I think this is hysterically funny, but it's full of objectionable language and may easily offend...

Mark it down... the people at the camp and the people at the radio tower are a day or so away and won't be seeing each other for a long time. Jin/Sun Rose/Bernard Sawyer/Kate Jack/Juliet Charlie(?)/Claire and of course Desmond/Penny - all these couples are all split up and will be for the immediate future. Not a spoiler... a guess.

A lack of money and a desire to join the workforce is a legitiamte reason to quit. Finding your life is too hectic to do a good job and you're constantly fallig behind is a reason. I can see how space is so limitingthat it affects things but I would think it could be overcome.

This is the link in China my wife and I use to watch episodes of House http://so.ku6.com/video_do@key_%E8%B1%AA%E6%96%AF%E5%8C%BB%E7%94%9F@by_@p_8

Hmm ... could be.... maybe taking photos of the girl performing the work at critical places along the way would help.

Agreed. Whatever works, run with it (or limp with it- whatever).

It's hard to judge if you were treated fairly without seeing your DD's project and that of the other students nor the answers and explainations of the projects or the rules. Also you're the only source we have for what happened. You're in a tough spot because lots of folks who didn't win likely felt they did. The judges are chosing stuff largely based on personal opinion so maybe hidden stuff like smiling and engaging personalities play a part in their deisions. Who knows? Do you feel they had a personal bias against you before or during the judging? Did they explain their selections?

Strange, I hear Asian people too... oh wait that's my wife talking to her brother in the living room.

Maybe being born poor wasn't such a bad thing. We bought new stuff at Kmart or Sears otherwise it was garage sales and thrift stores. Never had good stuff, never did a lot of things. Never asked, knew there wasn't any money. Even going to college, I went in the Army, never asked my family for stuff. But my parents did put me into the local parochial school and when I eventually transfered into the public school, I noticed the big difference in lack of quality and how far ahead I was. So I swore I'd never ut my kids in the public school. So when the Army money ran out, I turned to loans for med-school but couldn't do it and dropped out with a massive debt. Girlfriend promptly dumped me. I had doctor student loans and no money so I ..... bailed ... moved to China. I still owe tons of money but I can't begin to repay and I can't bankrupt out of student loan debt so I just ignore it. And life has been great. I have a good job with plenty of disposable income, my wife (who had been working obscene hours in a real estate company, routinely 70-80 hours, when I met her- Chinese companies work their employees like dogs with) stays home and does not at all miss the rat race. We're living an upper middle class Chinese lifestyle, which is much better than either of us had growing up, on one income. So, yeah, things are going well for us. We're really appy and satisfied. But I have always been frugal and done without, it's second nature to me and those life lessons of being poor yet content have paid off for me. I don't know that others could be satisfied living like this.

I like the choices. I think any of Obama, McCain, or Hillary would be fine presidents. Infinatly better than the embarassing incompetent we have today. Just not Romney, he's too much of a two faced flip flopper and would say and do anything to get elected. Much worse than anyone we've ever seen before. And that's too bad because I respect his business acumen and his talents in saving the Olympics. Huckabee and Guiliani aren't finished yet. Edwards is. Sadly, Ron Paul is too far outside the Republican mainstream to get traction.

Ah, like my wife. She worked insane hours for years making good money. Doesn't miss it at all. Soulless, high stress. She still turns down job offers and does something part time every so often. We can, and do, live off of one income and don't worry about money as it's sufficient for us. I wish everybody were so lucky, but we really do feel fortunate.

I've got it listed on each post: Chengdu, China. You can modify it in your usercontol panel if you so choose. Right now it's 10:17 PM

For those that think "Oh it's not us they're talking about, it's the women that put their kids in school and stay at home that they're talking about" I disagree. I'm not going to mince words, I think they were talking about Amy. That's why it hurt Amy and twisted her in knots. Now posting as I do here on page five I have the benefit none of the rest of you have of reading Amy's experience from the day after. She wrote this ***** I think there will always be a divide among us, but at least they both realized that they'd crossed a line. I dunno. I think if you are a mom, it's all stressful no matter how you choose to live your life. And, like everything else, the grass is always greener on the other side. Thanks everyone for being my sounding board last night. I was really down. I DO believe dh and I have made the right choice and, while it's not for everyone, I think we will be able to look down the road 20 years from now and feel that we did the right thing. ***** Had I gotten the chance I'd like to say just that and I think she handled it well. We all make choices. We all delibertly chose to homeschool. Most families exist on two incomes, those of us that chose to homeschool (mostly all) live on one know that money will be tighter, that people may not accept our decision- either through jealousy or condencension. We made that decision because we consider it the best one for our family. Our kids are better off being taught at home and if we don't feel we were doing a good job or that it's worth the trouble, we know where the public schools are. A second income woud be nice, but we'd rather teach at home, we think that's best for our family and we make the necessary sacrifices to make that happen. I think you're all wonderful and outstanding. I think you made a great choice, if not a difficult one. Toughen up and defend yourselves, people.

If you could wrap your schedule around a part time job to suppliment your income that would make sense. Of course it depends on what you are qualified to do, if you could find work, and if the money is actually worth the time it would take to do it. I have a friend with an infant son that was feeling depressed about not working just this past week. Sounded just like you. Fotunatly as luck would have it, a nearby community college needed a last minute part time instructor for Basic Writing 057 which would only require an hour and a half on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. Perfect. Point being if you have some resumes out there, maybe something could open up for you too.

What is it around here that I always find myself to be the contrairian? Please excuse my rant before it begins because even though sometimes I think you're all whack, I have deep respect for you all. We have a four page thread about vaccinations and I'm the only one that fully vaccinates. We have a thread about discipline and I think most here are too strict. We have a thread about silly baby shower games and you all get huffy and serious, because -oh- unwinding and doing funny stuff with friends is so beneath you. Now we're on page two of a thread about a 9 and 10 y/o that want to take a day trip to the mall and everybody is lke "oh that's cute." Yeah it's amuzing... but still dagerous. I'm thinking they're still a few years too young for that - I don't mind teenagers going to the mall unsupervised-, how about explaining why that's not a very good idea and try to come up with a different thing or at least a more safe version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. :confused: ((I can't believe with all the control freaks around here that I'm the only one putting my foot down. How did that happen?))

My duaghter has been fully vaccinated on the recommended schedule since her birth. We've no hesitation in doing it whatsoever. It does really hurt my heart to watch as pain is deliberatly inflicted on her but the benefits far outweigh the risks. IMO. Since I don't want to make waves, I had best stop typing now.

Hey, how did you get that emoticon in here?

Uh... there's tons of possible causes for eczema, has a doctor already narrowed it down to a food alergy towards chocolate as the cause? Or are you still okking at possible caused. It can be really hard to diagnose the cause of eczema, may not even be a food. dust mold pollen. In winter if the air is dry with little moisture, it could be that too. You say she had a bad breakout in the last couple of days, was that after she gourged on the chocolate or while the breakout was going on?

It's either a poor, extremely flawed attempt to demonstrate a downward spiral of interconnecting events or an attempt at humor that I don't undertand.

66 - What can I say, I live in China and I'm a stay-at-home person. This is what I like to do.

All the talking heads are in line behind this- The chairman of the Fed, Ben Beranke, President Bush, Congressional Dems, and Congressional GOP. And, asyou all know, they can never agree on anything. The thing is with the declining value of the currency, the trade and budget deficit, the collapse of the housing bubble, and the panic on Wall Street and international stock exchanges, the US is -maybe- on the cusp of a major recession. So they're pulling out all the stops to prevent this from happening. The full mechanics of the rebate haven't been ironed out, the president has submitted a plan, Congress will finagle with it and send it back to him. It really looks like all sides are getting in line to support it. The idea is to pum $150 billion into the economy now. Quickly. Hopefully people use the money to buy stuff, the vendor buys stuff with the money he got from his customer, etcetera, hopefully the $150 billion filters through the economy exchanges hands many times over and prevents the recession everybody is worried about. Where wil the money come from? Government Debt, it'll be borrowed and paid for by future taxpayers. The government owes $9.2 trillion dollars right now. After this injection, it'll be $9.35+ trillion plus whatever the deficit is this year. We as taxpayers will continue to pay the interest and compound interest on that money into the future. Divide $9.35 trillion by 300 million Americans and we each owe the interest on $31,000 off the top of taxes each year. Fortunatly the interest rate the government pays is low.

Massage the neck gently along the muscles, apply presure points where it's particularly tense and see a chiropractor. I'm not one for pill popping, but to each his/her own.

My favorite Monty Python skit- The Dead Parrot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GipFyAsYK1M&NR=1

The other day somebody was having trouble getting her dishwasher to work. At the end of my post I wrote: "if all else fails read the instructions". It was supposed to be funny, but a half hour or so later I worried it could be interpreted as "Read the manual, dummy" so I went back in and added a smiley. :p

Entering my 20th year of being 16.