Cymy

I can't tell you whether you can claim your second home as your primary home, but I can tell you that you're almost certainly going to have to pay state income tax regardless if you work in a state that has an income tax. I'll use Massachusetts and New Hampshire as an example. If you live in NH, which has no income tax, and work in MA, which has 5.95% income tax, you still have to pay income tax to MA. However, if you perform your work duties while sitting in NH (for example, if you telecommute), then you don't pay income taxes on any money that you earn while you are physically in NH. If you work one day at home per week in NH and four days in MA, then you don't pay income tax on the 20% of your work that you do while in NH. The Massachusetts non-resident tax return form has a section for this type of situation. I am not a CPA or otherwise licensed to give tax advice and you should certainly consult with a CPA the first year you do your taxes as a non-resident. However, I have been filing my and my husband's taxes like this for the last 10 years that I've lived in NH--my husband works on-call from home about one week per month, so we don't pay MA taxes on the money he earns during those weeks--it is taken out of his paycheck as if he lived in MA but we get it back after filing our MA taxes. My non-CPA advice is don't try to do anything funky to attract the attention of the IRS or the tax department of the state in which you are working. If you want to establish residency in a state make sure that you live there for more than half the year, register to vote there, register your vehicles and any animals there, get a library card, have all your mail including bills sent there (you can pay the post office $10/wk to forward it via Priority Mail anywhere you want), and do anything else necessary to truly establish that you really live there and not in your original condo-home. This includes having the bills for your condo sent to your house in the other state, even if you're staying in your condo. Good luck!

I used this book last semester. It is indeed exactly the same--I bought it from an eBay seller. The cover is orange instead of green and the girl is in a different position, but that's the only difference. Mine came with a subscription to the website, make sure that if you feel like you need the subscription you ensure it is included with your book. It ends up being a way better deal than a used US-printed book without the subscription.

Were you tried and convicted as an adult? If not, then your record should not be public anyway.

Wow... you're lucky to have gotten raises on anniversary dates in the past. I haven't worked in nursing at all yet as I am still a student, but I have 14 years experience in business. Unfortunately in most office jobs the concept of a yearly raise or cost-of-living increase has been dead for years now. You need to be union to get that kind of treatment! I suggest you don't hassle your boss about the raise too much, I doubt that once they realize you're not joking that they will find it funny at all. It may not only jeopardize your current employment but may damage your chances for a good recommendation in the future.

With A&P you would only have to take an additional two credits in order to get financial aid in the form of loans. What about taking an easy class in addition to A&P? When you start nursing you'll have at least 21 hours a week of class anyway (does Manchester do part-time?). My husband makes six figures--I haven't pulled a salary myself for a few years since I sold my business during a very difficult pregnancy. But despite our income, I get Stafford Loans to cover the cost of NHCTC-Nashua full-time plus I get a check back halfway through the semester with enough to cover the cost of books and then some. You only need six credits to be full-time, you may not be able to get the loans in time for the summer semester, but you should be able to get them in time for the fall. Good luck!

Based on your description, it sounds like it's the situation you're in, not the field of nursing or the sub-field of oncology nursing that is the problem. With two years of experience under your belt plus experience as a charge nurse, you should be able to go elsewhere to find a better environment. Good luck!

Yes, my local supermarket is cheaper than the farmers' markets. But, unfortunately, fresh fruits and vegetables are more expensive than canned and frozen. I support 5 children--one I gave birth to and am still breastfeeding at age 3 (so I do worry about what goes into my body as it then goes into his), two I adopted from Russia at ages 8 and 10 years (now 14 and 16), and two that are "foster" kids that I have had for 18 months (15 and 17 years old) but for which I get NO support at all from the state or the birthparents. The state would be giving their mentally disabled BLIND mother foodstamps and welfare if she had them, but she realized after her husband left her for her SISTER, that she just couldn't take care of them so she asked me to take them in order to keep them out of the state's foster care system which might separate them or move them to a location where their mother couldn't easily visit them--since being blind she can't drive. You know what she gets from the government as so-called "Aid to the Needy Blind"??? $26/month! She gets a total of $630 per month from the government plus $56 in foodstamps, she obviously can't work since not only is she blind but she's mentally disabled, and she can't support her kids on that. Rooms in the local bedbug-infested rooming house go for $125/week. Studio apartments start at $600/month. How are people in her position supposed to live? She wasn't always in this situation--the family had been doing OK until things imploded on them, but now she's basically been left "out in the rain." The father is long gone and out of the picture. He's chosen to ignore the kids since last summer, they haven't even gotten Christmas or birthday cards from him, much less any support. I won't pursue him for support because I don't want him to turn around and try to take the kids into an unhealthy environment--at least at my house they have a stable home life. Further, the state won't even provide these kids with health insurance, which they were getting until they moved in with me. My husband makes enough money that we can make ends meet and way too much to even consider applying for welfare, but we can't afford luxuries, especially with me in school. I'm going to school so that in the event that someday my husband dies in a car crash I'll be able to support my family without placing a burden on the state. So please, don't judge if you don't know the whole story. Yes, kids should get fresh fruit, but we adults also need to take care of our bodies so that we can take care of our children. I only posted my earlier message because I was agreeing with a previous poster who commented on how expensive fresh produce is, not to complain about foodstamps.

In my house fruit is a special treat, vegetables are from a can or frozen. If I go out and buy $25 worth of fruit my kids eat it all in two days and I'm lucky if I can get a single banana or apple!

You might both be better off working at different hospitals and living between them--each of you commute 30 minutes rather than one of you an hour. Working in the same place as a significant other can lead to problems of various sorts. Beyond the obvious "bringing the relationship to work" stuff, you may not want to put all your eggs in one basket. For example, my husband and I worked at the same start-up company and when it became clear that the management just couldn't manage and were breaking promises to all of the employees and sending us out to foreign countries with inadequate training, I quit and walked out. 15 minutes later my husband felt there was little he could do but quit as well, as there would clearly be major conflict in the immediate future over my quitting. It was all for the best--one of the major promises we asked for when we signed on was that at least two weeks of each month would be non-travel for both of us so that we could spend time together. They were sending my husband out 100% travel and me 75%, so we never even saw each other except Saturday nights when we both collapsed exhausted to grab a few hours in our own bed before getting up before dawn to go to the airport to get the next flight. Anyway, the point is, it is often a bad idea to work at the same place as your significant other. Good luck with your renewed relationship! :)

I'm sorry your GOOD news got overshadowed by the follies of your brothers.

Yea! Congratulations! :)

Great, now we'll have to take a little paper card from the spice aisle to the pharmacy and sign the "potential drug abusers list" in order to do holiday baking.

if you follow that link and scroll down the page, you'll note that professor is also used to indicate any university teacher and comes from the latin "profiteri" which generally means any public teacher. the definition provided by allwords.com seems to be an abridged definition, though. if you visit http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/professor, you'll note that other established print dictionaries refer to a professor as any teacher. in the end, it really just comes down to what is appropriate where you are located at the time you are referring to the teacher in question. if you are referring to an instructor at a us college or university who is not also a student (i.e. is not a grad student teaching assistant), then it is polite to refer to them as professor, regardless of the actual title on their contract with the institution. this may not be the case in other countries. in those countries the teachers might be referred to as "master," "instructor," "teacher," or just "hey you!". but that was not the question--the question was "can anyone enlighten me as a foreign nurse, why do you refer to your instructors as 'professors'?" i don't think that the question should have prompted any argument whatsoever. the original poster was confused as to why we call our instructors "professor" when in her country of origin that is not the case. she was not indicating that it was inappropriate here, she was simply requesting clarification of a custom with which she was unfamiliar. in response to your question, a college in the united states is a two or four year post-secondary institution--in other countries it is often a secondary institution. most people use college and university interchangeably unless there is a specific need to differentiate. for example, i attended boston university, but i don't say, as my friends from other countries do, "when i was in university." i instead say, "when i was in college."

In the United States most full-time instructors in colleges and universities are called "Professor," though it is a title that is assigned by the school. Personally I call ALL of my instructors "Professor," whether or not they actually are--it's a sign of respect... especially compared to other classmates who call them by their first names! When I was in high school our chemistry instructor had previously been a professor at a university before generously devoting his retirement to teaching obnoxious teenagers, so we called him "Professor G" (or at the least "Doctor G")--all the other instructors were referred to as Mr. or Mrs. X. Except for one former hippie who just went by his weird first name that we all thought he made up... he was a great teacher, though!

I suspect the article was a little off in reporting that the cell phone the 7 year old had was an "old" one. At exactly what age would YOU buy your kid a phone, even one that can only call you? It couldn't have possibly been more than a year or two old, and obviously it wasn't some cast-aside toy, it had service, so obviously someone--MOM--was paying the bill for it every month and knew it was there and functional. So, even if we can possibly say that Mom was negligent in not double-checking that Grandpa had his phone with him (it would never occur to me to ask my father if he had his phone if leaving him to babysit my son at my house), she didn't leave the home without any phone at all--her son had a phone.

Maybe Mom didn't realize Grandpa didn't have his phone with him? I do agree that it was a real problem in this case and they are all lucky that a tragedy was narrowly averted. It really bothers me that my mother and aunt don't have cell phones--my mom lives alone--she has a land line in her apartment but travels all over New England by herself and never tells anyone where she is going. My aunt also has a land line and lives by herself, but she has a hereditary heart condition and her brother died under mysterious circumstances all alone and no one found him for days. The city "forgot" to do an autopsy on him even though one should have been required due to the circumstances (and was requested) and no one found out until AFTER he was cremated!

i haven't had a land line in my house in several years--i got sick of the extra expense for a phone that was only used by people calling to sell me something. my husband, i, and three of my kids have cell phones. of the two that don't, one is 3 years old and the other is special needs and i really don't trust him not to lose one, he tends to lose things a lot. that child, fortunately, though, seems to have more sense than his "average" brothers, and has been instructed to immediately go to the neighbor's (any neighbor) in the event of an emergency. in the years since we d/c'd the land line i've only wished for one a couple times when i wanted to send or receive a fax without going out. and my husband and i can turn off our phones and sleep in undisturbed any time without the kids missing any calls from friends.

Assuming YOU are NOT from another country, I can very well understand that you may feel cheated out of a proper education in the United States. Your lack of proper grammar and complete misunderstanding of the system is simply amazing. I went to high school 17 years ago and have four teenagers in high school now at various levels--two of them are adopted from Russia, one is a special needs foster child and one is his high-achieving brother. There are certain minimum courses which must be taken and passed in order to graduate high school, whether you are special needs, English as a Second Language, or a "brainiac." At every high school I have been exposed to in the last 20 years students must complete, at a minimum, 4 years of English, 2 years of math (often 3, requiring at least algebra), 2 years of science, 1 year of US history, and 1 year of world history, among other required courses which include physical education and health education. In order to get into a decent 4 year university students must in fact take 4+ years of English (more than 4 by doubling up English courses), 3-4 years of math, 3+ years of social science/history, 3+ years of science, and 3+ years of a foreign language. I don't know of any high schools, even the lowest-scoring high schools that are deemed "failing," in which a student who WANTS to get an education would be unable to do so.

You're still YOU, even if you change your name... or if you don't. You don't need to change the names on your diplomas, you just need to specify the names they were earned under when applying for jobs if that job requires you to do so. I'm not even sure how you would go about changing the name on a diploma, I wouldn't think most schools would re-issue one, though they would probably record your new name in a record somewhere if you asked them to do so. If you don't want to change your name or aren't sure if you want to do so right now, you don't have to--you can change your name any time (and for any reason) you want. Personally, I chose to keep my maiden name for several reasons, although the one I cite most frequently is, "It took me 23 years to get used to people calling me XYZ and PQRST (stupid variations on my last name), I'm not going to spend the next 23 listening to people calling me Reebok and Ribbit (actual things my husband's last name has been contorted into--poor guy hates his entire name). That was 8 years ago, now I consider, every once in a while, changing my name anyway. Primarily because people get confused about my name and my youngest son's name being different (my older kids, adopted, have my husband's name too, but somehow that never bothered me as much). I've gotten used to answering to "Mrs. Ribbit" and when people ask for "Mrs. Reebok" on the phone I just say, "Speaking," rather than try to correct at least their butchered pronunciation as I used to. Also, you are well within your rights, both ethically and legally, to maintain two separate names--one for professional use and one for social use. Many female doctors who were unmarried at the time they graduated med school do this--they call themselves Dr. MaidenName when working but go by Mrs. MarriedName when functioning in a social setting, especially when dealing with their kids' schools and activities. As long as you are not doing it with the intent to deceive anyone and use the same social security number with both names, it doesn't make a difference to anyone who matters. Your credit report will always carry your maiden name as an "AKA" anyway. Mine carries my husband's last name as an AKA even though I've never used it on paper anywhere... unless the birthday cards that arrive from my in-laws count... I don't think they have any idea that I didn't change my name... or maybe they just conveniently ignore it. Good luck with your decision and remember that a name is never permanent if you don't want it to be!

My son had minor day surgery at 4 months and he'd always been a quiet, "perfect" baby. During the surgery I said to my husband, "What if he comes out of the surgery a screaming-meemie?" I was just joking, but not much later a post-op nurse came to get us and as soon as we entered the room another nurse put a screaming child in my arms with a look of relief on her face. I was staring at the baby, thinking, "This can't be my son!" But because he was screaming so loudly and his face was all wrinkled up and bright red, I wasn't very sure--plus, he had a hat on down low over his forehead. My son had literally never had a fit like that before (turns out he has an oral-motor issue, he didn't make much noise at all until after he was 3). I looked up at the nurses surrounding us and said, "Are you SURE this is my baby??" And it WASN'T!!!!! They gave me the wrong baby!

To those who had a rep there during surgery or afterwards, are you sure it was a sales rep and not a technician? It would be appropriate for a technician to be there to provide technical support, but a sales rep would be a completely different story.

After she's an LPN she can apply to an LPN to RN program that offers an ADN (2 years, she'd probably only have to do 1-1.5 years, depending on the school) or go into a BSN program at a four year school and have some sort of advanced standing there.

This sounds pretty ridiculous to me, who is requiring this information? I was born in 1975 and although I could easily get my old addresses from when I was a baby (I figure I've lived at no fewer than 15 addresses), I have no CLUE what some of my addresses were or even who my roommates were! I don't have any idea what my first college roommate's first or last name was ... she was THAT unimportant to me! I lived with a boyfriend for 6 months once in the mid 90s and I can't remember the street address at all. Heck, I can't remember the street address from an apartment I lived in only 12 years ago... my husband just informed me of it, I guess I remember now! Maybe my credit report would have all that info on it, they seem to have everything else!

I don't normally announce my NLN score (or any score!) because I don't want people to hate me. 160... I test well. I found the test really hard--some of the stuff I had no clue about, especially on the science section. I left it knowing I would get over 101, but didn't think I'd do that well. I still ended up getting, I think, 12 wrong in the science section. It was th math and verbal that got me my score. GPA is 3.8 over the past two semesters (As and A-s), prior to that (many years ago) it pretty much sucked because I didn't try and walked out on a lot of classes without dropping--those classes I did finish I never opened the books so not a lot of As back then. No medical experience other than from a personal standpoint.

Me too. :) I knew the letters were coming today so I chased the mailman down in the neighborhood hours before he would have gotten to my house. He probably thinks I'm crazy, but he did give me my mail!