Chili-rubbed grilled pork chops with a pineapple-jalapeño salsa, wild rice pilaf, green beans.

My grandmother raised 12 children in the deep woods of Alabama by herself after my grandfather died of black lung when the 12th child was only a year old. 12 children. 9 boys, 3 girls. By herself. They had no electricity and no indoor plumbing. 2 of the boys became pastors. 6 of them began a very lucrative logging company. That 12th child became the first person in our family's history to graduate from college. 2 of the girls became nurses. 1 of them is my mom. :D In addition, my grandmother read the bible all the way through every year for the last 15 years of her life. She is in heaven now sitting at the feet of the Almighty. Not too shabby for someone who never made it past the 8th grade. .

:iagree: there are places I let my 7yo go by himself. No problem. But there are others that I would never dream of letting him go in alone.

It is 8pm and it is about 85 degrees outside. :D

Thank you!!!!!!!

Our pediatrician in the states told us to alternate children's motrin and children's tylenol when the kids have a high fever. I can't get either here. What I do have is children's panadol and children's advil. Does anyone know if the same thing...alternating them... works with high fevers (102)? This is for my 2yo dd.

I make him pick them up when they are done playing.

:iagree:

That is wonderful! Congrats!!

This is the difference I see in Malaysia. People don't sue over every little thing and when you do file suit the awards are very small in comparison. The government actually has decided how much each of your body parts are worth. So if you lose an arm then you get X dollars, a leg is X dollars, etc. There are no pain and suffering or punitive damages in the millions like in the U.S. So for instance, the lawyer showed us that a broken neck (like my dh had) was worth $10,000 USD, then they reimbursed our hospital expenses and time off work and it ended up at $17,000. There is no extra money thrown in to compensate for loss of quality of life due to permanent damage. To be fair, one category you left out are the doctors who scam the system for money. I worked for one. Someone would come in with, for example, a cold. He would order a chest X-ray and that is supposed to include a certain amount and type of views. BUT he would only have me do one view and he charged the insurance company for all the views. Saved time, saved X-ray film expense, made him money. Then he would do every procedure even remotely related even though they were totally unnecessary and charge for it. He made a mint for about 20 years until someone turned him in for insurance fraud. My mother is a medical biller and has worked for about 10 different doctors and they ALL did this kind of thing. They look at it as "getting back" at the insurance companies. .

We are waiting. As long as we live here, ds can't get a license until his 18yo. :D

That is a complicated answer. In many ways, yes but in some ways, no. And also, the island I live on, in addition to Kuala Lumpur, are pretty expensive but the rest of the country is not. Overall, with the currency conversion, we make less than we did in the states for the same kind of work but our standard of living is much higher. So I suppose the general answer is that the cost of living is cheaper. Clear as mud? :tongue_smilie:

I haven't seen or spoken to my father in 12 years. It is mutual. I went through stages of pain, disbelief, anger. Now I am indifferent. He has not seen my oldest ds since he was a baby. He has never met my other two children. It's his loss.

My ds really enjoyed the Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing series from Judy Blume as well as the Spiderwick Chronicles and Magic Tree House series.

Ugh. My ds had this back in August. It took a good 6 weeks for him to recover. :grouphug::grouphug:

Yep. We get excellent healthcare here for a fraction of the cost. My dh was in a motorcycle accident here and broke his neck. He was in traction for several days and has had multiple CT scans, MRIs, X-rays, treatments, medication, and consultations with specialists, etc. His total bill was about $5000 USD and our insurance covered it. People travel from all over to come here for medical treatment. I took my amah to have a tooth pulled at the dentist. Office visit, novacaine, tooth extraction, pain meds... All together cost me $20 USD without insurance. And Malaysia does not have socialized medicine. I am really not sure how they keep costs so low to be honest although my guess is that it has to do with malpractice suits. They do not give multi million dollar lawsuits here for medical issues. For instance, the insurance company paid us about $17,000 USD total for my dh's accident and he is permanently injured. If this had happened in the states we would have gotten a lot more money. But the government caps lawsuits here. So that means malpractice insurance costs less. Maybe that has something to do with it? .

Reading IS what calms me down. I would never be able to sleep at night if I didnt read.

:grouphug: Similar but not the same... My dh broke his neck in a motorcycle accident 1.5 years ago. He is lucky to be alive and not paralyzed. But he has permanent damage and disability that he is not coping well with. He was an athlete and avid weight trainer. Very active lifestyle. Now there are very few things he is allowed to do because of his damaged vertebrae. Rather than a poor me attitude, he has chosen denial. So he continuously puts himself in situations that he has been forbidden by the doctor to ever be in lest he end up paralyzed for life. He says he can't "live in fear". That sounds noble but in actuality it is irresponsible. That's like a diabetic refusing to take their insulin because they don't want to be tied down with daily injections. So we argue about it and even when I win the argument, I lose because he holds it against me. "no honey, I do not think rock climbing or football are good activities for you to engage in this weekend since all it would take is one good shove and you are paralyzed forever." That makes me a nag who lives in fear? Whatever. So yeah, in some ways I get what you are saying. My easy-going dh is a lot more angry and depressed than he used to be. I think he should be grateful he is alive and we just can't seem to see eye to eye on this. :glare: .

I am grateful for the new Burger King that just opened up on this island.... First one ever!

So then we have America's schools failing all the way back to at least 1920. And compulsory education only began in the 1850's. So was it any good between 1850-1920? Or is the whole "compulsory public education for all" idea just one big failed experiment? .

:grouphug::grouphug:

All these threads about public education got me thinking... The overall consensus is that America's schools in general are failing (yes, I know there are some shining spots out there but this is a generalized notion). The watershed report "A Nation at Risk" was published in 1983 but the study was done from 1976-1981. And the results were that America's schools were failing. Then I think back to the whole "Sputnik" era in the late 50's and the big push to "reform" education. In 1956 they were failing. In 1976 and 1986 they were failing. In 1996 and 2006 they were failing and in 2012 they are failing the reports say. So my question is: when is the last time America's schools were NOT failing? When were they GOOD? What does "failing" mean? And how will we know when they are no longer failing? .

I graduated in 1988. My parents were not involved in my education whatsoever other than my mom telling me that I must go to college so I dont have to rely on a man to support me. I was a 4.0 student and I graduated college with highest honors and I have two master's degrees. I love my parents but none of that is due to their influence. They didn't go to conferences, didn't check my report card, didn't ask if I had homework. The only reason I did well was that I was self-motivated. My two brothers are not self-motivated and neither of them did well in school or went to college and both of them are not very successful today. It is strange that this thread is coming up now. I was just thinking about this as I try to navigate high school and college options for my ds in the future. I did everything for myself and I am sure there was so much more I could have done to help myself out financially for college but I just didn't know what to do as a 17yo and parents didn't help. So I graduated with loads of student loans. I will not do that to my child.

:iagree: