Don't feel stupid because you're not talented in the sciences. Any smart person will realize that we can't all be engineers and neurosurgeons: we need the arts to lighten up the world. I've known plenty of brilliant people whose talents lie on the artistic side. So don't be down on yourself for that.

What it all boils down to is that you are who you are. High school is a difficult time in which to figure that out: you're confronted by too many pressures and peer pressures. As you grow a little older, you'll start to see a more concrete "you" forming. I know that doesn't help you now, but if I'd known that at your age I would have been a lot less panicky.

It's not like you have to fit a stereotype, either. Why can't you be the quiet artistic type who really lets loose on stage? Or the bubbly, extroverted singer and dancer who has a quiet side to her? Contrary to what high school would lead you to believe, you don't have to fit into one slot and one slot only. Just like your "brain" friends are amazing in many ways, you are too. Just do what comes naturally to you.

If you have already tried to turn on the phone, you're probably out of luck. Powering on a damp phone will cause shorts and mess up the electronics inside.

As mentioned already, you can bury it in a bowl of rice. Leave it for several days before trying to turn it on. We saved a digital camera that fell in a lake this way!

I've seen this question answered in the public questions, and I have to say that I agree with the answers you've already been given. I'm not sure if you're looking for something else, but you're probably not going to get it here.

It's inappropriate for a teacher to sexualize their students, male or female. Not a fireable offence, necessarily, but definitely unprofessional. That comment was not well thought through, and she should know better.

If there are any complaints, they will be dealt with appropriately. If it didn't bother you, then there's no reason to worry about it.

That looks to me like a reusable handwarmer. They're fantastic!

Try clicking the piece of metal. The liquid should start turning solid and will release a huge amount of heat. It lasts for around an hour, so they're great to put in your pockets on a really cold day.

To reuse, you just put it in a pot of boiling water until it turns completely to liquid again.

You seem like you're too smart to be content with being someone's arm candy, and that's good. You need self-worth to get through times like this.

The first step is to stop thinking of yourself as a victim. You're not a victim of your mother and you're not a victim of the economy. You have a choice in which direction your life takes. You have employment and you have brains. It's up to you to make your hopes and dreams come true, not the universe!

You're still pretty young, and the boys your age are even younger. Most 18 year old boys aren't going to be looking for a steady, slow, logical relationship. It's not you, it's them. Don't feel down on yourself because they're all idiots. Sooner or later, you'll find someone who is looking for what you are.

As for the hopelessness of moving out: looking at the numbers you've given I would say that there's a lot of wiggle room, believe it or not.

1) Rent

Make sure that you're being given a fair rate for rent in your area. Check out craigslist and see what one bedroom, utilities included goes for. $550 seems awfully high, and you may even save money by moving out. If you're willing to share an apartment, you can save a lot of money.

2) Car

$550 a month is way above what you should be spending on car financing. Either your payment term is too short, the interest rate is exorbitant or you're getting a really nice brand new car. Our lightly used Ford Focus was $12 000, and our payments work out to $230 a month over 5 years, which is totally reasonable. If you can't afford those payments for a car, lowering your standards will go a long way.

3) $70 cell phone bill

This is another place you can pare down. I get that you want data and all that fun stuff, but if you've got to get out on your own, you will need to learn to sacrifice bits and pieces like that. See if you can lower your bill at all: even bringing it down to $50 a month will save you $240 a year!

4) Groceries

If you don't cook, learn how. Start budgeting your grocery bill. At our very most poverty-stricken (2 people living on one part-time income) we were eating on $30 a week. When I was living on my own as a student, my grocery bill came to $25 a week. You can easily build some wiggle room by being thrifty with your grocery money.

All in all, I see where you could free up at least $150 a month. Saved up over a year, that should be enough to split first and last month's rent for a 2 bedroom apartment with another person. It's very doable.

It sucks lowering your standard of living when you strike out on your own, but it teaches you really valuable life skills, and it's really satisfying. It also can give you a little more insight into the path you want your life to take from there. You may want to seek further education to open up your earning capability. There are lots of options out there to examine.

You hit the nail on the head in your question: how do YOU feel attractive?

Everyone has something they do when they want to feel special. For example, if I'm having a low self esteem day, I put on some super shiny lip gloss and feel like a rock star. It doesn't necessarily make me any more attractive to others, but just putting in that little bit of effort makes me feel better.

What other people think doesn't matter, especially those who sacrifice grades to straighten their hair! You've got to find what makes you feel great, and don't just save it for special occasions. Unless it's a formal gown, in which case please do save it for special occasions :P

There are a few things that you need to take into account. It would be great if everyone could just follow their dreams, but most of us have to be able to put a roof over our heads and food on the table at the same time.

1) What do you like? What sort of person are you?

Do you enjoy helping others? Do you like working with people, or working alone? Basically, think about what career paths your personality would be suited for. A great way to do this is to take career personality tests. Many guidance counselors have access to these, or you can look online. Here's a good example: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

2) Where do your abilities lie?

We're not all Stephen Hawking. Much as I'd love to be the next great neurosurgeon, I have shaky hands. Maybe you love helping people, but you've never done well at science. That means that nursing is out. Some level of shakiness on a subject is okay and can be dealt with, but if you've just never understood math, you probably shouldn't be a physicist.

3) So you've picked a career path. What do you need to get there?

Some paths require different education. Are you going to have to go to grad school? Can you skip school altogether and go into an apprenticeship? Make sure that your educational decisions match the needs of your chosen career. A great way to do this is to talk to someone who does what you want to do.

4) You know what you want to do and how to do it. Can you do it?

What are the odds of employment in your chosen field? There are a lot of actors and musicians out there working double shifts at Starbucks to pay the bills while they wait for their opportunity. Some schools post lists of the previous year's graduate employment rates. Mine breaks it down to show what percentage were hired into positions relevant to their field of study for each program. That can be very useful information. Otherwise, this is another question to ask your contact.

5) Can you afford all this?

School can be expensive. Maybe you're lucky and live somewhere where post-secondary education is paid for by the government, or maybe you live in the US where school costs are sky-high. It's very important to know if you can afford school before diving into it.

If you're taking out loans to make it happen, figure out how long it would take for you to pay them back after graduation. Make up a budget using the average salary for someone with the position you're looking for and see if it's worth it. I have a friend who went through her bachelor's and master's for teaching. She had some trouble breaking into teaching full-time, so she's stuck struggling and trying to make minimum payments on her loans on a part-time waitress paycheck.

If you're signing on to be a starving artist, it might not be the best idea to pay $100 000 to get your PhD. Make sure that your potential income is proportional to the cost of education.

6) Put it all together.

You picked a field that interests you and that you're good at. You know what you need to do to get there, and you can hopefully afford it. Now all that's left is to register and spend the next few years working your butt off!

It's important to remember that it's not necessarily a final decision. You don't have to lay out your whole life at 15, 16 or 17. You may find that you hate your coursework, or that you developed a strong interest in another area. You may change as a person, or your financial situation may blow up. There's no shame in re-evaluating and taking a stab at something new.

Whatever you do, don't jump into school if you're not fairly confident in what you want to do. If you're still floating around after thinking about all this, take a year off after high school to work (and save some much-needed money!) and to get some perspective. Working a lousy minimum wage job for a year really changes how you think about skilled careers!

I don't like the notion that any guy you date immediately after breaking up with the last is a "rebound", and therefore verboten. I started seeing my now-husband the day after I broke up with my then-boyfriend. Obviously that worked out just fine!

The best way to make sure you're not rebounding is to take it slow. Get to know this guy slowly. Spend some time with him. See if once the fog of break-up clears, you're still feeling the same about this friend.

Having a "type" is a pretty harmful way to go about things. Sure, we all have physical types that we go for, but what if the person we really click with is in a different body? Do we just discount them because their packaging is wrong? I had a friend who dated only 6'+, blonde hockey players for years. She wondered why the relationships never worked out until she finally started dating outside of her type. Now she's engaged to a phenomenal guy who doesn't fit the mould.

Especially if the only thing wrong with this guy is his weight, that's no reason to discount the possibility that you two will click. Weight can change, and your attitude towards weight can change. You never know. So give it a shot! It sounds like this guy is a winner in every other regard.

I can sit here and tell you what the logical option is until I'm blue in the face, and that won't change your mind. So I'm not going to.

You're going to have to think through how exactly you would carry out each plan. Unfortunately, much as it would be amazing to be able to follow our dreams all the time, they're not necessarily always feasible.

Where are you planning on living after high school? If you don't plan on following your parents' wishes, you're going to have to face the fact that you might not be able to stay with them. So you're going to have to be able to support yourself. It doesn't sound like you're doing paying gigs yet, so you'd have to get a job. Without any post-secondary training, you're looking at the wonderful world of minimum wage. Some people are happy being a struggling musician/artist/actor and working one or two crappy jobs, often for years. Are you happy with that?

Something to remember is that, despite what you might be told, you don't have to rush into your future. You're pretty young still, and you might just need some time to get your priorities in gear. What if you were to tell your parents that you want to take a year to work before going to university? Then you can work, save money and try your hand at the band thing. If it starts to really pay off, you can pursue that further, but if not you have a backup plan. As someone who left college for a few years and worked some lousy jobs, I can tell you that it really puts a new perspective on school. You learn why you want to do a job that takes some real training. It lights a real fire under you.

Another thing to think about is that university can't be compared to high school. Not in the slightest. It's a way to reinvent yourself and get involved with a whole new crowd. I also knew plenty of people who were involved in bands/other extracurriculars while studying engineering. It's not impossible.

All in all, you're going to have to get used to being responsible for your own decisions. If you end up miserable as a result of a decision you made, it's your own fault. Likewise, if you end up happy, it's all on you too! Nobody can tell you what's right for you. Only you can decide, because only you will deal with the fallout.

Here's an insider tip: don't ever get your books before class starts!

In the first week or two of class, you'll find out if the book is needed. Are you going to actually be using it for questions and assignments, or is it just "recommended reading"? Most information can be found online these days, so you don't always need to buy the specified book.

Schools often hold used book sales, so you can get your books cheaper. Also worth a look is Amazon: I got my one math textbook, normally $230 at my college bookstore, for $180, taxes in and free shipping. Shop around, because it can definitely be worth it.

I think I'm going to disagree with the other people who have answered so far, just on the basis of personal experience.

You didn't really like the guy, and you fooled around with him for no particular reason other than a mild pressure on his behalf. You (basically) wasted your time, because the guy isn't interesting enough to make it worth it.

I've done the same. I felt awful about myself for a few weeks, then life went on. The best thing you can do is to learn from this mistake and move on. I don't know if it's normal, but at least now you know that there's someone else out there who has been in the same situation!

The question isn't about whether or not you technically can have sex: anyone can have sex at any age. The question is whether or not you SHOULD.

Sex brings with it a lot of baggage. You probably haven't started menstruating yet, so you can't get pregnant, but that's not the only concern.

No matter what age you are, it's very possible that you can become infected with an STI, or sexually transmitted infection. Some are relatively easily cured, but some stay with you for life, and some can even kill you. The guy's a virgin? Guess what? He could still have a disease that he could pass on. Some people have them at birth.

I get the curiosity about sex (I was curious too, at your age) but there's a big difference between being curious and being ready. There's a lot of emotional weight behind sex, especially your first time, and you don't want to live the rest of your life regretting a decision you made while you were still a kid. The chances of the guy you're considering still being in your life even just a few years from now are pretty low: don't waste your time on him just yet.

You have lots of time to grow up. Take the time to be a kid now, and you'll be glad you did. There's time for adult responsibility later.

Unless the odour is really, really bad, it's probably just typical sweat. Most guys tend to get pretty ripe in that general area over the course of a day.

You can always try something like baby powder or medicated powder. It keeps things dry. My husband also swears by natural salt-based deodorant (it comes in a solid stick).

This is a conversation you need to have with your wife. Nobody here can tell you what you need to do. We don't know if she's just lusting after him or what's going on. The only person who does know is her.

The good news is that she did talk to you beforehand, so you do have an opportunity to talk to her. Thank her for her honesty and ask her the questions you've asked us:

- What's she unsatisfied with?
- Is it lust or something more serious?
- What if you're not comfortable with her having sex with this man?
- Is there another way that you two can spice up your sex lives without cheating?

That last one is a biggie. Your wife says she's unsatisfied despite a very healthy sex life. Maybe she's just bored. It's very common in relationships of any length to get bored with the same old, day in and day out. There are lots of ways that you can up your game with the permission of both partners. Voyeurism, light bondage or dominance play and role play are all fairly safe ways of pushing the envelope without straying too far outside each others' comfort zones. Try talking to her about what it is that she's looking for.

You are not in love with your teacher. Being in love with someone means wanting the best for them, and you clearly have no interest in what she wants.

What you are talking about is sexually assaulting your teacher, then blackmailing her after the fact. That's highly illegal and highly immoral.

The biggest problem here is that you feel entitled to your teacher. She is a human being, and has a choice with regards to her body and who she shares it with. For you to make that decision on her behalf is criminal. I don't care how much you want her, that doesn't justify sexual assault.

Stop this plotting right now, and seek help. Your thinking is messed up, and you need someone to help you work through your issues. It's fine to have a little crush on a teacher (goodness knows I've had a few) but it's not okay to knowingly plan the ruin of her life just so you can get your jollies.

If his response is "Stop being insecure", you should hold off. You're raising valid concerns, and he's refusing to acknowledge them. If even raising these concerns is causing him to clam up, that's a warning sign for you.

Keep in mind that he doesn't have to put anything on the table for this trip: you're coming to him. It's your money, your time, your risk. He's got nothing to lose.

I'm not reading a whole lot of respect into his actions. He doesn't seem particularly serious, which is understandable seeing as it's a long-distance relationship that hasn't progressed past "talking".

Keep your money for now. Tell him why. If you decide to go later, you'll have the cash, and if you decide not to go you can treat yourself to a weekend in Vegas instead!

It all comes down to what scares you. I'm not terrified of gory movies (like most of the ones you listed) but psychological horror tends to really get me.

I notice you didn't list any of the classics:

- The Exorcist
- Poltergeist
- Psycho (the original)
- The Shining
- Nightmare on Elm Street
- Alien
- Silence of the Lambs

These are all more psychological than gory. Psycho may be in black and white, but I was so scared by it that I didn't shower at night for months after watching it!

Unfortunately, nobody can give you a hard answer. The rate of breast development is different from woman to woman. Some are fully developed by age 12, some take until their 20s. Some never really stop growing. It'll happen eventually, even if it feels like forever right now :)

The Bible does say that it's a sin: the most often quoted is Leviticus 20:13.

"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

Why is it a sin? Keep in mind that the social structure and legal system were very different at the time the Bible was written. There are lots of great lessons to be learned from the Bible, but they're mostly found in the New Testament, which focuses more on a message of love: this is an Old Testament verse. I'm saying this as an atheist who has read both books cover to cover, by the way.

Here are some other fun things that were covered in the Old Testament:

- Lot and his daughters are hiding in a cave, and the daughters get him drunk and have their way with him (great family values!)

- A woman on her period is unclean, and anything she touches is also unclean.

- Lots of rules on clothing: no blended fibres, you have to have fringes on your clothes, and cross-dressing is strictly out.

- Disobedient sons are to be stoned to death at the village gates. Guess you'd better clean your room?

You see, it was a very different time and place. Laws have changed so much since then that it only makes sense to re-evaluate our views on homosexuality. We know a lot more now than we did then. Most religious people know this, but some like to cherry-pick from the Bible to find fuel for their bigotry.

It can't make her pregnant, but it could lead to some nasty infections if not done safely.

If you have any STIs, they can be passed on to her this way. Even if you don't, there's still a very high risk of her getting sick from bacteria that are present in that area.

That's not to say that you can't have fun that way: just do it safely. Just cleaning won't necessarily eliminate all the bacteria, so you're best off using a barrier method. You can purchase dental dams (they even come in flavours!) to prevent this from happening. In a pinch, you can even use a latex glove cut open or you can double up plastic wrap. I know, it's not sexy, but neither is a nasty bout of gastroenteritis.

My Personal Forum

My name is Amanda and I'm 26 years old. I'm currently studying electrical engineering. Armed with a fairly odd sense of humour and a sunny outlook on life, I'll take on just about anything. I'm also cussedly stubborn, which has its ups and downs. Things get tough sometimes, and I've never been one to run from it.

In my last 8 years with Advicenators, I've gone from honours student to failing out of university (and getting back on top again!), from single to married, from tenant to homeowner.

Until lately, I have been struggling with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and OCD, which had basically ruined my life and taken just about everything from me. I'm thankful every day for every experience I've had because of this ordeal, because it's helped to make me who I am today. Things like that really make you appreciate what you do have. Now that I'm back in work and school and starting to become myself again, I couldn't be happier. I credit Advicenators with saving my life back when I was a teenager, which is a big part of why I'm still here.

I won't necessarily give you the answers you want to hear, but I'll always be honest and do my best to help.

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