I hate to add to all the bad news threads that have been around lately, but I needed to say this somewhere. The mother of a friend of mine died yesterday. It was not unexpected, as she had been ill for some time, but it's hard to take nonetheless. On top of this, midyears are coming up at my school, so it came at a stressful time for her. I don't know if or when she'll come back to school, though.