Smoke Kills

"Smoke Kills."
This is the simple sentence that I like to utter whenever I see the people I know smokes around me. Not only when I saw a friend smoked on the balcony in chilling winter, but everytime I have the chance to say it.

No to be hypocryte, as some people might have seen me smoking some years ago, but really, I do hate smoking NOW.

I used to smoke when I worked in a smoking community, and my jobs required the tight deadlines and overtimes. The nicotin used to wake me up when I needed to prepare a program outline until late after midnights... even it felt horrible in my lung, my throat, and my body odor :p

Later in the last 2 years I learned that in my mother's family there is a strong tendency of getting the cancer. An auntie passed away in 2005 due to the lung cancer, another auntie had her uterus cut due to the uterus cancer, a cousin died due to the breast cancer, and my grandma left this beautiful world after 2 years suffered from leukimia...

So, I felt stupid as I realised how I gave the chance for that deadly disease to grow in my body when I was smoking.

Then finally, out of the reasons of horrible feeling in my lung, my throat, and at my body odor... I decided to quit smoking totally. I don't want to regret my life some years after now, and I don't want to feel the pains like what my relatives felt before their last day.

As a consequence some friends mocked at me.. but I don't care. I would mock at myself more bitterly if one day I got a cancer somewhere in my body. I started to remove the ash trays from my house, even I wouldn't prepare it for any guests.

I feel also the stronger rejection toward tobbaco products. I tried my best not to work for any events sponsored by tobacco products...

But... today.... I was involved in an event in my campus sponsored by a huge cigarette company...
I didn't know it at the beginning. All I know was that my professors asked me to be the co-host of a music event held by a TV station that was aimed to promote my faculty... But this morning as I arrived at the venue, I saw the huge sign of that company at the backdrop... :((

The worst of all was, the company opened a booth to sell their cigarette product in front of my campus!

I realized that they have big budget that might enhance the students' activities... but somehow my heart said that it's not ethical to bring the poisson in campus atmosphere... I was disappointed that today I worked with something that kills.

I am not an assertive person to say "no" frontally, especially because I knew that there was no other co-host prepared to change my position as the host that represented the campus...

I was about to yell at the audiences, "Hey ya, you know that this good event is sponsored by a cigarette company... But let me remind you an important thing: SMOKE KILLS!"

*wondering what would happen if I did that...:p*
But really, I mean it: SMOKE KILLS!