I'm quite alright. Just dreading the snow that is supposed to come our way.

LOL glad you're feeling better, hope the rattling doesn't get too loud!

I've got friends who have a tiny dog. She always gets excited about snow. But as soon as she gets out, she starts mincing around and throws accusing looks at her owners, asking why on earth they made her come out and step on this awful stuff.

I'm so jealous! Congrats!

Maybe its about time? Like if you spend an hour getting an HA just right you expect people to intrinsically realise just how much work you put into it :P

- Thank you!

- I love the dress you are wearing. :)

That sounds like a strong possibility. The amount of time and effort you put into it, stuff no one else "sees."

Does the snow get bad where you live? I used to get snow when I lived in Europe but back in Australia the only thing we get that's close is the occasional hailstorm. x)

I live in Canada and usually we get quite a bit of snow, though the last year or so we haven't gotten much but they have been saying that is about to change....

Ah, I see! I hope you don't get as much as is predicted then. :o

Yay, point earned!

, - How are you both feeling? You can add me to the not-feeling-well-club. I was pretty much asleep for like 3 days this week. I guess I needed it though.

- Oooh! Did you do early decision or do you have to wait a while to find out?

- Wow! What are you getting your Masters in? I started mine, but then dropped out of the program. At that point in my life, it was just me throwing money away and not learning anything that was going to help me in my actual career.

- In the wardrobe when you want to use a background, have you tried dragging it so that it's below the base? I used to live in that cold weather! I can't imagine ever going back! And I'm with you - I don't understand how people can leave animals outside for any length of time in either very cold or very hot. :(

- Congratulations on your most recent BHH purchase and achievement! Wow!

and - I'm with you on the HA business! There are times that I make one that I'm so proud of and love, but no one else seems to notice :(

I'm studying speech pathology. c: I need to get the masters to be qualified to work - my undergrad degree was essentially useless unless you went on to further study, although it was great for learning the background knowledge. xD

What area are you working in and what was your masters/undergrad on? c:

- Wow! I've actually always wanted to know more about speech, especially in my field! I'm in music education, so I do a lot with singing. But I wish we were taught more about actual proper speech. It would help so many of our students tremendously!

Oh, awesome! What sort of age range do you teach? I'd imagine that quite a bit of what we've covered in speech and voice would be pretty useful for that area. c: I feel like one of the major issues in my field is that issues with speech, language, voice etc. often aren't picked up as early as they could be. It would be great if people working in education could get some extra info on it to get referrals in quicker and intervention done earlier. ^^

- I work primarily with students between the ages of 7 and 11. I think if speech pathologists would speak frequently with music teachers, it would help! I could tell you right now off the top of my head at least 10 kids that I work with that could use some sort of speech assistance. Most of the difficulties that I hear are students who just push on their vocal chords so hard all the time. They're going to end up with nodules by the time they're 12, which is sad. I blame a lot on what they hear on the radio that they try to emulate... Really poor quality singing!

Definitely! Maybe you could try calling some SP services in your area (particularly targeted voice services) and see if they'd be willing to provide some basic vocal health info/info about their services for your colleagues and parents of the children you see? Waiting until the nodules have appeared to start using good vocal health strategies and needing therapy is sad, I agree. I quite like this fact sheet which has some basic guidelines for healthy voice use. A lot of it is fairly self-evident though. x)

Maybe we should start putting the amount of effort the HA took in our signatures.

Like. This avatar took me three days to make, it also required me to promise my first born son to a gremlin. Please like.

- That page is great! Thank you so much for sharing!

- HAHAHAHA! I love it!

oh man i'm jealous! i had to go back to work today, and only managed about 1hr sleep beforehand. so today pretty much sucked. but i came home and had a 4hr nap and my shift today was my longest for the week, so i'll take the wins where i can! hopefully i can kick this cold in the butt soon too, although knowing my luck i will just catch another one straight after. again :/

No problem! Best of luck keeping your students from getting nodules. xD

Just wanted to say thank you so much for making this group! As someone who isn't particularly active in the forums, this is a glorious idea. :D

You're welcome. It can be so hard posting regularly, especially when the forums are moving slowly, or you don't have much time to look through to find stuff to post, or any number of other reasons. This idea came about slowly, mostly as a result of people asking for advice on how to get enough posts to get into the blue building, or complaining about the scarcity of forum points.

That HA is cute, I especially love the freckles!