Girl Power

image from here

We’ve been talking a lot in our management class about employment equality, and what this means to us as upcoming professionals. As a woman, the consensus is that we still have to struggle against unfair employment opportunities, and discrimination in the workplace. Sometimes I agree with the hardline stance (sexual harassment is never okay), and I don’t terribly mind getting a leg up by equality acts, but I’m not sure that the whole practice is fair. If girl power and feminism are meant to promote equality between the sexes, then why should women get this little bonus when it comes to employment?

Are women that unqualified that we can’t compete with the men in our fields? Assuming that women require help to get the same job as a man is frankly insulting, and promotes the negative stereotype that women can’t do what men can. Sometimes it’s inevitable that we require external help, but the same can be said of both sexes. Not everyone can do everything, but maybe it’s time that we should assume that everyone is capable of learning the same stuff if they apply an equal amount of effort.

Women of the world, if we want to be taken seriously then maybe we should consider stepping up and earning our place alongside men. We expect the same of them, so why aren’t we holding ourselves to the same standard? We can’t logically be expected to be treated with the same amount of respect as men if we don’t earn it. That’s why when my dad waxes eloquent about cars I pay attention. I may not be able to change a tire or my oil, but I know that you can filter the impurities from dirty diesel with a coffee filter, and that you can run a diesel engine on old french fry oil, leftover motor oil, and jet fuel. If you don’t believe me, go ask my dad, because that’s exactly what he did with our 1981 Mercedes-Benz 300D. Now, how many of you guys out there knew that!

You’d best hope I don’t put bars on your window, Ronald Weasley!

Hello kittens, I am trés sorry that I’ve been missing in action for the last week, but I just haven’t felt like being coherent. I’m not going to get into it, there’s just a lot of stuff going on in my life that I’m trying to deal with currently, and some enduring problems that just won’t just bloody go away. Whatevs. Onto the theme of this week!

So as anyone in the waking world should know, the final Harry Potter film is being released this Friday (FINALLY!) and I am kind of twitchy with excitement! I already did a rant about Umbridge earlier, so I’m not really going to write a rant about Harry Potter itself. Instead I’m going to tie one of my favourite parts of the wizarding world to something that’s been ticking me off in real life.

One of my favourite scenes from the series is when Harry gets rescued on his birthday by the Weasley brothers via their father’s illegal flying car. It’s such a funny scene (what with Uncle Vernon falling out of the window), and I really like the idea of a flying car.

On the other hand I’m really not a big fan of people who can’t seem to drive properly. I don’t consider myself an aggressive driver, but since coming home for the summer and driving around quite a bit (to work and to the mall haha) I’ve found myself experiencing some pretty major road rage. People can’t seem to follow the basic rules of the road. It’s really not that difficult to read what the speed limits are (there’s signs duh) and to keep up with traffic, yet not break any speed limits. I usually drive a little bit over the speed limit, but I’ve noticed that there are constantly people speeding past me in a huge hurry to get somewhere. Seriously, there’s no need to be excessive. My kid sister learned this lesson the hard way recently and had her car impounded for a week for her poor behavior. I did nothing but laugh when I heard this. I’ve always known she is a reckless driver, and now the whole world has proof! HA!

My other pet peeve is about basic road etiquette. When you’re making a turn, use your signals. How else is everyone else supposed to know where you’re going, and that’s the easiest way to communicate with other drivers. When you’re in a merge lane, MERGE DAMNIT. It’s not called a merge lane for nothing, and it’s probably a good idea to at least attempt to get into the other lane before you run out of road. The main lane of traffic does NOT have to yield to the merge lane, so don’t expect them to just get out of your way at the end of the merge lane. That’s not how it works. If you want to merge, then put on your blinker, which in driver-speak means “I would like into your lane, please excuse me,” and usually someone will let you in. If you wait til the end, it’s rude to just expect to be allowed into the other lane and is the driving equivalent of budging in line at the grocery store: ie people aren’t going to like it.

Ugh. People need to learn to drive properly. It’s not that difficult! I wish there was a way to report bad driver behavior where it would actually have consequences!

Fast Fashion

Car movies aren’t just for boys you know. Case and point, the entire Fast and the Furious franchise. Sure, the plots may centre around guys, and the drama is all about cars, and building cars, and stealing cars, and wrecking cars, and racing cars, but these movies have some pretty good fashion moments (as well as some horrible ones…)

The first movie is full of fashion no-nos. The biggest one is that the majority of the main characters run around in wife-beater tank tops, all the time. They’re always dirty, they’re obviously not classy, the worst part is that one of them not only wears a wife-beater, he combines it with a MESH wife-beater. That’s right, I’m not kidding. I honestly feel sorry for the guy, because he looks nothing less than ridiculous. The only fashion-do that is made in this movie is that the protagonist, Brian, wears Converse the entire movie. You all know how I feel about Chucks, so there’s no need for words.

see the guy in the back row far left?
yeahhhh that's mesh >_<

Eva loves her neutrals

 2 Fast 2 Furious definitely kicks it up to second gear though (yes car puns, I know I’m a horrible person), since they introduce a proper female character who’s not just there as a sex object. Well, Eva Mendes is most well known for her physique, and she does show it off in the movie quite a bit (scene: tanning pool-side in a Bond-esque white bikini), but she has some gorgeous outfits in the film. Unfortunately since this is a “guy movie,” and it’s a bit older, it’s pretty difficult to find proper information on what she’s wearing in the film (read: impossible). But I’ve scooped up a bunch of photos of her outfits, and maybe you can tell me who designed them!

totally should have been a Bond girl!

love this dress!
(and the death glare of course) 

The 5^th (and hopefully last) installment of the series is coming out this Friday, and I’m hoping that the producers included a decent cut for the wardrobe department. But if they’ve spent it all on fast cars, and big explosions, I guess that’s okay too. Of course, there’s eye-candy already guaranteed (yum Paul Walker)! 

all I want for X-Mas :)