Name one of your most gratifying moments.

It would have to be when I got accepted into English International as a student. I was living in Los Angeles at the time and wanted to take this extensive 6 week course in teaching English as a language. It was a difficult program to get into as it required, among other things, that prospective students have a minimum of a Bachelors degree and speak at least one other language fluently (I met neither of those criteria).

Knowing that I would be disqualified from attendance if I went through the traditional channels of enrollment I elected to fly into San Francisco for a day and presented myself at the school in person. Long and short of it: I met with the school's director and he was so impressed with my determination that he allowed me to go thought the usual pre-qualification testing. I passed, and was accepted into the school despite my other dis-qualifiers.

1. The moment I gave birth to Elsie.

2. The day (just in the past three years) that my Dad told me he was proud of me. 

3. When I graduated school as a medical assistant with a 93 average. 

Learning to trust and beleveing in myself ,

 And buying our first house ,

Watching my daughter grow up happy, healthy and really clever!

Delivering a very premature baby, soon realising it wasn't alive, having to resus her..........getting to hospital and hearing her crying!!!  this was a long time ago, and mother and baby still doing well!! that was a nice feeling!!

Any sucsessful resus!

Oh and hearing my camper running again after 12 months off the road!!

All my life, my sister was catered to as not being quite adequate mentally, because she liked to died when she was born, she was always an person that had medical problems, made an lot of them herself, an lot like myself right now, always needed some one to "help" her along in life, (we all like that but few of us get it) and we did, there were times she reigned more then my parents in say so around the house. I realize now what an "attachemnt" she makes upon other people until she literally takes their soul away from them(called an psychic vampire)..there is no pleasing her either...she will tell you what to do and you will accept it or she'll drive you crazy otherwise. You can never count on her for help either if you need it. When you think she's at her ugliest, she'll do something unexpecdly "nice" to throw you off. but then turn around and be just as ugly if you try to acknowledge it. I just got her "usual" treatment an bit ago. But you know, she had this rental house all the rest of us were made to take care of... at her convience. she has since lost it, after mother died because everyone let her go it her own, and she didn't make it...I doubt she really cared. But I had been over there with her saying she needed to weed the back yard, which was huge. but when I'd go over there, she'd let me do it saying she was "tired" that she had worked that day...well so had I most likely and twice the hours she had. She had this guy she met, that she claimed "refused" to leave her alone, whom she was kind of dating I guess...my parents had set sister up nicely before my mom passed on.  Well, I had just had my baby son, and I'd gotten out of the hospital and I was over here "weeding" the yard, and her boyfriend came over, and she was holding my son, while I was doing the work..and he took one look at me, and he said, Shirley, you just got out, you should not be doing this, and I said, well someone's got to do it, it will only get worse if it's not done, and he picked up my son out of my sister's lap, and handed him to me and said, it's HER house, it's about time SHE took care of it, you go home with the baby and rest. It made her mad. Well, she finally drove him away and tore her house up so badly she sold it for what she could get out of it...and I think in the process might of wished it on to me and my home in ways...being I'm younger. She just now moved into another apartment, but she won't give me the address to it. She told me because I'd just want to come over and clean it, something she has never done for me without being paid money. So when I saw this thread, it reminded me that there was someone out in the world that saw her for what she really is...most the time.  I had called over there to see if I could use her address for my "curves" class as if you give three people might want an chance for an free trial to it for an month, they will give you the instruction book for free...and got met with an "I'm busy right now, I can't talk to you!"..and she all but hung up on me.  I am getting the feeling for some reason she doesn't want me to see this newest place she living at for some reason either, perhaps because I'm curious as to what her apartment looks like, it's an brand new unit in an huge apartment complex. so goes..scattered we have become. Maybe it was meant to be.

To change the subject, as I ussually do..ahem...smiles*..I just got my monthly newsletter form Jim Berkland, the geologist and earthquake expert in California, on coasttocoastam (talk radio) most the time, he says the next four months are exceedingly high tides, in exceedling short periods of time changes...and he warns us there will be the danger of such weight being distributed... we could see some good sized quakes on the western coast of America the next four months... he sites particuarly June 23.  I tell you this to beware of it, if your visting and on vacation this summer. He says ..the 8.9 ft range on June 23rd comes within 0.3ft of the maxium ever recorded there (San Francisco)..in an 6 hour period this will involve a local shift of water-loading of nearly 9 million tons per square mile..this causes rapid fluctuation in pore-pressure along fault lines and can stimulate release of stored up strain..and sudden movement... that generates earthquakes. The normal value of Golden Gate tidal ranges is in the 4 to 4.5 feet...not 8.9 feet...and of course the gravitational influence will be changing completely in an 6 hour time sequence with all this water weight. Now you can say, you've been forwarned, keep your eyes on the animals and any strange behavior, they ussually tell you ahead of time if possible if there's an earthquake coming. Look for animals "out of place". rats in the street during broad daylight, worms, creepy crawly things, birds leaving their nests, dogs barking, or cats running away suddenly,  or mewing... that sort of thing.  You can ger this newsletter for $2 and send an self-stamped addressed envelope for an "sample"... ask for May 2009..to Jim Berkland, PO Box 1926, Glen Ellen, Ca. 95442,  It's 8 pages of information...so he's not really making an lot of money off them...as they cover his basic expense of doing them. He talks quakes world wide also, not just the USA.