Health and Fitness Journal

I’m trying to quit smoking and my Egyptian friend Zahur suggested I try out using  hookahs. If you haven’t yet heard, hookahs are these exotic Egyptian water pipes that lots of university students are getting into smoking in cafes recently. They’re really becoming a social phenomenon near where I’m studying sports medicine.

I think part of the reason people are going in for hookahs, and the whole hookah bar thing, is because hookahs have the allure of being kind of rebellious, (because when you’re using a hookah it looks like you’re smoking hash), while at the same time possessing an image of elegance (the first thing that came to mind when I saw one was ancient Chinese emperors sitting on big cushions smoking opium).

It’s pretty funny that I had all those imaginings about the hookah related to drugs, though. As far as I could see from my visit to a hookah café in the student ghetto none of the hookah partakers there looked like druggie types. The scene there was much more diverse and less cliquey. No one there seemed to be passing any fashion judgments.

Some people in the café, seated on big fluffy pillows were dressed like they had just stopped off on the way home from the office. Other patrons wore hip hop duds. One guy looked like a cowboy. It made me feel a little more welcome, since when I dropped by I was still wearing my weight lifting sweats from the gym.

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A recent survey of American university graduates has revealed some startling information. Odd features such as average temperature during the school year, and quality standards of cafeteria food were cited in contributing to the high success rates of students from several medical schools in finding post graduate employment.

How?

Students who had done their degrees at either the University of San Francisco, or the University of California-Irvine by and large have found post graduate employment within 2-3 months of graduation. Overwhelmingly, students questioned by media outlets complained of fluctuating hot and cold temperatures (common in the California region where typically days are warm but temperatures drop after bedtime). Additionally many male students blasted cafeteria food as “too spicy”.

What does this mean?

Apparently, the stress of Californian university life conditioned students there to work harder. Without even knowing it

Conversely, the students surveyed at the U of Chicago and U of Pittsburgh who had experienced constant freezing cold along with bland frozen microwave lunchables on a daily basis, tended to spend the first few months after graduating sleeping or consuming hot drinks.

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