Now that it is 2009 – nearly 2010 – I think it is common knowledge here in the USA that smoking cigarettes is detrimental to your health. According to the CDC website, over 5 million people die every year worldwide because of direct tobacco use. Smoking cigarettes also ends up costing the US economy over $193 billion in health care bills for diseases that could have been completely prevented in most cases. Going to the CDC website or any other health site for that matter will be able to give you page after page of scientific proof that smoking is extremely dangerous. However, a lot of people might be surprised with some of the facts and data on another tobacco issue: secondhand smoke.

Years ago, we as a society were told that a small amount of secondhand smoke was okay and would not directly impact our health over time. Obviously, that turned out to be entirely false as we now know. There are loads of studies out there focusing only on secondhand smoke, and the results are absolutely disgusting. Out of around 440,000 people who die from smoking-related illness here in the US every year, a whopping 50,000 of those people die from secondhand smoke exposure alone. Those 50,000 people chose not to smoke, but yet their lives were cut short because of the irresponsibility of others who insist on smoking regardless of health risks.

I’ve been bombarding you all with facts and statistics about smoking for one main reason: smoking is not good for the person holding the cigarette or the person standing 20ft away from them. The issue of secondhand smoke has never been a major cause of frustration in my own personal life, but that changed when I started going to college in August 2009.

My college campus is located on land owned and governed by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. They are a sovereign tribe, and thus have the right to their own government. Although the state of Arizona passed the Smoke-Free Arizona Act in 2006, the tribal lands were completely unaffected by this law. I’m sure you can see how this would be problematic. Since there are no bans or heavy restrictions on smoking in the tribal community, my college allows smoking outside. While the school policy states that smokers must stand at least 25ft away from a building entrance/exit, this is impossible to enforce and thus is not followed. There are many classrooms and faculty entrances all over the campus everywhere you go, as well as very few places that are consistently 25ft+ away from all surrounding entrances in the area. Add this to the fact that a huge number of the student body smokes, and you’ve got a serious problem.

I understand that my fellow students have the right to choose to smoke. However, I have the right to choose to not smoke. I choose not to smoke because I do not want the emphysema or lung cancer that killed both of my grandfathers. I choose not to smoke because I would rather be healthy and not slowly damage nearly all of my organs. Due to the growing number of students smoking absolutely everywhere on the college campus, I find it extremely unfair and utterly irresponsible that my school has not enforced or changed their smoking policy. What is the point of even having a policy with smoking restrictions when they are not enforced? Why should I have no choice but to be exposed to extensive amounts of secondhand smoke because the idiot teenagers around me think smoking is cool?

When I head to school on Tuesday morning of next week, I am marching into the Student Services office and asking to speak with someone who can prove to me that I won’t be affected by the massive amounts of gray cigarette smoke that linger all over the campus. I really don’t think anyone will be able to succeed, so I am pretty confident that I will at least get to file some sort of official complaint or get information on how I can do that.

Believe me, I am not going to let the lack of protection for non-smoking students continue. I have another one and a half more years to go to this school, and I do not intend to inhale smoke every time I go to class. I want my choice to be smoke-free back, and I am going to get it one way or another.

As the title may suggest, I am moving along in life in certain ways that have never occurred before. I should probably start off by saying that I have recently moved my public blog from its old location at the blog.haley.nu subdomain to the main page of this network overall. There is a brand new layout, new content and pages, as well as a new feel in general. Instead of having the Haley.nu Network consist mostly of a main directory and a public blog, I decided to merge the two for ease of access around this network. Hopefully this will encourage blog visitors to visit my other sites, and network visitors to visit my blog. Currently, the old URL is set to redirect to this main page. However, I would appreciate it if anyone linking back to my blog would update your links!

Back to the title of the entry, a lot of progress has been made this year. As it is now the second day of December, I am almost done with my first semester at college studying what I really wanted to learn. I am excited for next semester even though I know it will be much more hectic than the current one. I am getting closer to moving into my own apartment and being on my own again for the first time in two years. The progress on getting my driver’s license and a car is slow, but it will happen soon. My health has been consistent throughout the most of the second half of this year with my overall mood improving. I have high hopes for 2010, and I can’t wait to get started.

Right now, for the first time in my 20-some years of life, I have a clear “plan of attack”. I am right on track with school to get double Associates degrees most likely before January of 2012. With the IT industry growing at a ridiculous pace, I hope that after I graduate from college my skills and education will allow me to land a job in one of the many areas I am studying. Farther in the future, though, I am really set on moving out of Arizona. Whether I return to the upper west coast or completely leave the country altogether is still yet to be decided. There are a lot of things to weigh in the choice of where I move to after college ends. From housing prices, to job availability, to the altitude of the land, there are quite a few major things for me to research. I still have 1.5 years to go, though, so I am confident I will have a good idea of what I will do once 2012 comes up!

Some people say I am getting ahead of myself. Maybe I am just a tad, but frankly, I have never been this excited about my own personal future before. Things are becoming clearer every day, and I can’t wait to really start living my life the way I’ve always wanted.

I suppose this all means I should add “optimistic” to the list of words I use to describe myself. To be honest, I rather like that idea! Being pessimistic and negative my whole life has never gotten me anywhere. I’m grateful for the overall change in my attitude and perception in the past year or so; all I can think of now are the great things that are going to come my way.

Whatever happens in these next few years, I am ready for the challenge.