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I want to thank everyone who wrote a response to my earlier posting about my upcoming SS hearing, and also to those who wrote directly to me. Here's the rest of my background: I am a former vocal music teacher. In order to do my "job", I have to be able to: manage a room full of 20-27 young children (ages 6 to 13); teach 10 to 12 groups of these kids every day (M-F); play the piano (and/or guitar and/or manage a CD player); sing with and for the kids (it IS vocal music); write on a chalkboard; speak all day long; etc. etc.....I can no longer do these things when I am "off", and even on a "good day", I can't do these things for an extended period of time--after about 2 or 3 of the 12 classes my voice was shot. My last semester of teaching, the superintendent and I agreed that I should cut my work load, so I utilized my sick days and personal leave days and only "worked" on tues, wed and thurs (i say "worked" cuz there was practically no teaching or learning going on--I showed lots of videos and had them do worksheets--I could no longer manage an active class). During that semester I was only working three days a week, I spent the other two days doing research to try to find a job that I COULD manage...I looked into doing proofreading for publishers, contributing to educational periodicals, teaching online from my home computer, and many other home based occupations, and drew a blank. I WAS able to get my Kansas teacher's retirement system disability pay, and I AM grateful that I have that income each month...I just hope that the Soc Sec folks come through for me this time around....... Randall Ford Kansas _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com