallen into the street and blocked some traffic.

Perhaps there was some potentially dangerous situations avoided by shutting everything down on account of the wind, but to me it just kind of seemed like an overreaction. Little did I know that wind would be back and ruin some of my travel plans… Marc and I were on a train home from Inverness after spending the holidays with his parents up north. An hour in and we get an announcement from the train conductor saying they will be terminating service at Perth (an hour away from Glasgow) due to adverse weather conditions in Glasgow.

What were the adverse weather conditions? None other than wind! So we’re thinking ok, maybe it’s just a wind storm, we’ll hang out for a couple of hours on the train and they’ll start up service after. An hour into waiting at the Perth train station, we get kicked off the train as it left to go back north. We then get a bit antsy wondering if and when they will start up service again. Oh, and according to the rail service, no buses were running because the highways have shut down as well. We find out there is brush blocking the tracks at several points along the route and it doesn’t seem like rail service will be a viable option if we want to get home that night (Marc had work the next day).

We find out that in fact buses are running and book the next one out. The driver is quite funny about the whole situation and begs us to hang on. The drive itself isn’t bad except for a couple of points when you could feel the wind pushing the bus. We also drove by a huge lorry (semi-truck) turned over in a ditch off to the side of the road, that wasn’t very encouraging. So I guess the wind was a pretty big deal. 200 mph is hurricane type wind. I thought I came from the windy city, but I think Glasgow deserves an honourable mention; ‘’Glasgow, the unofficial windy city.’’ We did eventually make it home safe and sound and only about three hours later than scheduled.

My First Scottish Ceilidh

November was Ceilidh (pronounced Kay lee) season and of course I had to take part in this Scottish country dancing tradition! When I arrived, the International Student Welcome had a Ceilidh planned for us, which I attended, but it doesn’t really count. Basically, it was a bunch of international students many of whom English was not their first language, trying to comprehend the steps that the MC shouted out in his thick Glaswegian accent. It was fun, but most of us were confused. I was excited for a proper ceilidh where everyone would be in kilts and actually know the steps.

The best way for me to describe ceilidh dancing is to compare it to square dancing. There is a live band that will announce the songs and if you’re lucky go over the steps at the beginning. And you’ve always got a partner and either dance around in a big circle of couples or you line up and face your partner in groups of 4-8 couples. There’s lots of twirling and stomping and it’s surprisingly fast paced, you could easily work up a sweat doing this kind of dancing. Like square dancing, which used to be danced at traditional American weddings, ceilidh dancing still takes place in the modern day Scottish wedding. Everyone knows how to do it because they teach it in school and people actually do it outside of school! I really like that. We were taught how to square dance once in gym, but I can’t remember any of the steps because I never had an opportunity to practice it outside of that one class. I’ve never seen square dancing at a wedding. Ceilidh dancing is a lot like square dancing; it’s old fashioned, but everyone does it, young and old! It’s fun too.

Movember is when guys grow out a moustache for the whole month of November to raise awareness for testicular cancer. There’s a similar practice in the US, I’ve heard it called No-Shave November. Anyway, most ceilidhs have a fund raising purpose (although not all, sometimes they are put on just to get the community/family together). This ceilidh was for testicular cancer and had an auction, raffle and pound slide. You had to slide a pound coin as close as you could to a bottle of whiskey and whoever was closest won the bottle. Oh that’s the other thing I forgot to mention, usually you bring your own bottle to ceilidhs, steak out a table, get drunk with your friends and dance all night. It’s a good time. If you’re ever in Scotland, try and get yourself to an authentic Scottish ceilidh, they are loads of fun!

St. Andrews: The Actual Place

I joined the international student society when I first arrived at Glasgow Uni, and every weekend it seems they have a trip planned to some place in Scotland. I finally decided to go on one of the day trips to St. Andrews. I went with my friend Josephine from the MPH programme. We were both very disappointed with the castle, or lack thereof. Among many of the activities we were promised on the trip, the castle was one of them. Little did we know they were referring to rubble. O well, at least it was a beautiful sunny day and we got some good pics.

St. Andrews itself is a quaint little place. The University is where Prince William met Kate and there’s even a little café that proudly proclaims on the window ‘'the café where Wills met Kate for coffee.’’ It’s a well-respected university, the 3rd oldest in the English speaking world (behind Oxford and Cambridge and Glasgow being the 4th). It was quiet too; for a University town I was expecting to see more people about on a beautifully sunny day.

St. Andrews is also known for its golf course. It’s supposed to be one of the oldest in the world and is known as ‘’the home of golf.’’ I spent half the day looking for this golf course which was odd because this town was tiny! I didn’t realise that the tiny patch of green that I had passed up in the beginning was it! I was expecting a grand course with rolling hills and steep cliffs overlooking the ocean. Perhaps I just saw a tiny bit of it and the rest was closed off to the public or something, I’m not really sure. There was a nice gift shop/museum with a statue of Arnold Palmer and replicas of famous golfer’s grips. I didn’t go in the museum; perhaps if I did I would have understood the layout of the golf course better.

It was a nice day trip. I had a horrible bought of car-sickness (bus-sickness?) though. It was intolerable! For some reason I can’t deal with the narrow and windy roads of Scotland. It’s weird though, I took 24 hour buses throughout South America and every time you went over a mountain you had to wind your way up and down it, and I never got sick there… I’ll need to find some car-sickness wristbands for the next time.