Michelle

When I calculate my total tax, do I only include federal income tax withheld from my W-2, or do I also add in social security tax and medicare tax withheld? Can't find any explanation of this online :(

I’m a 20 year old female, about 5’7 and 200 pounds and am looking to start losing weight when I go back to college in a few weeks. I’ll be living off campus and doing all of my own grocery shopping and cooking and want to make sure I’m eating the right stuff. I’m also planning on my main form of exercise being walking (longer walk in the morning and maybe short walks after meals).

 Ultimately I want to lose 50-60 pounds but I’m okay with taking it slow. I’ve tried losing weight in the past and always tried to rush it and I’ve just continued gaining weight over the years. 

Does anyone who has had success with long term weight loss have any advice?What type of foods should I be eliminating? Any foods in particular I should add? How many calories should I shoot for per day? Is walking a good idea for my exercise? Should I do additional workouts like building muscle? Also any motivation tips to keep me going? Any advice is welcome! 

I just got two new earrings for my forward helix and for my tragus. I went to a new piercer because I’m in a new town now and he said I should never go back to the place that did these piercings because they didn’t do them right (they were sideways rather than going straight back and over time having them like that will tear up my cartilage). He took pictures for me and I definitely see what he means. Anyway, he advised that I let them close up and get them redone at somewhere reputable. My question is, how do I know if a shop is good or not? The place I got the piercings at had really good reviews and was clean, had good equipment, everyone was respectful, etc., but now that he showed me how bad these piercings are I’m having my doubts. Clearly I can’t just trust reviews that people give. Any advise? I live on the east coast near Philadelphia if anyone has any recommendations on specific places, but advise from anyone living in another area is definitely welcome too! 

When I push on the handle normally there’s some pressure and you have to keep pushing down to get it to flush, you know? Now when I push the handle, there is no pressure. The handle goes all the way down without anything flushing. Any easy solutions? I’m not good with this type of stuff so I probably can’t do anything complicated. I’d like to get it to at least flush once before calling a plumber or friend to look at it because I used it :(

I am working on a project and am wondering how to access the first word from different sets. What I mean is, say I have something like this:

blue is my fav color

red is my fav color

green is my fav color

------------------------

yellow is my fav color

purple is my fav color

black is my fav color

---------------------

pink is my fav color

orange is my fav color

where the dashed lines have some other text (if it helps, the text in between each set is almost identical each time)

I only want the words (in a list) blue, yellow, and pink. I have figured out how to get all the first words using split, but I cant figure out how to only access the first word in each set. anyone have any tips??

thanks in advance!

I myself am pro life, but I m really struggling to get on board with some of these bills states are passing (specifically Alabama and Ohio). I haven t actually read the bills (if someone could put a link or something that would be great because I can t find them through a google search). I just don t understand why birth control is being outlawed. Can someone explain?? My pro life beliefs are that life begins at conception, so what does contraception have to do with abortion? I would think they would want women to use birth control in order to prevent pregnancy! In my mind, they are overstepping a boundary where they are now taking away a woman s right to have sex; it s gone far past just the rights of the children. Rant over... can someone explain if you understand why they re doing this?

I'm just curious if anyone else has had this problem before and if so can tell me what that problem for them was. Last night I woke up multiple times to a pain in my lower back. When I officially woke up for the day, the pain was pretty bad to the point I couldn't comfortably lay on my sides. It started to subside on its own, although Tylenol/ibuprofen haven't helped much.

So, I started googling, and came to the conclusion something could be wrong with my kidneys. I immediately got really worried (as is common when you google your symptoms lol) that I could be getting a bad kidney infection, or worse, kidney stones. So, I went to a health center and got a urine test.

I have been noticing all day today and yesterday that my urine is a lot lighter than normal, however, when they asked for the urine test, I didn't need to pee that badly, so my urine came out very concentrated which led them to believe I was severely dehydrated. Since then, I have peed twice more back with the lighter color, so I don't believe I'm actually dehydrated. The tests for infection and stones were all negative.

Has anyone experienced something like this? It's pretty uncomfortable, and I'm glad it doesn't seem to be anything serious, but I hate being left in pain with unanswered questions.

I've had a little bump on my face (not a pimple!) near my temple for maybe a month now. It was very red but never hurt at all so I've left it alone. However, the other night, I noticed it started bleeding, a lot. If I left it alone for just a few seconds, soon enough the entire side of my face would be covered in blood. The only thing that stops the bleeding is leaving a band aid on it. Applying pressure and washing etc have not been successful at stopping it. And as soon as I take the band aid off it starts again. So today when I woke up it wasn't bleeding anymore. This started on Thursday night btw and today is Sunday. Then, without me touching it or anything, a few hours into the day it started bleeding again. This was around 11. It's 9 now and I just switched the band aid to see that it is still bleeding!! The bump has flattened out now but I just can't get this thing to stop. Should I see a doctor? It doesn't seem like a big deal but I'm a bit concerned that this is the 4th night now that this thing has been bleeding.

Since this morning there have been HUNDREDS of geese in a cornfield right on the border of my yard. Hundreds of them, and I am not exaggerating that. They're endless. I'm wondering what the cause of this is?? They seem to be all moving in the same direction, but once they get near the road, all at once they get up and fly and they go back to where they started. What are these geese doing? Why are they all crowded here and when will they leave? It is also snowing right now, not too hard but about an inch has accumulated in the last 2 hours, if that has anything to do with the answer. They're quite loud.

Had to find the value of f (1), I calculated it as -1/2(1+3ln2), and the correct answer is -1/2ln8e. These are both the same value but I m having trouble converting my answer into the correct form.

Let's say x = (5y)/(y-5) and I'm plugging that into -x^2. Do I square the value and then make it negative, or do I go by the rule that when you square something negative, it turns positive meaning that I'll basically be taking x^2. In other words, will my answer be (25y^2)/((y-5)^2), or will it be -(25y^2)/((y-5)^2). Both are an option because this is a multiple choice question, or part of it anyway. I went with positive but am not sure

Find the value of K that will make the function continuous at all x

h(x) = (x^2 - k^2) / (x-k) , x is not equal to k

h(x) = 9 , x IS equal to k

I have already factored the top equation to (x-k)(x+k)/(x-k), so x-k cancels out which means there is a hole at k... Just confused on how to incorporate the bottom equation to fill the hole.

A large portion of the top of my class (seniors in high school) as well as other lower ranked members of the class are in a group message where they share homework answers, quiz answers, even test answers. In fact, they often take photos of a test and send it to the group for the people who take the test later in the day. It angers me because a lot of the students are completely undeserving of their grades. Should I report this to my school? How will this affect them getting into college or affect their grades in classes?

I just need to rant about this and need a bit of advice.. My grandma is in her late 70s and recently has been losing her memory. For a while it was just short term but now she s just completely confused all the time and it s more long term memory. She still remembers who we all are, but yesterday we were with her for the whole day with the rest of my family and she kept asking where her mother was. Her mother died over 30 years ago. We tried over and over to gently tell her that her mother isn t with us anymore and she did not believe us. She would get angry and tell us not to say something like that because it s not funny. It gets so frustrating because lately she ll talk about things and no one will know what she s talking about, she gets so confused and it s hard to make her understand certain things such as the fact that her mom is gone. And while driving (she s not allowed to drive anymore for obvious reasons) she kept telling my father who was driving to pull over because she thought he was too tired (he was not tired at all) and she just doesn t understand that she can t drive anymore. Are there certain ways to say things to someone like her to help her understand better?? I hate seeing her get stressed about things like this so I try to tell her in a nice way, but it s as if she has no idea what year it is or who she is and I don t know what to do anymore to make her understand. I know her conditions won t get much better, but just need advice.

Lately I've been thinking I want to be a chemical engineer, I'm starting my senior year of high school this fall so I soon need to decide.. I'm a very bright girl, I plan to apply to top schools, if I decide to do CE likely Johns Hopkins or Carnegie Mellon.

However, I chose this job because I really like chemistry and physics, but one of my true interests is space. I really would love to study stars and planets, and being able to incorporate all 3 would be a dream. This would mean studying astrophysics or astrochemistry instead, but I can't think of any other useful place to work other than NASA..

I plan to do very well in college and go to a university with excellent opportunities to ensure that I'm the best at whatever I decide to study.

If I do decide to go this route (astrophysics or astrochemistry), is it likely that this will be a worthy major and that I will get a job at NASA?

I m wondering if I should retake my chemistry sat II test. I took it at the end of my sophomore year of high school and got a 650 (not very happy with this score). I took it after taking AP Chemistry, and after the AP exam I didn t have much more motivation in me to continue studying Chem. The sat was a month after ap exam. I plan to major in some sort of engineering in college, lately have been considering chemical engineering. I plan to take Math 2 and Physics this fall during my senior year and will definitely study and submit those scores. I m wondering, would it be a good idea for me to study chemistry over the summer and retake the chemistry exam along with the other 2, hopefully achieving a higher score? I plan to apply to top universities which is why I m looking to get a higher score, at least a 700 hopefully.

My period ended a couple days ago. Usually toward the end of it I have light discharge but it's more of a brown color, and that stopped a couple of days ago. Today after having sex I went to pee and when I wiped I noticed a pretty noticeable amount of light pink blood on the toilet paper. I'm not pregnant. This never happens when I have sex or after a period. I'm wondering if it could be the amoxicillin I'm on right now for an ear infection? Or is it something else? Should I see a doc? There's no pain either, just a light amount of blood.

I'm currently taking antibiotics for the infection and I also have ear drops. I'm wondering if when I take a shower is it okay to let some warm water get into my ear to help clean some of the wax out, or should I avoid getting water in my ear? I have a lot of excess wax in my ears right now and it is hard to hear.

I have an ear infection and am in a lot of pain. I'm using a painkiller where you can take one pill or two if it's more severe. I took one pill about an hour ago but it's not helping at all. Since you can take two pills for more severe pain, would it be harmful if I took the second pill now or is it okay?