I think this is an excellent plan, and I am now hoping for an update. I hope your "friend" was cooperative and is getting your cats back for you this very minute.

Y'all are great. Thank you for the hope!

Would I be considered a "professor" in Canada? In the states, "professors" have to have a PhD. My title is usually "instructor."

Thanks, y'all. This is what I was afraid of. It looks like I may not be going anywhere except as a tourist. :-(

I would love to relocate to Canada or Europe (Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Norway, any of the northern countries, really), but I don't think I could find work. I have a BA and an MA in English and teach college composition, Intro to Lit, and developmental English. Is that even a possibility in another country? I know there is work in Asia, but I have no interest in living there. I'm wanting Europe or Canada. What says the Hive?

These are hysterical!

I don't know for sure, but I think I read somewhere that it's okay to use product names in a neutral sort of way. For example, a child can get a Band-aid to put on his skinned knee. It's neutral, and it's a perfectly acceptable use for the product. But if said child goes on to complain about how his Band-aid won't stick and keeps coming off and catching on the scab and it really hurts, etc., that would be a problem because it portrays the product in a negative fashion.

I am not embarrassed by any of my music choices because I love nearly everything. Some of the dorkier things on my playlist might be: Nobody's Perfect by Hannah Montana Play that Funky Music by Wild Cherry The whole of the Frozen soundtrack I have everything from Anthrax to Cats to Billy Joel to Motley Crue to Garth Brooks on my flashdrive, so I suppose there's something dorky for everybody. :D

Andrew Shepard from The American President :D

Well, if there was a prize for Dr. Hive contributors, you two would win. We went to the doc today, and it is impetigo caused by staph that probably started with one of the mosquito bites. They gave her a shot of antibiotic and she'll start an oral prescription tomorrow. Good times. :-/ Thank you all for your suggestions and advice.

It's happened here in my tiny, incredibly safe little town. On Sunday, two eight-year-old girls were walking in their neighborhood and were chased by a clown. The police were called, but they were unable to find anyone. This happened maybe a mile from my house. I've restricted how far my kids are allowed to wander now, but DS is afraid and won't leave the yard.

In a perfect world, I'd go to sleep around 2 a.m. and wake up around 10 a.m. Unfortunately, I have to be up around 6 most days (though lately I've been going back to bed when DD leaves for school and sleeping until around 8:30). I try to go to sleep by midnight, but that doesn't always happen. I just cannot seem to fall asleep earlier unless I'm very, VERY tired.

What's weird to me is these bandaids say they are "not made with natural rubber latex," so I took that to mean "latex-free." Now I'm wondering if that's not what that means. Grrr...

She said the swelling on one of them seems a little worse today, though I couldn't tell from the picture she sent me. I'll take a look at them when she gets home tonight and see how they look. I tend to not worry about the swelling part so long as the open sore part seems to be healing, but I'm also kind of leaving it up to her. She doesn't want to go to the doctor, and I'm not seeing a reason to rush over right now. If they get worse or don't seem better in the next few days or a week, or if she changes her mind, we'll see about going. Thanks for the info, y'all!

We do have "itchy medicine" (hydrocortisone) all over the house, and in the car, in my purse... LOL... Comes with living in the South and being allergic to mosquitos. I've been having her put Neosporin on them, too. Does it sound like we're doing the right thing? I'm hoping they will just heal up on their own if she can leave them alone.

No, there's not been anything new at all. We have a theory. She is allergic to mosquito bites (in addition to latex). Both the mosquito and latex allergies are skin allergies, meaning she gets hives and/or redness. I'm wondering if these didn't start as mosquito bites that she scratched. Then, as they became sores, she put bandaids on them which might have caused the swelling. This is worse than she's had before, which is why I'm not sure.

I looked up some pics of contact dermatitis, and that looks a lot like her spots. I do wonder where it might have come from, though (if, of course, that's what it is). Thankfully what I found online indicates that it will usually clear up on its own in a couple of weeks. I had to Google that one. DD's sores don't look nearly so oozy and blistered as what impetigo appears to be.

Okay, Dr. Hive, I need you. DD has about seven of these sores on her legs (and one on her side). They are about the size of a nickle to a quarter, itch "a little bit," and look very raw. Some of them look swollen, though that could be from the Band-Aids she had on them (she's allergic to latex, so Band-Aids cause some redness and swelling). Any idea what in the world they are? She said they just seemed to appear. She doesn't remember getting any scrapes or anything.

Luckily, we have a couple of friends who would be happy to help, including a neighbor right across the street. I also have a very good friend who agreed to be the go-to person for the kids, who will come and stay with them and be "me" until someone else can get here. But, he wouldn't know anything about my bank or calling my work or how to reach my family or things like that. Hence the binder.

Thanks, everyone! Looks like I have some work to do.

I'm not even sure what to call this thread. I'm a single mom with no family nearby, and I got to thinking the other night about what would happen if something dreadful were to befall me. What would my kids do? Who would they call who could get here in less than 24 hours? And even then, what would my family do? How would my brother know how to access info on my computer, for example? When my dad died, we had the password to his computer, and it was a godsend. But even with that, there was a still a lot of stuff we had to figure out for my mom. So I started thinking that maybe I need to put together some type of "in case of emergency" household binder so my kids would know where to look if something were to happen to me. But what would I include in this book? Are there downloadable forms or something to help me know what information should be included? What does the Hive think? Do you guys have such a binder/plan? What should be included? Where might I look for forms, etc.? TIA!

Violet Michelle

I don't know the answer to your question, but according to the article, one student who was interviewed already has three job offers, so there must be a need. ETA: I just saw on their website that 90% of their graduates are working, too.

It brings to mind the speech from The American President: "America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms." I disagree with Kaepernick, and I disagree with not standing for the national anthem, but it would be hypocritical of me to not support his right to self-expression if I expect to have the right to mine.

I would report. Whether or not it is technically plagiarism, he still isn't doing his own work, and if the class is fairly large (or if the instructor is teaching multiple sections) s/he may not notice that his sources are exactly the same as yours. In any case, I think the instructor would want to know (and I'd be angry enough to report it because darn it, I DID my work!) so s/he could look into it further. ETA: Even if this isn't technically cheating, this is guy is copying someone else's work. And if he's doing it here, he may be doing it in other classes and in other ways, too.