I was the first one in my family to graduate highschool. I'm also the only one so far to have even attended and then graduate University. I come from a poor, working class background and always felt like it was my secret shame. I did have extra.obstacles to overcome in my education but they weren't anything significant enough to blame success or failure on. I have definitely seen in many working class families and even in my own family with my younger siblings the tendency to minimise the importance of a university education. I think this is perhaps the most significant factor in why lower socio-economic people graduate at consistently lower rates than high socio economic classes. It's the expectations and conditioning they receive at home. I never partied - never was my thing, ever - and I associated with people, who had similar standards to me, regardless of economic background. As an adult, I have definitely risen out of the poverty I grew up in. As a female I think the man I married played an important part in that. He too was the first to graduate university in his family (although his brother did also concurrently). However, I believe I attracted him to me and I was attracted to him because we were 'like each other'. I believe we attract and are attracted to people 'like us' and that also plays into the poverty cycle. I knew I wanted to marry within my faith. Where I lived, most young men within my faith were of a different ethnic and cultural background to me and most had only graduated high school, and probably not very successfully. Is it just coincidence that I married one of the few men who were of the same ethnic, cultural background as me and who was also one of the few to have graduated university, like me? I doubt it. Not that I was being discriminatory in any way, just that people feel comfortable and can relate best to people 'like them'. It was my grandmother - who dropped out of school in the 8th grade - that taught me to want a higher education and to have the drive to succeed. It was also her who instilled in me throughout the years, the belief that despite my lack of money and background, I was just as good socially, morally, academically etc as anyone with money. And despite my secret shame for being poor, I always felt that I could and would associate with anyone of any class. Perhaps SHE was my support at home that the rich kids have and the poor kids lack. She was probably the REAL reason I was able to rise above my poor background.

I started out by making myself a green juice in the evenings, simply to add more nutrition to my diet. It stopped my cravings for dessert which was an unexpected advantage. About a month later I stumbled upon the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. I wondered....should I give it a go....thinking I,d try for ten days or something...and all just for the heck of it. It went so well, I just kept going and going. I went for over 100 days. I've since done a few shorter term juice fasts...30 days, 2 weeks, 1 week etc. We drink at least a litre of green juice every morning as a part of our normal diet now. My hubby especially, can't seem to survive for more than 2 days without his morning juice lol. He's more of a convert than me! My grandmother had low iron and the doc told her to come back in a month to get her her levels rechecked. She did 3 weeks of drinking green juices and very little meat, went back to have her blood checked and her levels were up. I LOVE GREEN JUICE!!!! A lot of people have fears related to green juice fasting but they really are unwarranted. Especially for short term fasts. Once people get over their fears, it makes a lot of sense. What is more nutritious than tons and tons of vegetables and fruit that is absorbed straight into your blood stream within 15 minutes!? Who needs things like Gatorade with all it's additives and colors when you can have beautiful, nutritious green juice made from fresh fruits and veggies.

To the degree that I have investigated conspiracy theories - yes, I have absolutely checked and considered the sources, citations etc! That was exactly my point in the beginning when I said to be cautious of who you listen to! As for the Bin Laden saga...no I never checked anything because I never researched anything beyond hearing a few news clips. When I raised the topic of Bin Laden, I was just off handedly mentioning how it had raised some passing questions in my mind. I'm not interested in pursuing it any further. To be honest, I feel like your picking a point with the wrong person because I don't care enough about conspiracy theories to hold a solid position.

And that was EXACTLY my point when I said we can't truly know what is fact or fiction. Ok, ok, I promise to not give in to the temptation to refresh this thread today. Lol :-) Take care all.

Chocolatereign, maybe some DNA testing by various sources would have been a good place to start. But as I said in my previous comment, i'm not really into this topic enough to go on and on about it, so I'll bow out here, with the reiteration of my original post in this thread.....and that was...yes, I do believe that there are some rich and influential people/organisations in the world who try to manipulate things for their own greedy purposes but I don't think it is on some hugely organised, secret and long standing level. I also believe in being very cautious in believing conspiracy theories. My interest is simply in trying to watch out for where my freedoms are being eroded and vote accordingly.

Lol...well I certainly agree about not wasting to much of my time over discussing things that are less important to me. So yep...I'm going to go spend my time on something that is important to me and that is to teach my kids to be analytical, critical thinkers who have their eyes wide open. Thanks for the reminder to get my day back on task red squirrel.

Of course the Why's don't hold any weight in terms of evidence for wrong doing. I never claimed they did. I also don't automatically think there was something under handed going on. But Bin Laden wasn't just some crazy gunman running down the street who got shot down and killed by policemen. He was supposedly the cause of an expensive, long standing war on terriorism, that involved people and organisations from all over the world, that cost people their lives and changed the face of society in how we live our lives. When someone has such a far reaching effect upon the world as Bin Laden did, I think it makes sense for the people to be provided more resolution than a few unverified facts and a quick disposal of his body. Maybe it was something as simple as the reasons people have been discussing here but it still doesn't add up to me. Going by how things of this nature are generally treated in western society, it doesn't follow pattern. But then....I'm not going to spend my life fretting over something I have no control over either. So ultimately, it's a moot point to me about what did or did not happen. It's just one of those things you go hmmmm over and then move on. :-)

Yes, I do think I'm the average layman. I have no skills in analysing photographs for inconsistencies or military tactics in the middle east, of terrain and climate and weaponry or of ballistics, or aircraft engineering or bomb powder patterns or how to bring down a building in it's own footprint or, or, or.....the list could on and on. We're all laymen depending on the expertise of others. Yes, I could spend the rest of my life becoming expert in all these areas and then using my knowledge to analyse what information I can gather together and verify as being accurate.....but....why would I want to when I have limited capacity to do much about whatever results I might find and when I am busy trying to homeschool my children and raise my family and be a good wife, daughter, friend etc. We each have to choose how to spend our time in our lives, and while keeping my eyes wide open is something I am willing to do, chasing around conspiracy theories to the enth degree is something I am not.

Actually that reminds me.....when they supposedly caught, killed and disposed of Bin Laden...things just didn't add up. Why did we not see more evidence of it? Why was his body thrown into the sea so quickly? Since when did the American government and military care so much about Bin Laden's spiritual beliefs that they wanted to honour the rites of them so swiftly? Shouldn't there have been some sort of autopsy or some sort of fanfare hailing their success first? Something weird there.....

I will consider everything but leave the jury out most times. We have so little ability to determine what is true and what isn't. I tend to think something as long standing and highly organised as the illuminati, isn't real but I definitely think there are rich and influential people/organisations that are pushing, scheming and manipulating as much a they can. The push for a one world government is treated almost nonchalantly among some journalists and politicians, like it is common knowledge, a given and only a matter of time. I believe the push for the Euro was a step towards it but, lately it seems to be back firing a bit, in that some of the european nations and people want to get out of it. I wouldn't be surprised that the recent world financial difficulties were massaged and encouraged to happen by the elite....again in an effort to push for a one world government and economic system. I have seen some pretty compelling evidence that 9/11 was orchestrated by powerful American organisations but I haven't really given equal time to the other side of the argument, so I won't bet my life on that theory or anything. I definitely do think thqt many things have arisen out of 9/11 that are advantageous to the elite - particularly their ability to keep surveillance on people. So yes, I do believe in conspiracy theories BUT I think when listening to people who are into them you always need to keep your thinking hat on and your eyes wide open. Some of them get so deep into it that they see conspiracies everywhere and in everything. Also in this day and age when it is hard for the average layman to figure out fact from fiction on the internet (due to computer technology) we have to approach anything controversial with at least some degree of skepticism. What I have learnt most of all is that we need to be conscientious voters and we need to watch carefully for policies and procedures in our everyday life which could lead to reduced freedoms.

I think that's true. I'm always surprised when women push for inductions - makes me think they've obviously never experienced one before - well at least not after a natural birth anyway. Probably because women have fewer children these days and therefore have had less experiences to compare with. And probably the tendency to see birth as a medical event rather than a natural event. I refused to be induced with my last (fifth baby) - that's how I got past the big '14 days overdue and we'll induce you' cut off point - because I knew what i'd be in for and I didn't want to go there if I didn't have to. Actually, I can't really say that ALL inductions are worse than a natural birth. My 2nd baby was induced and was my worst experience but my third baby, I was also given a pitocin drip but that was after my water had broken by itself and that was my easiest/quickest birth. I think the difference is in how ready your body is when they induce. First induction, I had had no signs of readiness.

Wow, thats kinda cool and crazy at the same time. lol Goes to show that the body will do it when it decides I guess. Again....would the medical establishment let that happen now? Probably not, straight in for a c-section in most, if not all cases, I would think.

How long ago was that? When I went over with my first child my OB told me that his son was born 4 weeks late also but that was at least 30 years ago now. The medical establishment get very antsy now....would they even let women do that now without tons of fear mongering I wonder?

I was also thinking they should have leaked a false due date that was a month AFTER her real one. Only way for the poor girl to get some peace. As for going overdue.....I'm hereby throwing down the gauntlet....who can beat me? (Winner gets to feel that all those extra miserable weeks were worth it. lol) 10 days over (more like 17 though, going by my dead certain dates & how cooked she looked) 14 days over, induced 4 days over 10 days over 15 days over For sanity's sake I'm expecting to reach 42 weeks again this time, anything sooner will be a pleasant surprise.

I don't consider myself fruitarian or fully raw but I have definitely played with it and consider myself to be 'high raw'. I am actually terribly inactive at the moment - kinda using the excuse of pregnancy - but I was reasonably active before I became pregnant. My hubby (oops thats a word some don't like here lol) is also high raw and pretty active. There are plenty of athletic fruitarians/raw foodists on the net. I don't know if I meet the criteria you're looking for but....feel free to PM me if you'd like to. :-)