SNOW GAMES

Princess Pirate in her natural habitat, training dragons and defending against monsters from angry coconuts to hydra

Between the two of us, we almost didn't go out at all. The day had gone fast and the sun was setting.  We were supposed to get some exercise and we both wanted to do it outside. Princess Pirate was ready to go out when I saw that the snow had started to turn to rain and changed my mind. I thought about the options and the outdoors was the best place to do it. If we dressed properly, we'd be fine even with the weather. I sent her out the front to check if the sunset changed the sleet to snow. Now it was her turn to back out, but I started getting out our snow pants and the most rain resistant winter jackets before we could change our mind again.

I had the forethought to save her good parka and hat and a pair of mitts to stay dry for the next day at school. We went out to the local park dragging the toboggan. PP didn't want to sled, but she liked to be pulled around the paths and through the woods. I wished I could run for longer, but whatever I could do was going to be good cardio. 

We did a few rounds, climbed mountains of snow, and fell a lot. It was sticky heavy wet snow, and the walking through it was unpredictable. On moment we fell deep into it, with our boot stuck, leaving us to fall forward so that we could turn around to dig ourself out. I thought that if you could film us and then erase the snow, like the nighttime technology that makes it seems like day, it would be ridiculous looking, with us falling forward and sideways oddly and at random times!  The snow was so thick in the air it was cloudy in the light. 

We were about to leave, and my idea to go sledding was not popular enough to go to the school where the hill was larger. I had her in the sled and I tried to drag her up the tiny hill in the park before we left. Again, PP stated her dislike of sledding, so I tried to slide down but found it too slow to be fun. She had made a body slide in the meantime and told me to check it out. It was pretty good! I brought the sled up for her to try once before we left. She took it down and had a little fun. I came down, thinking I would pull her home but by the time I was at the bottom, she was going back up for another round. This is when the game began. 

Wait for me, I cried, as I reached the bottom of the hill, and as I raced up, she grinned and slid down before I could get to the top! I ran downhill as fast as I can, and she laughed and raced up the other side of the hill. I lunged after the sled, but was too slow, and laughing chased her uphill again fruitlessly. She jumped in the toboggan and laughed gleefully, keeping ahead of me, and taking run after run down the hill in the sled.

By the end we were breathless, laughing, and PP liked sledding again. It felt like a Laurel and Hardy skit! It was the highlight of both our weeks.  

We walked home happy and wet, surprised to see it was 2 hours later and we had forgotten to eat supper!

Another fond memory to remember on the days when it seems like the weather might not be a good enough excuse to go outside.

OSLER BOOK CLUB LIST

OSLER FELLOWSHIP RESOURCES

BUILDING AND REBUILDING TRUST

1. Authenticity
2. Logic (rigorous)
3. Empathy

Another worthwhile TED talk, with Francis Frei, Harvard professor.

EISENHOWER MATRIX

From: How To Be More Productive

THE THANKS I GET

I left my home this morning at 6:40. I had just over 6 hours of sleep because I got home from work last night at 10 pm, when I had supper and fed my cats and went to bed. I worked all day and just got home at 11:10 pm.

My requests for shift in March were emailed to me with this message:

Thank you to the precious few who sacrificed themselves in order to allow for publications.
Unfortunately it was once again the same people who always offer to help.
You can figure out who they are.  Most of them work 9/10 days in that week.

I have taken two March Breaks in 20 years. This year, I requested it off in advance, making the request on July 17th, 2017.

I was given 3 more shifts than I requested. I was scheduled on an evening  I did not give availability for. I work 6 evenings in a row, when I ask for no more than 2 or three, because I won't get enough sleep, and will be pulling 12 hours well into the night.

I am really tired, working hard, and I feel like I am meant to be shamed, as though my patriarchal scheduler and boss cares nothing for me or my work.

I am thankful for my colleagues today, who commented on my late stay, and refered to it as "my legacy", because we did send some home, get some admitted and even transferred one to another institution, and it looked so much better than when we had come in.

I am thankful for the glorious temperature to and from work of -8 and -9 with a beautiful layer of snow, and an hour and a half of commuting in those lovely conditions.

I am thankful to the colleagues who stopped by to say hi. The one who complimented my hair and tossed it. The resident who casted a wrist and sent the patient home.

I am thankful to my little girl who was doing her homework when I called, and texted me to get an internet link for an upcoming assignment. Who is excited to go to Regina with me in February when other kids are going to Disney!

So, to my boss, who makes me feel like I don't sacrifice, but is killing me slowly while taking me for granted: I think there are better ways to get people motivated. I feel like I am sacrificing to cover the rest of the month, but for thankless reasons. I don't appreciate that you didn't answer my email, asking for a change in the mistake of scheduling me on a day I didn't give availability. And I don't feel like giving any more availability when it's tough on me, because the sacrifice I do make isn't appreciated anyways.

MY BEST QUOTE OF THE DAY

I was at work and asked the office fixer to look at the tonopen (that measures eye pressure) yet again, because it was not calibrating on a couple of attempts, so I wouldn't be able to trust the result.

It was a busy day, and he came to me to ask me to withdraw my request, claiming that each time he takes it to the technical department they try it and it works.

I understood he really didn't need to have another thing to do that day, but this wasn't going to be satisfactory to ignore the problems with a vital machine.

I said, "It can't just work once. It has to work most of the time."

I must have been convincing, because the resident laughed, and he took it away, begrudgingly, to be looked at again.

THE ENDOWMENT EFFECT

We know it well now, but it used to be assumed that people made economic choices rationally. But one man won a Nobel Prize for proving this to be wrong. Richard Thaler, who came up with the idea of mental accounting, set up an experiment. He gave half the class a free mug, and nothing to the other half. The mug owners were allowed to sell the mugs to the ones without. You would expect rational behaviour of selling the mugs, as it is automatic profit. But it turns out that having something makes you overvalue it. This is the endowment effect. Not all of the mug owners would sell their mugs at the price negotiated. The mug owners valued their mugs double to what the mug buyers wanted to pay. Interesting, right?

We have a lot of wrong ideas when it comes to our mental accounting. Not all days work are equal. We are more likely to spend more with a credit card than with cold hard cash. So it leads me to a couple of other ideas. Is this why hoarders get sentimental about their stuff? And if you have something, make sure you don't overvalue it, and get rid of it for a reasonable amount, probably half of what you think you deserve!

ALL LIVES MATTER AND YOU TOO

We live in an unfair world. There are injustices everywhere. We are all benefiting from someone somewhere at sometime who spoke up on our behalf.

But it makes me cringe when those who speak up label themselves.

I suppose it began for me with feminism. I owe a great deal to the equality movement. I remember reading an excerpt from an Austrian Princess at the museum at the foot of Neuschwanstein who was ashamed to be allowed to study beside men. There was never any self-consciousness about me attending university. I am not sure that the reservations my parents had for me for medical school had all to do with my gender. But I will never in this lifetime be equal to my male colleagues, even often in nursing. If I stand at the bedside with a male nurse or 21 year old male medical school student, with my ID and uniform labelled as doctor,  I would estimate that the majority of time, my colleague is identified as the doctor and I the nurse. How much do my valid statements resonate when the patient is reoriented to me? Are they listening to me as a doctor, or as a female doctor? Why can't a just be the doctor, regardless of my gender? But what I see of the movement of "equality" is the tendency to want more than the other side. As though, because the pendulum has swung too far to one side, it is required to push past the middle and claw away something from the other side. But this is also not equality. So while the innocent child can say, "Anything you can do, I can do better", this is not what the disenfranchised can say to the other side. This is also why I hate to label the sides. We are all a complex mishmash of labels, but each one does not serve to unite us with others, but seems only to divide.

It is appalling what the colour of your skin can mean. I believe whole heartedly that black lives matter, and that atrocities are being committed everyday because of skin colour, and gender, and religion and orientation, and opinion. But if I am not black, I matter too. If I am not female, I matter too. If I don't adhere to your religion or way of thinking, I matter too. If I am not sexual, I matter too. If I disagree with you or you disagree with me, I matter too. But this doesn't help you understand me. And whatever your colour or gender or religious thoughts or orientation or opinions, you matter too.

I feel strongly that you and I are best served to meet simply as humans. It is natural that the next question you ask after meeing someone new, will result in a label. What do you do for a living? Where are you from? I get that we relate when we find commonality. But why can't it be that we relate over our concerns for our children, or the state of the world, or how we can respect each other and live at peace with each other. If we each did something positive for each other, we could take care of each other so easily.

Assassins lose count of their kills, if the spy novels are to be believed. Others lose count of how many people they have sex with. I have lost count of the number of people I have met dead, or dying, but every single one was a grief. Most people have no idea at how incredibly fragile our human body is. One stab to the flank. One high velocity car crash. One gunshot to the head. One cross walk ignored. One bike lane veered into. One irregular beat of the heart, and it's over. Human life is what we must protect. At all costs. It is precious, and precarious. We only get one opportunity. For all people, whatever label.

So if your label is on the wrong side of history, fight for equality. But don't take more from the other side, because that has never worked. Bring the pendulum back to the middle, but don't try and push it, to steal from the other side, or you just become a taker of equality from someone else.

My life, as privileged as it is to be living at this time in this beautiful free country, is never going to be equal to all. But that cannot be my focus, or I will take from someone else what is equality to them. I encourage you to see others as your equal, as human, with incredible potential, and a very brief lifespan. Be vigilant to the human fragility and wonder, and protect each other to your dying day.