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I'm 20, female, and at university studying English. I have lots of friends but am closer to my male friends. I feel more relaxed around them, they're easier to talk to. I am a highly strung person, I get anxious easily and dramatically, I also cry quite easily, normally from happiness. If I like something a lot it'll make me cry with joy, examples include The Muppets, Miyazaki films, Shakespeare plays, and adorable animals. I'm a good writer (probably hard to tell this terribly written question), I enjoy acting, singing, and going to the cinema or theatre.

This evening my boyfriend called me after work. He was filming a seminar on autism, particularly autism in females and noticed that I matched almost all of the symptoms mentioned. He chatted to the lecturer afterwards and told him a bit more about me and the guy said it sounded like I may have undiagnosed autism (probably on the milder end of the spectrum). Apparently autism often goes unnoticed in females because women tend to hang around in groups and if the rest of the group thinks they are acting oddly they won't ostricize them (as males tend to) but will just talk about it behind their back in secret. My boyfriend is highly autistic himself but perfectly integrated into society because his high intelligence makes it easier for him to handle it. My last boyfriend was also autistic, although I didn't know this until after we'd broken up.

Seeking out like minded people, being closer to males, disproportional reactions to stress, and paranoia over the way people think about you are all traits of female autistics. This lecturer asked if I could give him a call or email and he'd ask me a few questions then see if he could get me some help in my local area. I was planning on getting some counselling in college for my anxiety, but apparently this wouldn't be a good idea because they're only trained to counsel people with a 'normal' psyche.

I've been researching autism online all evening and the symptoms that keep coming up seem like the exact opposite of my personality. I am good at speaking, I learned to talk earlier than average, I don't particlarly care about routine, I'm quite messy, and have no interest in numbers or charts (this keeps coming up on the forums and sounds like a ridiculous way to diagnose someone to me).

So what do you think? Is it possible to have autism without these cliche characteristics? I'd love to hear about how autism affects different people, experiences of autistics or people who know autistics, what counseling is like, what kind of steps are taken when someone is diagnosed with autism, and people's perception or knowledge of autism in general.

Thanks to all answerers!

I need some advice from you savvy people. I'm 19, size 10 in the UK (so that's 8 US and I think 38 European), and I need a dress for this big evening do. I've been invited to a poetry event at the American ambassodor's house in Regent's Park, London. It's a really big deal, loads of famous poets and important publishers will be there. So what should I wear? I'm guessing a sort of eveningy number, I suit autumny colours. Any ideas, links, or recommendations would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Or will they convert it from 2D?

What are some songs from the perspective of a politician or a king or queen? Like "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" from The Lion King. Songs about having power or controlling people or having to make tough decisions.

Thanks!

Where from?

DFTBA guys xxxx

Is it the length? The cut? The occasion you wear it on? Not sure what makes a tea dress a tea dress.

Thanks.

xxxx

I've been offered a job for a week this summer teaching a 12 year old Spanish child English. He/she is an exchange student staying with my neighbors. Apparently I won't have to speak any Spanish. And that's all I know about it. So my question is, how should I go about it? Are there any sites out there that can give me tips? How would you do it?

Thanks.

Hey there,

I'm looking for new TV series to watch. I'm a big comedy fan and I need stuff to cheer me up. I like How I Met Your Mother, Glee, and Ugly Betty. I'm British so I'm keen on that sense of humour, Black Books, and The Mighty Boosh. I also like fantasy, Doctor Who, Robin Hood, Merlin. So just anything I might like please. The bigger the list, the better.

"Dawn comes early, with rosy fingers?"

I'm auditioning next week for King Lear and I was looking for your opinions on characterization. I have a slight problem, in that I haven't read the play, but I've looked up the summary, read character descriptions and read a couple of excerpts, so that shouldn't get in the way too much.

I was planning on going for one of the three daughters, Goneril and Regan seem like the most fun, but I might be quite good at Cordelia. What would you say are the differences between Goneril and Regan, they seem to be equally evil an they even fall in love with the same guy. How would you play them so one could distinguish between the two?

Cordelia; is she just utterly wet? She lets her father reject her and is still loyal and loving to him. Is there a way of playing her without making her a boring unrealistic character? Is it possible to play her as tired with her father's demands? Or maybe witty? Or just some way to make her a little less one dimensional really.

Thanks for your help and I'm looking forward to reading your opinions.

Hey there,

So I've got an audition in just over a week and I need to prepare one song from a musical. I'm having difficulty picking though because I've got all these wierd conditions it needs to fit. You see, the musical is with this society I'm in at uni and a couple of months ago we had a night where we were all getting to know what each other's voices were like and we all had to sing one song from a musical. I did "Maybe This Time" from Cabaret, and now the guys judging us in the auditions say we sholddo something completely different to the song we sang before, different style, different tone. So "Maybe This Time" is has a jazzy cabaret style, it's slow, and it's tone is one of vain hope. Can you think of a song from a musical that's completely different? Something with a classical style but kind of upbeat?

Oh and the guys particularly like Sondheim, but that's not too important, it can be from any musical.

Please just give me as many ideas as possible.

Thanks.

I'm very enthusiastic, I love going out and dancing, but I know I look like a ****. Now I'm kind of ok with that, I'd rather dance and be made fun of, than not. But I wonder if it matters to other people. If you're a guy, does it matter to you if a girl can't dance? If you're a girl, does looking stupid bother you? What about romantically for both sexes?

Hey, I'm starting a little mini project on my youtube channel where I find the answers to the questions that everyone comes up with and thinks that they're the first to come up with. So I'm starting out with his classic I (and millions of others) came up with when I was about 14.

What is the speed of dark?

How did you come up with the answer? How would you do it experimentally?

And can you think of more questions that everyone comes up with? Things like wondering if everyone else in the world is a robot or if you see the same colours the same way as everyone else.

Cheers for your help, I'll give you credit in my vid if you help me out. If you feel like seeing the results there's a link to my youtube channel on my page, you don't have to subscribe forever, just wait until i put up the vid and unsubscribe again if you like.

Yep, I'm doing a Hamlet essay. I know that the reason Hamlet doesn't become king after King Hamlet dies is that Denmark had an elective monarchy and Claudius won the election. But Shakespeare leaves this pretty ambiguous in the play, would an Elizabethan audience be confused and think Claudius was a usurper?

So my hair's dark brown right now, it's curly and about ear length. Looks kind of 1920sish. And on Friday I'm getting it dyed bright red (because I'm being paid to model for a demonstration). And I'm kind of lame, well, not even "kind of" just REALLY lame, and I was wondering if you can think of any characters from books or films or whatever with red hair. So that I can sort of smile to myself in the bathroom mirror, and maybe do a bad impression or three. So yeah, characters with bright red (preferably ear length) red hair. The only one I can think of is Ginny Weasley, and she's more ginger.

Thanks for indulging my dweebiness.

Does anyone else say dweeby?

xxxx

So you know how in The Wizard of Oz, all the bits in Kansas are in black-and-white and all the bits in Oz are in glorious technicolor? Well I was wondering if there were other films that did that trick?

I know A Matter Of Life and Death had all the bits on Earth in colour and all the bits in heaven in black-and-white, but I haven't seen it anywhere else.

I guess there's also films like Sin City or Rumblefish that had splashes of colour against black and white, I'm interested in them too.

Thanks for your help

xxxx

I remember a tiny phrase from an audiobook I heard when I was about 12, I guess it was based off a regular kids' book but I can't for the life of me remember the title.

The phrase was this little song:

"Nobody sleeps, nobody knows,

Swiftly and swiftly and bottle the rose."

I think it was sung by characters called Gaolbirds, literally birds that fly around inside a gaol cell. The main character of the book was a young girl I think and for some reason she went to this magical castle inhabited by strange creatures that resembled animals, but were all horrible. There was a disgustingly fat chef, and a farmer might have been an armadillo and was obsessed with his quotar. Any idea what this book could be?

It's kind of important to me because that song stuck with me for years and I don't know what it means.

I'm working off Vista platform and I need a webcam driver that works with the webcam built into my laptop. I just want to be able to make videos that I can transfer over to Windows Movie Maker for editing, nothing complicated. But all the ones I've found online seem really dodgey and the couple that I did download either didn't work, or were much to difficult to use.

Can you help me please?

Sorry for being so noobish.

Thanks.

So I just started university, I'm 18 years old, and I've been here for about 3 weeks. I met this guy Thursday before last at Shakespeare society (don't laugh, it's cool!) and a few of us went to the pub afterwards. He's 21, second year, cool, good-looking. Then on Monday he invited me to some comedy with a couple of his friends, the night went on, he held my hand, started stroking it, I rested my head against his, and he kissed me.

We've been out almost every night this last week, to pubs and clubs and things, we're always together when we're there, holding hands and kissing and stuff. And he texts me pretty much every day, just to see how I am.

But we're always with other people as well, we haven't been on a real date, and we always drink a lot when we're together. And it's only been like a week. Is this a real relationship?

I've never been together with anyone I haven't known for years. I've only had one real boyfriend and that was only for a few months when I was 16. He's much more experienced than me, I'm still a virgin and he's not.

So what are we? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Friends with benefits? Dating? Fooling around?

What makes it into a real relationship? Time? Sex? Being alone?

I'm going over to his place for supper tonight. I have no idea if it's just food, or if we'll have sex or what.

Should I even worry about it? Just go with it? That's kind of what I'm doing atm, but I just want to feel more secure.

Thanks for your help.