Ten on Tuesday

Reporting live from the snowy/sunny/windy/rainy metropolis of Vancouver... it's Ten on Tuesday!

1. I think that whoever devised daylight savings was an evil bastard. That is all.

2. We had a wind storm here yesterday which caused rain to hit at a 45 degree angle and parts of the city to lose power. Unfortunately not the part I work in (but magically leaving my house unaffected so that I could go home and watch TV).

3.  I have not been sleeping well. So add that to losing an hour and I'm running on about 5 hours - and that's only if you add up all the little chunks of about 20-30 minutes before I woke up inexplicably. I am not a cheerful person today.

4. So we use the space under our bed to store stuff, since I am a pack rat and we don't have enough closets. It almost never gets touched, but I decided that it was time to pull everything out, get rid of whatever we don't need, and clean under there. Sounds great in theory, but this strange urge to clean hit me at about 10 PM, which is far too late for cleaning - and for kicking up clouds of dust under your bed. Just a little tip from me to you.

5. One of my wonderful colleagues, Ceci, got me a peppermint mocha and chocolate banana muffin from Starbucks this morning, which pretty much made my week! Yum.

6. I've spent the last week working on a Kony 2012 blog post - I've published it and taken it down about 12 times because I keep thinking of other stuff to say, or coming across more info. It's getting to the point where I either have to stop trying to write about it, or just post what I have.

7. I work for a lung health organization, as some of you may know. So I'm particularly interested in the two class-action lawsuits that have been brought against Canada's three largest tobacco firms in a trial that started yesterday. The combined damages are over $27 billion and it's the largest civil lawsuit in Canada's history. Read more:

• George Stroumboulopoulos for CBC
• Reuter's

8.  It was International Women's Day last week. This is a very important day, and one that I think doesn't get enough attention (and is widely discounted and misunderstood). I wrote a blog post about it here - and if you haven't already, check out my post from 2011 (it has Daniel Craig in drag - need I say more?). I also came across a really interesting article on One's blog, that I think is worth taking a few minutes to read if you need some inspiration: An Ordinary Day with an Extraordinary Model

9. Because we all need something funny in our Ten on Tuesday:

10. After chatting with our intern, I've realized how much I miss the information I absorbed, seemingly by osmosis, in University. I also miss talking about social issues and current events at length with intelligent, enthusiastic people. Perhaps it's time to look into whether it's possible to do a Master's part time in night classes? Of course that would seriously impact my TV watching time, which would be a big problem.

Just four more days until the weekend!

Happy International Women's Day!

Even though International Women's Day isn't an official holiday in Canada, it's still one of the most important awareness-raising days of the year, in my opinion. While I support all the health awareness holidays - like National Non-Smoking Week and Eating Disorders Awareness Week - few affect such a large sector of society. More than 50% of the world's population are women, but it doesn't stop there. I firmly believe that the way in which women are treated within a society affects everyone - including the men in their lives and the children they bear.

For this reason I hope that all of you will take some time to reflect on the meaning of equality - particularly as it relates to gender. To notice not only the many, many ways in which we have become a more equal society, but the many more ways (small and large) in which we still have a lot of work to do. And I'm not talking about patriarchal societies in far-off lands and developing countries, I'm talking about everywhere.

If you'd like to learn more about the history and meaning of this day, check out www.internationalwomensday.com and my post from last year that has links to some other awesome blogs. Now go give an awesome lady in your life a really big hug!

International Women's Day - M and 007 Style

International Women's Day first began in the early 1900s as a National Women's Day in the United States. In 1911 it became International Women's Day - making this year's the 100th anniversary! It is now an official holiday in 27 countries around the world (though Canada and the United States are not among them) and is treated similarly to Mother's and Father's Day.

Unfortunately too many people have never heard of it - or if they have, they don't understand why we still celebrate it. On the surface it might seem like we've come a long way. And indeed, we have - at least in this part of the world. We've got the vote. We've got rights to our earnings. We've got legal recourse for sexual harassment. We've got female firefighters, doctors, lawyers, CEOs and sports legends. We've got Angelina Jolie playing parts written for Tom Cruise. What don't we have? Equality.

In Canada, university educated women still earn only 71 cents to every dollar earned by their male counterparts. Some of this divide can be accounted for by time missed due to pregnancy and childcare (it's still more economical for most women to stay home than to pay for childcare). Most of you will probably have been following all the issues happening in the U.S. surrounding women's reproductive rights and gay marriage rights - both of which are excellent reasons to seriously consider how equal our society really is.

It's also important that men are aware of the issues women face. Not just because they can help create a more equal society, but because it affects them as well. When women's salaries are so much lower, the burden of supporting a family falls to the man - whether or not he wants that extra responsibility. This in turn means that while he may have more career options and prospects, he can end up missing out on stuff at home. While if given the choice, most of us would prefer more options and greater societal and financial power, there are negative implications of inequality for everyone. Plus, there are plenty of men out there who are just as concerned about the issues that make International Women's Day important as women are - they care about the women in their lives and they want everyone to benefit from the same freedoms and rights.

This year take some time to imagine every male you see as female and vice versa. Imagine what the world would look like if our roles were reversed. Don't think that because we're better off than we were a century ago we're good enough - or that every woman in the world enjoys the same freedoms you do. Don't take it for granted. Don't slack off. And don't accept the status quo - we all deserve better.

Check out these links for some excellent blog posts by a couple of my friends (and amazing women) as well as the official site for International Women's Day:

• Searching for Serendipity
• Time to Get Motivated
• International Women's Day