The more I think about it, the more I've come to realize that you can only get the good stuff in this country if you can afford it. State universities are run down, the programs are constantly being cut and the profs all complain about their pathetic wages, while private universities have gorgeous campuses, tonnes of $$ for research, and shopping areas built around them. For your basic HMO medical coverage you get idiot doctors who don't even care to know your name but if you have thousands of dollars burning a hole in your wallet you can get the country's best specialists.
My beef right now is with something much less important, or maybe not. Public recreation facilities. America has an obvious problem with obesity but you can't go anywhere to work out without paying upwards of $40 a month for a gym membership. I cancelled mine because I just don't have that money to spare even for crappy old 24 Hour Fitness. I figured maybe I'd check out the Y or go to a community center gym. Well turns out that the Y costs more than 24 Hour Fitness and there is no such thing as community center gym around here (except for the pricey and private Jewish Community Center). The public community rec centers have some meeting rooms and tennis courts but that's all. My campus gym sucks and is only available for general use certain hours on certain days.There are just no public facilities to work out in. You can really only get a free work out if you live in an apartment with a gym or work someplace with an office gym. Again, all private. You have to be privileged somehow to get access.
Back home nearly every public community rec center had a pool and a decent weight room and charged only about $2-$4 drop in fee. There were probably 5 or 6 such centers within a 10 minute drive of my home in suburbia. Here you can't even get fit unless you can front the money (or go hardcore and run outside a lot). Something is very very wrong with that.
I've checked the parks and rec sites for all the cities up and down the peninsula and found nothin. Anyone got any suggestions?
2 comments:
Canada sounds like a really cool place. Why are you down here again?? :)
Seriously, what do you like about here more than there? Are you planning to stay here or go back at some point?
Well, that's the difference between a country that's closer to the socialist side than to the capitalist side: the latter favours those with money.
But here's something to put that into perspective: in Taiwan, the average monthly gym dues are in the area of $60 USD a month. And that's if you pay for the full year in advance. And there are only four locations that might even be remotely close to you (ie 20 minutes commute to it). And that's in a country where the average salary (even for qualified professionals in high-tech) is one-half to one-third that of the United States. Even the special student rate is still $40 USD/month -- I have no idea how a student around here affords a fee like that.
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