TikiPrincess

So I've returned from my trip to the Philippines, which was awesome and more to be posted later, when my husband and I realized that we really need a waterproof camera. For one thing, we missed out on some memorable snorkeling pictures in the crystal clear waters of Boracay. For another, my camera had a bit of water inside it from the humidity and wouldn't work properly about halfway through the trip. I'm waiting for my mom and my brother to get back so I can flip through all of their photos.Anyways, I've done a bit of research and decided that I don't want to have a waterproof housing for my camera, like with the Fuji and others where you have to attach some plastic monstrosity around it. The camera becomes too bulky and awkward. So I've narrowed it down to the Pentax and the Olympus all-weather models. I'm leaning towards the Pentax because the Olympus uses a non-standard memory card, which could get expensive and inconvenient. Neither of them have an extending lens, so I'm assuming the zoom is digital, meaning that I'll be sacrificing image quality. I'm okay with that since I'm not doing professional photography, just quick point-and-shoot memories. What I don't want are blurry pictures, especially if I'm using the camera in standard light and not underwater.If anyone has any experience with these brands or particular models, I would really appreciate your input. I've been switching between the Sony Cyber-shot and the Cannon PowerShot for the past few years, although I did have an Olympus SLR while I was taking photography in high school. But digital cameras are really different than traditional cameras, so I can't really base my experience off it.

There is no 100% sure-fire method to prevent pregnancy when you decide to have sex. But I don't think that's the kind of advice she's looking for. Anytime you try a new prescription, especially one that affects your hormones, you need to give it about 6 months for your body to level out and adjust. If this is your first time taking birth control, then your body will definitely need some time to regain balance. Most likely, you'll experience all of the symptoms of PMS for the first month or two before you start to feel normal again. My doctor tells me to try out new medications for at least 3 months before switching to something else. Talk to your doctor about your reaction to the medication. You might be an ideal candidate for a low hormone dose, which might be less of a shock to your system. And remember, DON'T SMOKE WHEN YOU'RE ON THE PILL.

Considering the original poster took it verbatim from the cover of the novel, I'm pretty sure that he's talking about Angels & Demons, which is, in fact, the predecessor to The Da Vinci Code. Angels & Demons introduces us to Langdon and takes place before his episode in Paris. I think many people are confused about the chronology of his work because Da Vinci Code rose to popularity first, but it is the second in the series.Dan Brown has hit upon a formula, and you have to applaud the guy for being in tune with the demands and needs of today's casual readers. He writes very short chapters because people have developed limited attention spans. Whereas commercials less than 30 years ago lasted for a minute, today's commercials last for 15-30 seconds and people are inundated with images rather than text. Brown realizes this and writes accordingly. He begins his novels with a list of so-called 'facts', although in interviews, he admits that he only reads one source to verify his information. Many of his 'facts' are easily disproven by a number of sources. While his books are an easy read and entertaining, I wouldn't put much stock in the information he gives. And yes, they're as formulaic as a romance novel, but he's appealing to a very similar audience. Casual readers aren't going to pick up The Canterbury Tales on a whim, despite the fact that they're as bawdy and coarse as a Jackass episode.

I dream in both, although I have a tendency to dream in black and white when I've got a fever. I remember dreaming that I was sleeping and then the picture started spinning like a Twilight Zone episode. I was screaming at myself to wake up, and when I finally did, I had a temperature of 102 degrees Fahrenheit. Weird huh?

Thanks for all the supportive comments. Only a few days left, and I'm still not packed! I'm bringing along a sudoku book, my Nintendo DS, and I'll pick up a new book to read tomorrow for the 16 hour plane ride (having already devoured Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy). Luckily, I'm short enough that the seats aren't uncomfortable for me. I'm also putting my Learn Tagalog CDs on my MP3 player, although I'd much rather have music. I wish I could just stick a bunch of songs on my little flash drive and stick it into my MP3 player, but mine is rather outdated and I don't think technology has advanced quite that far yet. See ya when I get back!

Eight more days until I leave for the Philippines! I'm kinda nervous and excited all at the same time. It's my first time over there and I'm going to be meeting a bunch of family members that I've never seen before. A bunch meaning over 100. That's the thing about Filipino families, we're so huge we're like our own tribe or clan. Most of my mom's side is still in the Philippines, so that's who we're visiting. She's one of 15 children, and only five of them made their way to the United States. We're having a huge family reunion with most of her brothers and sisters and a bunch of their cousins from her mom's side. I'm a little nervous because... well, for lots of reasons. I look like the typical Filipino, and lots of Filipinos come up to me speaking Tagalog and expecting me to answer back. I was born and raised in Southern California and was never taught and never bothered to learn Tagalog. But when I explain that, people always make me feel ashamed and say I should try to learn it. I guess that it's part of my cultural heritage, but I consider myself an American not a Filipino. At least culturally. I did try joining a Filipino dance troop to try and connect with my heritage, but I felt so out of place and uncomfortable among them, even more so than the half-white, half-Filipino girl that joined. Maybe it's just because they were such a tight knit group already. Or maybe it's just me projecting onto other people. Either way, I didn't connect with my culture that way. And I guess I'm a little nervous that it'll be the same situation when I go to the Philippines.Another reason why I'm a little jittery is because I'm going to be forced to spend 2 weeks with my entire family, and I likely won't have very much time to myself. I'm can be a very social person, but there are certain members of my extended family that tend to irritate and annoy me. I can hardly stand to be around them for more than a few hours, let alone a day. Now I'll have to spend 2 weeks with them! Thankfully I'll have my husband there to keep me in line and prevent me from saying things that maybe should be said but could be said a little more tactfully. He's definitely the better half when it comes to decorum and civility. Also, one of my cousins over there stayed at my parents' house last summer and I got to know her pretty well, so she promised to show me around since I took her sightseeing around here. Maybe she'll give me a few opportunities to escape from all of the mayhem and madness, even if it's only for an hour or two. I think I overvalue my alone time, but I need it to recharge and cool off.Oh well, we'll see... only 8 more days 'til the flight leaves.

Writing essays is NOT a talent; it's a skill. As a skill, it can be honed and improved, like playing basketball, carving wood, or cooking. True, there are those who just do it better, as in the other areas mentioned, but that doesn't mean that you can't be good at it with a little know-how and practice. As an English teacher, it's my job to show students how to do that, so I figured that I would give everyone a few tips on how to improve your writing and, someday, make my job a little easier. The first basic building block of a good essay is to have well-written sentences. The two problems I come across most often are sentence fragments and run-on sentences. GRAMMAR: Writing Complete Sentences Although the English language often violates its own rules, there is one that always stands: Every sentence MUST HAVE a subject, which containts a noun, and a predicate, which contains a verb. This means that there must be a person, place, or thing (noun) doing or being something (verb). Let's look at some examples: _____Subject______|______Predicate______A Jedi's strength | flows from the Force."In this example, fox is the noun and jumps is the action verb. Notice that the subject comes before the predicate. Subject_|_PredicateLuke, I | am your father.Again, the subject comes before the predicate. This example shows a state of being rather than a particular action. These verbs usually describe the subject, indicating color, relation, etc. Subject | Predicate | Go.This is odd, isn't it? I told you that a complete sentence HAS TO HAVE a subject and a predicate. It's an inviolate rule! In fact, this sentence does have a subject; however, it is an understood, and therefore unstated, subject - YOU! These sentences are like commands telling you what to do. (You) Sit. (You) Stay. (You) Please take one. ______________Subject_______________|______________Predicate__________________Hokey religions and ancient weapons |are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.You can have multiple nouns in the subject or predicate or both by using "and", "or", or "nor" between them. You'll notice above that "and" joins the two nouns in the subject. Make sure, however, that you aren't joining two whole sentences together without the proper punctuation, which you'll find in the next section. Keep your multiple nouns in the subject and your multiple verbs in the predicate at the moment. Now that you're sure that you've put together a complete sentence, it's time to start combining those sentences together. You can, of course, write a six-page essay with only simple sentences, but it can be dry and repetitive for your reader. Combining Sentences A complete sentence that has a complete subject and predicate is referred to as a clause in English. This is because a period must come at the end of a sentence. We have just learned how to make simple sentences, so now we will learn how to make complex sentences by combinging clauses. INDEPENDENT CLAUSES An independent clause (IC) has a complete subject and predicate and can stand alone as a sentence. The simplest way to join two independent clauses is to use a semi-colon ( ; ) between them. However, you should only use this if the two clauses express similar ideas or follow a logical thought pattern. __________IC___________;_________IC________His helmet was stifling; it narrowed his vision. The second way to join two independent clauses is to write the first independent clause, followed by a comma, and then use one of the following co-ordinating conjunctions before fininshing the sentence with the second independent clause: For- rarely used in American English, used in place of "because" or "since." And - joins two similar ideas together Nor - joins two negative alternative ideas But - joins two contrasting ideas Or - joins two alternative ideas Yet - used in the same fashion as "but" So - shows that the second idea is the result of the first ___________IC__________|comma|conj.|_____IC______It narrowed his vision | , | and |he must see far. You can combine your clauses further by using all the methods above. ___________IC__________;___________IC__________|comma|conj.|_____IC______His helmet was stifling; it narrowed his vision| , | and |he must see far. DEPENDENT CLAUSEIf you remember your grammar school teacher telling you that you can never start a sentence with "because," you can go back and tell her she was wrong. Another way to join sentences is to turn one of the independent clauses (IC) into a dependent clause (DC) by using a subordinating conjunction, like "because," at the beginning of the clause. However, dependent clauses can't stand on their own; they need an independent clause to claim and support them. (Sorry for the little tax joke.) There are two ways to do this. __sub__|_________DC__________|comma|________IC__________Because| his shield was heavy| , |it threw him off balance.If you take "because" away, the clause can stand by itself as a sentence and doesn't need the second clause to support it. By adding the adverb "because" to the beginning of the clause, this turns it into a dependent clause. Therefore, it needs the second clause to support it. When a dependent clause comes before an independent clause, you must put a comma between the two clauses. ____________IC___________|_sub_|________DC_________It threw him off balance |since| his target was far away.In this example, the subordinating conjunction "since" is in the middle of the sentence. When a dependent clause comes after the independent clause, you do not need a comma between them. Below is a list of some of the more commonly used subordinating conjunctions; however, there are many more: after although as as if as long as as much as as soon as as though because before even if even though how if inasmuch in order that lest now that provided (that) since so that than till ( or 'til) that though unless until when whenever where whereas wherever while Next Lesson: Writing a Body Paragraph (coming soon)

Well, even though I did start a thread this year about Halloween, I'll join in. My friends are throwing a party at their half of a duplex the Saturday before Halloween, like they've done for the past four years. This year they've decided to give the girls incentive for looking as skanky as possible by sponsoring a "Sexiest Costume" contest with a $100 prize. I'm not going to be in the running since I'm modifying my Catwoman costume to be a little more covered than the Halle Berry one. I decided that the vinyl Michelle Pfieffer one was going to be waaaay too hot, and the original spandex ones from Adam West's days as Batman was a little too form fitting and unforgiving of my fondness for sweets. So it's pleather pants and a halter top for me. As for the actual day, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'll probably carve some pumpkins on Sunday or Monday before the 31st and then hang out at my husband's aunt's shop to watch the trick-or-treaters in their costumes. We live in a back house on the lot, so most kids don't come up to us for candy.

You say you have a Master's in Psychology, so you should already know the symptoms you're exhibiting are obsessive. You admitted to being a prick and deserving to be dumped. Maybe you have some guilt over the way that you treated her and need to reconcile that before you can move on with your life. Apologize for the way you treated her, acknowledge that you should have treated her better, and then tell her you will be available to begin a friendship with her in a month or so if she wants. The stick to your word and don't try to talk to her for a month. Just take it day by day and do some of the things suggested to keep your mind occupied. Focus on work, exercise, start a hobby, restart your Halo 3 game and try to get all the skulls on Legendary mode, just do something to keep yourself from calling her. Think about her all you want, but give her some time and space. Use this time to think about why you acted like a prick and how you can improve yourself so that your next relationship won't suffer. And remember, most psychologists believe that it takes half as long as the duration of the relationship to get over it. So if you were together for 4 years, you probably won't be ready to get into another relationship for at least 2 years after your break-up. As to her hanging out with your friends, she left behind all the people she knew to be with you. I'm guessing the only people that she got to know very well were your friends. Sometimes break-ups are just as hard on the friends because the couple forces their friends to choose between them. Try not to be one of those couples. Rather than see them as backstabbers, you could be thankful that they're watching over her rather than letting her go off to a bar alone.

You've been quite thorough in explaining your past relationships... from your perspective. You make it seem like every single one of these girls is at fault for ruining these relationships, but remember that there are two people involved in them. It takes work from both people to make a lasting, loving relationship work and withstand societal and media pressure about how men and women should act alone and within a relationship. Our parents have raised us to value love and commitment; however, we turn on the latest shows from The Real World to The OC, and the media tells us something else. Even our parents sometimes prove to be hypocritical since they get divorced, re-married, and divorce again. People growing up in the MTV generation are becoming progressively more promiscuous and self-absorbed. It's far worse today than when I was in high school and that's only a decade ago. I didn't start dating until I was 15 or 16, but now I'm hearing about girls getting pregnant in the 5th and 6th grade! I'm guessing these girls didn't have an Immaculate Conception and the angel Gabriel didn't visit them in their dreams and tell them that they're giving birth to the next Messiah. There's a male counterpart involved. I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying that you should take a minute to reflect on your part in this. For example, there's a few things that you could have avoided, had you thought things through a bit. I know that everything is always clearer in retrospect, but we learn from our mistakes, so just keep these things in mind before you decide to write women off for good. First of all, don't expect a relationship with the band's personal "cheerleader." (BTW really creepy, that's like a groupie that only sleeps with the roadies and back-up singers.) Secondly, relationships in high school are all about status even when they're not. Yes, the high school sweethearts who were best friends and discovered that they love each other are just another status symbol. I'll bet the girl had it all planned out in her head by junior high. Thirdly, never date a friend of an ex-girlfriend!!!!! Especially if you're technically still dating your girlfriend. Girls are weird in the fact that friendships are also fierce rivalries. They're always trying to one-up each other, so stealing a boyfriend is one of the ultimate "I'm better than you are" moves. It's not about you, it's about who has you. If you find yourself in the middle of one of these, turn around and walk away from both of them unless you like feeling like a trophy because they're both petty and childish and not mature enough for a deeply committed relationship. Fifth, being in a long distance relationship is hard, especially if you haven't been dating for very long. It's much easier to feel like you're in love when you're able to talk everyday and be physically affectionate with each other. It's doubly hard when that distance is the result of being in the military in wartime because she has different issues to deal with, like whether you'll be alive tomorrow. Sixth, mySpace is a glorified black book. Use it to meet people to hook-up with, not to start a long term relationship. If she's someone you might want to get involved with, then keep the dates light and friendly rather than going to her house while her parents are away for a month. Seventh, taking a girl's virginity is very serious, especially if she's waited so long to give it and she's chosen you to give it to. It's not like guys where they just stick it in something because, let's face it, the experience is almost always pleasurable for you. Not only is there a physical change in a woman, there's also a psychological and emotional change involved. She was probably extremely confused and emotionally fragile, so she pushed you away to protect herself. Instead of comforting her and assuring her that you still valued her and understood what a big deal it was to her, you walked away and later told her father that you felt she was promiscuous. Something else that I noticed is that you seem to wait until a girl approaches you. I know it's pretty awesome when someone pursues you, but instead of waiting around for the right girl to show up, why not decide what you want from a relationship first? Don't think about what you want in a girl because you're never going to find the "right" girl that way. Think about what you value in life and from a relationship. Is family important? Not in terms of having kids and stuff, but think about the kind of relationship you have with your family and the way you want her to treat them and how she treats hers. What do you do in your free time and do you do things that you want her to do with you or would you like to keep your free time to yourself? Think about your friends and whether you want your girlfriend to hang out with them or would you rather she just get along with them enough to go to parties and larger social functions? What about romance and affection? Do you need grand gestures every once in awhile or are you happier with little everyday things that show you she cares? I'm not a jewelry person, so my husband knows that I could care less whether he shows up with a little blue Tiffany's box, even though most of my girlfriends would be absolutely ecstatic. I like books, video games, movies, cookware, cutlery, and things like that. I went wild over getting a rice cooker one year. So my birthday gift arrived in a plain, brown Amazon.com box, which means it could be anything! Decide what you want from a relationship and don't settle for anything less.

When I was growing up, people were afraid to kiss because they were afraid of getting "mono," which is the slang term for Mononucleosis. It has similar symptoms to strep, including fever, sore throat, and fatigue. But you can get it just as easily by drinking out of a water dispenser and putting your mouth on the faucet or putting a pen or pencil in your mouth that someone with mono had in her mouth. There are also several forms of herpes that you can pass to one another, especially if either or both of you have an open sore. Usually, the body's defenses will fight off the disease when it has to fight through your saliva and digestion system to enter the bloodstream, but with an open sore, the virus can directly enter your blood. As I said, there are actually several forms of herpes, in fact, chicken pox is a form of herpes, so not all of them are as dangerous or deadly as genital herpes. Just take a few moments to check out medical websites and learn for yourself all the diseases that are out there before you decide to get more active than french kissing.

Well, Trap's #1 posting junkie is another year older today! Yes, my fellow Trappers, today we celebrate the birthday of Saint_Michael, SM, Pure Evil, Tiki's personal slave or whatever name you know him by. It seems like only yesterday that he was just a lad of 25. So in honor of him, please say a few spammerific words of congratulations to him. Happy Birthday, Mike! I would have sent you some birthday brownies (they ship so much better than cake), but the private investigator I hired to track you down and locate you hasn't returned from his assignment.

Girls have a flair for the dramatics. I blame the media that shows us very bad examples of how a girl is supposed to behave. And then they show us even worse examples of how a woman behaves.I remember having a discussion in my freshmen year about what would be the best way to commit suicide. We also talked incessantly about weight and how one girl is too fat and another is too skinny. There was very little about how so and so does community service or spends weekends visiting her grandma in the nursing home. We need better role models.

Even though Halloween isn't my favorite holiday, I still get pretty enthusiastic about it. Aside from carving a pumpkin or two, I also like to dress up. Most of the store bought costumes seem really cheaply made to me, so I usually try to make something on my own with odds and ends from the thrift store and second-hand clothing or whatever I can throw together from my closet. I dressed up as a princess in an old bridesmaid's dress, filled a basket with some fake flowers and made a little flowered circlet for my head. Another year I used a red prom dress and went as a vampire. I'm not really sure what I want to do this year, though.Trick-or-Treating has changed from when I was a kid. People are scared of their kids being abducted or poisoned, so most parents take their kids to the mall or main street where the kids go from business to business asking for candy. My husband's aunt owns an antique store, so we display our pumpkins there and hand out candy in front. I hardly see any kids on the street anymore and few houses with lights on giving out candy. It's kinda sad really...

Is this something that started happening recently or has she always been a little dramatic? If she just started acting like this, then there might be something triggering her actions. A personality change is one of the things to look for in a person who has been abused or begins abusing herself. However, the fact that she's expressing her suffering means that she's probably just trying to get attention. People who cut or make serious suicide attempts try to hide it because they don't want people to stop them. I mean, they do, but they don't. And anorexic/bulimic girls do their absolute best to hide their eating disorders. In actuality, your friend sounds like she watched Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen or Thirteen one too many times. She's testing to see who will give in to her and who she can control. If you humor her antics, then she'll continue to do something more extravagant to see just how far she can go with it. I would say that you should sit her down and have a private chat, one-to-one. Tell her that you miss having fun with her and you miss the happy person that she used to be. Ask her what happened to make her so unhappy that she would hurt herself the way she's doing now. Then sit back and listen. Really listen. Don't make comments or interrupt her. If she asks for your opinion, say something noncommital like, "I'm not sure, why don't you tell me more about it." Eventually, you'll either get to the root of the problem or she'll realize that she's not pulling the wool over your eyes anymore. If there is a specific problem, divorce, molestation, etc., you can then deal with the real issue. If she's just trying to get attention, then she sees that you're not going to fall for it and she might stop acting like a drama queen or she might stop being your friend because she can't control you anymore. Either way you win because it's not friendship if someone's trying to control you.

Enjoy your free time while it lasts...When I was growing up, my cousins were/are my best friends. It was me, my brother, and our two cousins, also a boy and girl, all of us within three years of each other. So basically my eldest cousin was a senior in high school when I, the youngest of the foursome, was a freshmen. Most of the time, the boys would play video games or fake fight while the girls would play board games and things like that. My parents were one of the few people to actually have a video camera back in the 80s, so we had fun making little movies. There's one as far back as when I was 4 or 5 years old. We even had lines and stuff. It kinda became our tradition to put together a production every few years until we all graduated from high school. We even did a behind the scenes documentary of our filming process. :)Aside from that, though, we went to movies and amusement parks too. One summer we decided to have a wrestling smackdown kinda thing and we put a bunch of mattresses and pillows in the front room and me and my oldest cousin had a wrestling match because we were the two hot-headed kids that fought like cats and dogs all the time. I'm proud to say that I held my own. Of course, a well placed knee to the groin really improved my position.Nowadays, we still go to movies, out to dinner, watch tv, play video games and go clubbing. Sometimes we just toss around a football in the front yard. I can usually throw a clean spiral about 20 yards, but I don't really have the power to get it further than that. Other times, we sit around the table and reminisce about things. The other night, we all told our favorite "getting pulled over" stories and how we either earned a ticket or got out of one.

I agree with Archangel_Baw - choose both! The thing about relationships is that it takes work to make the relationship last. Love is an emotion and emotions are fleeting and changeable. You can just as easily hate someone that you love. If you're really looking for a long-term relationship, look for a level of commitment rather than degrees of emotion. Studies have proven that couples in arranged marriages have a lesser rate of divorce than those who chose their partners. These couples have agreed to commit to each other even though they know nothing about the other, yet they stay together and grow to love one another.

Yeah, it's a little off-topic but there's a simple answer to that one. It's there to protect it since it's a really, really sensitive area. I read a study one time that said circumcision is actually bad for men and the lack of a foreskin actually causes some of the nerve-endings in the male anatomy to deteriorate as they age. However, it's still common practice. My health teacher explained that American doctors started performing circumcisions because there was lots of infections and sickness spreading except in the Jewish quarters of the cities. People were looking for an easy solution and didn't want to pay attention to the fact that kosher food is highly regulated and there are specific instructions on cleanliness and the disposal of trash, etc. Of course, having grown up with an older brother and dealing with my husband, I can see why they figured men were the ones passing on all the germs. But as long as you keep the area clean, it really isn't an issue and it might actually be better for you to have it than not.

Rather than take the sarcastic route as the others seem to have done, I'm going to assume you mean the matter of the hymen or thin tissue within the uterus that breaks when a woman has intercourse. I don't really know why it's there, although I'm sure there's lots of different theories. The fact of the matter, though, is that not all women have a hymen and some have a very thick hymen that needs to be surgically broken for the woman to be... fully penetrated, I guess you could say... However, a woman's hymen does not prevent pregnancy or the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. In this day and age, a woman can actually carry a baby to term and give birth through a C-section without ever rupturing her hymen, though I see no reason why she would want to. But as the other Trappers stated above, virginity is more of a societal status rather than a physical state of being. Males are also virgins when they're born.As for your theory with the cow, it doesn't really work. Ranchers brand cattle or clip their ears in a certain way to claim them and they've done so for decades, if not centuries. The cattle aren't born branded or with clipped ears. It's possible to crossbreed animals to try to get specific traits from them, like the dogs that are supposed to shed less or be gentler on allergies. Poodles, by nature, don't have animal dander and don't shed like most other dogs, so most people aren't allergic to them. But lots of families want the fun-loving personality and looks of a Labrador Retriever. So, theoretically, if you breed the two together, you'll get the personality of a Lab with the hair characteristics of a Poodle. The problem is that sometimes you get the opposite, depending on whatever genetic trait is dominant in the pairing.Or perhaps you were referring to natural selection, the process by which certain species thrive while others become extinct due to specific genetic traits. For a physical characteristic to be passed down from one generation to the next, it has to appear in the DNA. It can't be the product an external action. Again, your theory doesn't really hold because the ranchers aren't really choosing to raise cattle with specific ear shapes and killing all the rest. There has to exist some sort of genetic difference in a cow to cause it to be born with a cropped ear, then bred with a bull until it gives birth to a calf with a cropped ear.

hmmmm.... when you combine the theory Saint_Michael presents and the one from hitmanblood, it all kinda fits together. If the appendix was there to help people digest raw meat, it probably produces antibacteria to prevent people from becoming sick from bacteria that may develop on uncooked food. Since people have developed technology and now cook food instead of eating it raw or preparing it in a way to keep it safe from contamination (like sushi or steak tartar), then the appendix isn't really necessary. However, it probably still produces antibacteria and helps support the immune system, like it did before, just to a lesser extent. You can live without it, but you might be prone to getting food poisoning or sick from a bacterial infection.

Unfortunately, it sounds like you're trapped in the "friend zone," especially if she's referring to you as her "older brother." It's kinda like that old TV show The Twilight Zone. Like the characters in the show, most guys never escape the friend zone. The thing is... she's categorized you as a friend, despite you telling her that you've got feelings for her. So unless you can break her preconceived notions about you, then she's never going to see you as anything other than her friend. Try being a little more spontaneous and do things that you wouldn't normally do. You have to make her see that she doesn't really know you as well as she thinks she does, so it'll force her to reconsider her earlier judgement. The problem with that is that you're trying to be something you're not. You have to try to be what you think she wants. You'd be better off finding someone who wants to be with you the way you are. Who knows, maybe after you stop showing her that you like her and start seriously dating other girls, she may realize that she wants you for herself. Either way, you're both very young if you're still at the university. You should have fun and experience what life has to offer. Be single and date a bunch of people for awhile.

I think that people realized that the Vietnam vets shouldn't have been treated so horribly. People began to see the psychological effects of war. In WWII, servicemen came home "shell-shocked," but it wasn't talked about and they either learned how to repress those feelings in the rigid and conformist society of the 50s and 60s or disappeared from view, either quietly reposing or shoved out forcefully. Only after Vietnam and Korea did psychologists coin the term "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" and see that it was a pressing problem. I'm sure that there were probably cases dating back to the American Revolution, if not further. However, I also think that as humanity progresses further and further from our roots as a hunter-gatherer society, the implications of war become much more pronounced than before. Before the Industrial Revolution, the preservation of life was foremost in everyone's mind, the survival instinct. Most people lived off the land and killed for their food. It was an acceptable part of life. Now, meat comes pre-packaged at the market, hardly resembling the animal it was in life. Death, murder, and killing are something relegated to criminals and heroes, not normal people. But that's what soldiers are trained to do. And it's sometimes hard to reconcile yourself to that fact. Of course, there's also the heightened sense of surrealism when bombs go off a few feet from where you were standing just 10 minutes ago... and where your buddies were still standing.Most people also realize that our soldiers aren't the ones responsible for the war. They're just doing what they're told. In fact, there are probably a few soldiers over in Iraq that have the same questions that our protesters do. They don't know why they're there or what they're supposed to do or how to do it. Some of the more adamant protesters are mothers who lived through Vietnam and may have experienced the painful loss of a loved one or the more painful return of a man completely changed by his experience. And these women don't want to see that happen to their sons or daughters. I don't think, though, that the Vietnam vets would begrudge the returning soldiers a warm welcome. I doubt that they would want soldiers coming home from Iraq experiencing the same reception they had when they came home from Vietnam. Yeah, there might be a bit of jealousy, but I think they would rather see this than reliving the hate and shame and prejudice they received. People don't want another Vietnam, either during the war or the aftermath.

Well... you could do the invisible ink thing with lemon juice and a flame, but that might be too elementary. How about building a solar oven? You'll need plywood, black paint, and aluminum foil. You might also need some glass or thick plastic sheeting as a cover, depending on your design. My cousin did a study on different brands of milk to see how quickly they spoil. If you don't have different brands, you could do something with the fat content. For example, will whole milk expire faster than 1% milk and why?What about the differences between organic and non-organic? You could also try to grow a plant using commercial products like store-bought fertilizer and miracle-gro as opposed to a compost pile made from natural materials. Look into the effects of genetic engineering in our food by trying to grow a vegetable or fruit from the store as opposed to a local grower or seeds.Another hot topic would be something environmental. Look into pollution. What are the causes, what are some possible solutions, etc. Does the lack of car emissions from electronic vehicles offset the emissions from using more electricity? Can you build something eco-friendly to present to the class?There's a couple of ideas for you, hope it helps!