Wow. I had none of these problems. The difference in being "independent" for financial aid reasons was whether or not my parents were claiming me as a dependent on their taxes and if they were providing for my insurance. As long as I had my own insurance and my parents did not claim me as a dependent on their taxes, it was a piece of cake to file as independent for FAFSA purposes. And I may be in the minority here but I don't think parents should be required or even expected to pay for college for their kids. If they can, and they choose to then great. But EXPECTED? Isn't that the problem with today's youth? They are a generation of entitlement...they think they have everything coming to them. My parents did not pay for any of my three degrees and dh and I have already made the decision that our kids will pay for their own college and if/when they graduate, we will THEN give them the money back (or pay off the student loans). I watched so many of my friends fail classes left and right because their parents were paying for it so who cares? While I OTOH never failed a class because I did not want to have to pay for it again!

When I was in college I worked in a hospital in the cardiology department mostly doing EKGs all day long all over the hospital. Late one a 45yo man was brought in having chest pains. He was in full blown cardiac arrest. I hooked my EKG machine to his chest while the doctors did thier thing and I watched his heartbeat stop on my screen. I was frozen in place staring at it. A little bit later I walked by the room where the doctor was telling the man's wife and young children that the father was dead. I watched them scream.cry. fall to their knees. I quit the next day.

A friend once told me there are no good decisions or bad decisions...just decisions. He said it is like golf...you don't spend time thinking about your last shot, you just concentrate on the next one. Life is too short for regret.

So then her experience was more of a Somali clan issue than a Muslim issue? The FGM made me so ill I had to put the book down for a few days. I get what you are saying about local practices taking their faith to an extreme. I think I was just wondering if this a "common" example of the life of a Muslim woman (I realize we can't say ALL are like that...but what is the percentage? 25%? 50%? 75%?). If her experience is really more related to a small number of Somalian Muslim women then it really did not come across that way in the book.

OK, i admit that I am not a techno genius but are you saying that someone can turn on MY webcam from another computer and take pics of me without me knowing it? Really? How?

I am almost done with this book and wow...it is heart-breaking. I have been looking her up on the internet and I see there are a lot of people who hate her for her criticism of the way Muslim women are treated. So I just have to wonder if all she wrote is true (yes I know she lied to get political asylum...not my point)...everything I read, from the female genital mutilation to the way the mothers beat their kids and the husbands beat their wives and everything else that goes along with it...is this true? Is it exaggerated? Is it an African Muslim thing only? It really upset me. I live in a Muslim country and I can't help but look at the Muslim women I pass on the street and wonder if her experience is their experience, you know? It breaks my heart to think it. :confused:

Well Princess Natalie is only 4 months old but dh and I decided she will get her ears pierced (if she wants it) when she starts her period...like a rite of passage. :D

My originals for both degrees are stored in a firesafe box. But I had them both bronzed and put on a wooden plaque and they hang in my office at work.

Well, I don't know if it qualifies as a hobby club but I used to go to the Friday night crop at my local scrapbook store every week. We women would get together and work on our "hobby" and chat about all kinds of things. I lived for Friday night! :D Then one woman started bringing her pre-teen daughter (I think she was 11 or 12). This daughter loved scrapbooking and was quite good at it...but... Suddenly, everyone clammed up because no one wanted to have woman talk in front of a child. The nights became sort of a drag and several people stopped going or chose a different place that had a no-child rule. Now every situation is different...but if there are 100 people in your meetings and you are the ONLY ONE bringing a child...well, honestly, I'm surprised this has never come up before. I would not give up a hobby I loved but I would consider finding or starting a KID'S gardening club and continue going to your club solo.

I just wanted to say that even though my daughter is only 3 months old...I AM SO EXCITED that I finally have a reason to read a thread like this!!!! :D

We really liked it too but I will watch pretty much anything that has Robert Downey Jr. in it (or Johnny Depp).

:iagree: :iagree: and :lol: My bedroom is used for so many things that are anything but restful...like wrestling with the kids...watching movies cuddled together... today my 6yo was painting in there. It's more of a multi-purpose room! :D

We have a Wii, both boys have a DS, they both play on the computer and my oldest wants an xbox for his birthday. They tend to limit themselves without me stepping in. Both of my boys have learned tons from playing educational games, have had a blast together playing non-educational games and now my oldest is creating his own videogames using gamemaker software on his computer. We are in the technology age and we make good use of it. I know people who think it is somehow more "virtuous" if all their children's toys are made of wood. I guess if that makes them happy then fine. But I heard a conference speaker once say something that has always stuck with me.... It was an educational conference. The room was filled with hundreds of teachers and principals. He asked us to raise our hand if we had ever played a board game with a child and "let" them win. Almost every hand went up. Then he asked "How many of you have ever played a videogame with a child and had to let them win." No one's hand went up. That was a pivotal moment for me. For better or for worse, this IS the technology age and right then I decided to stop fighting it and start making it work FOR me and my kids. ;)

PM'd you.

move to Malaysia adopt two children become a principal

Thank you! He is such a good big brother!

You were all so wonderful walking me through the highs and lows of adopting Natalie here in Malaysia. She just turned 3 months old. I can't believe how fast time flies! Well the time has come for our first court date to finalize her adoption. It is this Friday (Good Friday...how appropriate!) at 2:45pm. I am nervous because it is a Muslim court and we received papers from the attorney telling me exactly how I am supposed to dress when there. :blink: I just feel apprehensive of the unknown, you know? If you feel led, please pray for us that this will go smoothly and that Natalie Sarah will be officially ours very soon! And of course there are plenty of new pics of her on my blog in case you are dying to see how cute she is now! :D

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

I read an interesting blog post about this topic. Here is an excerpt: “Teenager†and “adolescence†as representing a distinct stage of life were very much 20th-century inventions, brought into being by changes in mass education, child labor laws, urbanization and suburbanization, mass consumerism, and the media. Similarly, a new, distinct, and important stage in life, situated between the teenage years and full-fledged adulthood, has emerged in our culture in recent decades—reshaping the meaning of self, youth, relationships, and life commitments as well as a variety of behaviors and dispositions among the young. What has emerged from this new situation has been variously labeled “extended adolescence,†“youthhood,†“adultolescence,†“young adulthood,†the “twenty-somethings,†and “emerging adulthood.†One way of describing this group is to highlight the tendency to delay adulthood or stay in the youth mindset longer than we used to. Smith suggests the following causes for this delay in arriving at mature, responsible adulthood. First is the growth of higher education. The GI Bill, changes in the American economy, and government subsidizing of community colleges and state universities led in the second half of the last century to a dramatic rise in the number of high school graduates going on to college and university. More recently, many feel pressured—in pursuit of the American dream—to add years of graduate school education on top of their bachelor’s degree. As a result, a huge proportion of American youth are no longer stopping school and beginning stable careers at age 18 but are extending their formal schooling well into their twenties. And those who are aiming to join America's professional and knowledge classes—those who most powerfully shape our culture and society—are continuing in graduate and professional school programs often up until their thirties. A second and related social change crucial to the rise of emerging adulthood is the delay of marriage by American youth over the last decades. Between 1950 and 2000, the median age of first marriage for women rose from 20 to 25 years old. For men during that same time the median age rose from 22 to 27 years old. The sharpest increase for both took place after 1970. Half a century ago, many young people were anxious to get out of high school, marry, settle down, have children, and start a long-term career. But many youth today, especially but not exclusively men, face almost a decade between high school graduation and marriage to spend exploring life's many options in unprecedented freedom. A third major social transformation contributing to the rise of emerging adulthood as a distinct life phase concerns changes in the American and global economy that undermine stable, lifelong careers and replace them instead with careers of lower security, more frequent job changes, and an ongoing need for new training and education. Most young people today know they need to approach their careers with a variety of skills, maximal flexibility, and readiness to re tool as needed. That itself pushes youth toward extended schooling, delay of marriage, and, arguably, a general psychological orientation of maximizing options and postponing commitments. Finally, and in part as a response to all of the above, parents of today’s youth, aware of the resources often required to succeed, seem increasingly willing to extend financial and other support to their children, well into their twenties and even into their early thirties. The characteristics of the 18-30 year-olds that these four factors produce include: (1) identity exploration, (2) instability, (3) focus on self, (4) feeling in limbo, in transition, in-between, and (5) sense of possibilities, opportunities, and unparalleled hope. These, of course, are also often accompanied by big doses of transience, confusion, anxiety, self-obsession, melodrama, conflict, and disappointment. for the rest of the article: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/2007/2487_A_ChurchBased_Hope_for_Adultolescents/

darn...mine was #27. :D

5! I love my kindle!

:iagree:

yep. I believe it is called "honeymoon cystitis" :D. Treat it as you would treat a UTI. And if there are no more long breaks between tea times you should be fine.

platelet rich plasma therapy cured me

OMG... that is so funny!!