Sure, I'll help you out here. But first...why did you say 'and that guys think girls are confusing'. Girls are confusing! Well, for the most part they are. I think sometimes its just that guys are too simple for girls to get sometimes. Anyways...

You're allowed to hang out with him even if you aren't dating. I'm sure you've hung out and done stuff together with plenty of friends you weren't dating at that time. Same with him. Invite him to get some lunch on the weekend, or to go see a movie with another friend or too if you feel more comfortable that way, or even ice skating/bowling (depending on where you live). I'm sure he wouldn't mind. As long as you can hold a steady conversation, which it seems that guys can do, then it should be no problem hanging out or even for you to ask him to do something. Schedules may conflict here and there, but thats about all of the trouble I see.

It may sound scary, but if you like him then you should definitely tell him. Don't be afraid of making things weird between the two of you or that he might not like you back. If he doesn't like you back, then so what? You are still friends with him and that doesn't mean its permanent for him not to like your...it might just take more time. If things get awkward between the two of you after telling him, then maybe its best to just stay friends. Either way, telling him is best. You don't have to do it right away, but think about doing it soon. Guys like that. You also seem to be good enough friends that even if he was taken aback by it, it shouldn't make things so rocky between the two of you anyway.

So please keep it simple. If you want to hang out with him, then just let him know that you wanna hang out with him and ask him if he has any ideas or friends to go with. If you become closer to him and have stronger feelings for him then you should tell him. Don't be shy either, he is just your friend! Imagine if he was thinking the same thing as you and thats why he hasn't said anything... Well then if he finally did I'm sure you would feel so relieved afterwards now wouldn't you? Think positive and don't be afraid. Hope that helped and good luck.

Be the first to say hi! Honestly, most guys don't get turned off or a bad feeling when a girl approaches them. It's a huge confidence booster. Just ask him what music he likes. Hopefully you'll find an artist or song you both like. If there is a school event coming up you can ask him if he's going, or if he went to the last one. You go to the same school, so you might be able to find out what teachers he has and if you know them talk about them too. There are plenty of things you can talk to him about randomly. The important thing is that you approach him and be friendly. You don't even have to talk a lot. Then after that, just make sure to say hi if you see him again. Introduce him to one of your friends too if you'd like. Ask him if you could sit to have lunch with him some time too. Don't worry about it too much, and if you are friendly towards him, then in time he will probably return the favor and things will fall into place. Hope that helped and good luck.

Talk and find out more about him. I know you know about him already, but when you feel like you are going to talk about those kind of things, then stop yourself and ask him how he feels about random things or if he has anything to share. Try to draw out the conversation for as long as you can and not to involve and negative details.

I know its nice to have a comforting person there by your side, and even more so somebody who is willing to listen. It is very good that you realized that, because sometimes I feel like not enough people realize how depressing they might be on other people. I know everyone has problems and goes through a lot, but it shouldn't be 60%+ of what you talk about. If you do mention something negative, try to balance it by finding something, anything positive to talk about. You're making a great move.

Also you can talk to him about it and try to have him help you. Of course, he might say that its fine and that he doesn't mind it, but whether he does or doesn't say that, ask him to help you be more optimistic, and that if you ever go into a rant have him stop you. If you establish that then maybe it will be easier on him to have you stop if you overboard and will be easier on you because then you know when you need to swing the mood. Hope that helped and good luck.

OK. This is the part I mentioned about making sure that the song file was .mp3 or .wav format. Most likely, it is in .wma format, or Windows Media Player format. You can find programs that will convert those files to .mp3 for free, as long as they aren't protected files. If you can do it with unprotected music, like from CD's and not purchased online music, then it should work. Hope that helped.

Probably a dollar store. We had a really tight budget at our dorms, so we got everything we needed at the dollar store, and it wasn't lame either. All the disposables were easy to find. I'm not sure what decorations you are looking for, but I'm sure if they don't have what you need, you could still be creative and use what they've got. For example, we used gift wrapping as a tablecloth...which actually turned out to be a plus because it was easy to clean. Hope that helped.

It seems like you might just be friends with benefits. As opposed to a couple, which would actually tell other people about it, make it public (not necessarily with PDA), and hang out with other friends, things seem to be undercover. The age difference could be why. The only real reason you will find out if there is a chance of making something out of the friendship into something more would be to ask him directly. If he flips out and breaks things off then he probably didn't have the same ideas you did about things. If he responds positively then there would probably be a better chance than him not saying anything and you not asking. You shouldn't be led in the dark, and if you are going to be his friend he should be honest with you anyways. Hope that helped and good luck.

In quality, with pricing aside, the iPod Touch would probably make a better choice, because it has all the features the iPod Nano does, can have more capacity than the Nano, and of course has internet. So its basically the iPhone without the phone part. Of course, the quality of the product will depend on how well you maintain it, how you treat its charging cycles, etc. Several factors play a role in the quality of the two, including the quality of the music itself. iPod Touch would probably be better choice, but why not wait until their next model of it comes out? Hope that helped.

I don't particularly believe in horoscopes. Just for fun I'll read them, but in no means go by it or hold my expectations to it. In fact, I usually read mine first and then a few others. I've found that doing that showed me just how general horoscopes are. I began to think that horoscopes were just generalized and made so that they could apply to anyone. In most cases, since I've tried it on other people, I was right.

My point is, don't get caught up about what horoscopes say. Your own life is what you make it. If some of your friends read a horoscope and have something like that happen to them, then it is probably because they tend to be self-fulfilling and are presented to you in such a way that you automatically search your entire day/week to find an event that matched, just to say 'Wow, they were right about that happening'.

You decide what is going to happen, because if even if horoscopes were as true as they claim to be, whether or not you read it wouldn't make a difference on how the day turned out. If it did, then most likely it was self-fulfilling because you read and expected it to happen. Hope that helped.

Yeah there is. Its a process, but well worth it and very easy to learn. I typed this up awhile ago, so here you are:

I'm going to list instructions on how to make your own. There are plenty of websites that either offer free ringtones or a service that allows you to upload a song to make the ringtone for you also for free. Google them if you are really interested. But in any case, for this you will only need to download one program - Audacity. Great program for any audio editing and very simple to use.


1. Start out by going to CNET's website to download Audacity.
2. Locate the music file or recording that you want to make a ringtone out of. If you use iTunes you can do this by right-clicking Get Info on the song, and look to see where it is stored on your computer...it will be listed at the bottom of the info page.
*Note - it will make life a lot easier if the file you want to edit is already in MP3 or WAV format.*
3. Open Audacity and go to File Open and find that music file you want to edit.
4. Click on the cursor icon on the upper left-hand side of the screen. Once the song has imported, it will show you the song in its 'wavelength' format. Listen to the song and decide what part you want as the ringtone.
5. When you've found what part(s) you want as a ringtone, use the cursor to highlight the music just for the section you want.
6. When you are finished highlighting the section you want as your ringtone - try to keep it 15-35 seconds long, anything longer than that it won't work - click on File Export Selection as MP3.
7. At this point, it will ask you to locate a file called lame_enc.dll. You need to find a website that has it and download it from them. Type in lame_enc.dll onto Google and you'll find a few.
8. Once you've downloaded it, go to Export Selection as MP3 again, locate the file to where you downloaded it, and it will then ask you where you want to save the sound file. Remember where it is being saved so you can later find it.

Before I keep going, I want to just clarify what you just did. You took a sound file and basically copied and pasted part of that file as an MP3. With that, you want to take that file and put it on your phone.

Depending on what kind of phone you have and your plans, you can either e-mail to your phone that file as an attachment and save the attachment as a ringtone/sound to save it and play it. Also, if you know how you can just plug in your phone or memory card to your computer and save it directly on there. Save it in your 'Sounds' folder, or your 'Ringtones' folder if you have one instead. Hope that helped and if anything wasn't clear or didn't work, just let me know.

There are programs that do this for you, but why hassle yourself with using up more space on your computer. When you connect your iPod, open up My Computer and double click on your iPod hard drive icon. Go to Tools > Folder Options > View Tab, and check off the box that says 'Show Hidden Folders and Files'. You can always undo this later if you need to. When you go through your iPod again, you should see a transparent (hidden) folder. Open it and look for the folder with your music in it. You will then find folders labled FF00 - FF49 (total of 50). Open each one and press CTRL + A to highlight them all, and just click and drag them out into a different folder, like My Music or My Documents.

Once you have done that with all 50 folders (trust me, it sounds longer and worse than it is), open iTunes and drag all those songs and movies into the iTunes music library and presto! Double check to make sure the number of songs on iTunes matches up with the number of songs you have on your iPod. You should be able to connect and sync regularly with no loss of music or movies. Hope that helped and good luck.

It's as simple as some people find it comfortable, and maybe just tired from sitting down regularly. There's no specific reason for it, and for the most part the guys that don't do it often or out of habit usually won't try it randomly.

I'm fluent in Spanish and can help you with your paper. My advice to you is to get the book 501 Spanish Verbs. It conjugates the 501 most common verbs in Spanish in every single tense, and has a lot of information on grammar too, like subjunctive mood and when to use the indicative, etc. If you still need some help then message me your e-mail.

No, the sidekicks are for T-Mobile.

Why is she becoming fake? Most likely its because she is trying to fit in with other people. Those other people might even the ones she holds as a higher influence. In a situation like this, you have to give it a shot and if nothing happens just let it go. What I mean is, you need to tell her straight out. If she is your best friend, then you should be able to tell her anything, and that shouldn't destroy things between the two of you...thats why you are best friends.

At this point, you need to let her know that you don't like the way shes become or the way she acts. You might come off strong and offensive, but if she felt that way about you, then I'm sure you would want to know about it. If after telling her how you feel about all of this she doesn't make an effort to mend things, then you should consider just drifting away. It might be a bit harsh to just cut lines and move to a different table or agree to never speak again. Instead, slowly, just move away from the friendship.

When most people change that way and even their best friend doesn't like it and wants them back, its difficult to get that person back. It's not impossible, but it has already reached the point where you can't even bare to continue this. So tell her how you feel about all of this and see if she would be willing to fix things and make things right between the two of you. If she tries then why not give her a chance and help her out. Maybe spend more time together or go hang out with a different crowd. If she's your best friend and doesn't want to hear about what you have to say about her, then it would probably be best to drift away to avoid a confrontation with her later. Hope that helped and good luck.

Let it go. I really don't see anything going on here. Don't overanalyze or scrutinize every detail. You should keep in mind that guys are a lot more simple than you think, so we usually don't have the thought out 15-step process most females do. For him it was probably as simple as 'oh, I remember she likes this song' and decided to point it out to you. Don't worry about your cousin/best friend either. If she gets mad then she it overracting and you shouldn't listen to her. So I say just let it go and don't expect much, or anything out of it. If you get your hopes up too high and keep thinking about what he could have meant or silly things like that, then it'll be that much harder to get over if you find out it was meant for nothing. So no worrying. Hope that helped.

Don't sacrifice your grades for a job, especially one like this. I don't know your economic status, but if you can afford to go to school without having this job, then do it. I would advise you to keep the job only if it was necessary to pay things so you could go to school. Study, study, study! And there is no reason for you to feel guilty about anything. Before your job comes you. If nobody else can baby sit for the family then that is their own problem and responsibility, not yours. You get paid after all your work, but the money won't keep your grades up.

Talk to the family about it and let them know that you won't be able to babysit as much or even anymore because you need to focus on school. Honestly, no job or employer is going to tell you not to quit because of school. If they give you a hard time about it, then even more reason to leave; they should realize the situation at hand and not risk your grades. It doesn't seem like an enjoyable environment to be in anyway, with all the smoking in the house. I wouldn't suggest going out right away to find a job, unless you really do need one for money issues. If you can, get back on track with your homework and grades, and then look out for another job. There are still plenty of jobs for your age available, that will offer a cleaner, safer environment, probably won't put you into super late night shifts, and if your lucky has good pay! But remember, your education comes first, so deal with your jobs later and get back to work now. Hope that helped and good luck.

In terms of getting over being nervous about it, a good way to break it would be to just talk about it with him. Let him know that you are nervous because you don't want to mess up and ask him if there is anything you can do. Most likely, he will reassure you or even admit that he might be nervous too. In any event, if you get it out of your system and after talking to him know what to expect, then it should help you feel less nervous, or not nervous at all. Hope that helped and good luck.

They aren't supposed to be ripping too easily. Make sure you are always using fresh solution when you take them out. Even if you don't wear them on a daily basis, take your contacts out and replace the solution. Try to handle them with your fingertips and little as possible after taking them out of the solution and container to put on. Do they rip when you are wearing them? If so, be very careful about this and carry your glasses around with you anyway. It could just be that the material is not strong enough, or that you might be handling them too much. I wear acuvue contacts, but clear ones, and I haven't had that problem yet. Just be careful when handling your contacts, touch them as little as possible, and always use fresh solution. If it continues, then ask for a different brand of colored contacts. Hope that helped.

It was nice of her to apologize. I think at this point, before you make any more big decisions, you should ask her to talk to you. Sit her down and tell her how you feel about her apologizing and not knowing whether you should give her a second chance. Tell her about how you feel that you don't trust her anymore. On things that you feel that she lied to you, ask her about it and tell her to be honest. In other words, just try to sit and reevaluate your friendship and see where it stands. If after all of that, she still wants to be your friend and you feel that she has gone through enough and are willing to give her the chance to earn back your trust, then its up to you to be her friends again.

Don't worry about telling people that you will never talk to her again. Honestly, if you are going to be friends with her then who cares that you said you weren't going to talk to her. Understandably you were upset and hurt, so for you to feel that way and say something like that was expected. You need to find it in yourself, either by talking to her about it, or your other good friends about it, if you can actually trust her. If for some reason or another you can't trust her then you should let her know that. Its a difficult situation, but I don't think you necessarily did the wrong thing in telling her about what was going on. Of course, the whole "promise you won't tell" thing didn't work out for anyone, did it? Sort your feelings out with her and try to think back and see if throughout your friendship if there have been more good moments than bad which might make it easier to forgive and give a second chance. Ultimately its up to you and about how comfortable you feel. Hope that helped and good luck.

If thats how he feels then let him go. Its his loss. You tried to fix things and make it better, so if anyone did the damage it was him for giving up and not trying. I'll leave it up to you if you want to break all communications - email, phone, IM, etc - but sometimes after a long time of a break up like that the guy comes back to 'just talk'. But whatever, don't get your hopes up or get too caught up worrying about somebody who doesn't even want to be your friend. Its arrogant and ignorant of him to be that way. You honestly don't have to put up with it and shouldn't. Do your best to forget and move on. Like I said, use it to learn from the experiences but don't let the experiences keep you from learning more and moving forward. Hope that helped and you can keep me updated about it whenever you'd like to!

Feel free to ask me any questions or for an alternate way of contacting me through my inbox.

I really like giving advice, so thats why I have a column here. I've been inactive for a long time, but I'm back and will do my best to catch up. Advicenators is a great site and it is what we make it. Having my own advice column helped me learn a lot of new things, even about myself, while giving me the chance to help others along the way. Thanks.

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