Have you ever sat stressed in a career services appointment? Written exam after exam, just praying that the hand cramps would pay off? Survived being a teenager on the hope that the awkwardness and acne would one day disappear? Then you've probably wished at some point that you could just skip all this uncertainty, and know what lay ahead. It is this curiosity that leads people to contact a psychic.

Angie Aristone is a psychic and medium from London, who has made a career consulting people about their futures, and connecting them with their passed loved ones. She lectures to the psychology department at the University of Western Ontario, and is no stranger to students' doubt. "Skepticism is a very important part of life, as far as I'm concerned," said Aristone. "I still get where they are in their process of understanding the world ... more often their responses tend to be 'I need to go home and think about this a little longer, because this is not what I thought.'"

It shouldn't be a surprise that a question asked more than once of Aristone during her readings, has been about the following week's lottery numbers. When I get around to the subject, Aristone joked, "Oh, don't think I haven't tried winning the lottery!" Thinking twice, it seems pretty obvious that if she was capable of predicting the winning combinations to millions of dollars, she'd be laying on a beach somewhere tropical, instead of participating in my interview. Aristone explained that reading lottery numbers is different than a person's future because the lottery is "a spontaneous event in time," and since there is no continuum in the complete randomness (as opposed to the linear structure of a person's lifetime), "it doesn't resonate the same way."

Aristone says the way she reads people is through an energy they project. As a medium, she can communicate with energies that feel like people. On her website she describes how feeling the energy of a dead person is similar to the instinct people get when somebody they know well enters a room, and knowing who it is without having to look. I relate it to the eeriness of feeling eyes on the back of your head, and sensing that people are staring without having to turn around. Aristone explained how being a medium differs from what is seen on shows like Medium and Ghost Whisperer because of the visual nature of television, "They have to show a dead person in space, but that isn't necessarily the way it happens. For most mediums it happens in the mind, not the room."

As Aristone talked of all the people she's helped to communicate with the dead, a few particular cases come to mind, like a woman who had her mother's first husband try to communicate, a man who was a very important member of the Russian mob. It also isn't completely out of the ordinary for Aristone to have the spirits make the first move in communication. "I've had the odd situation when I'm standing in line at the grocery store and somebody's dead grandmother shows up, or walking across the street and the person walking towards me has somebody coming through that I need to tell them about." She says that in these cases, it usually seems best to keep these experiences to herself because as Aristone puts it, "I'm not necessarily open to being the crazy person who stalks (people) in the street to tell them what their dead grandmother has to say."

So skeptical or not, most people must admit to have been curious about visiting a psychic or medium at some point. If this curiosity ever becomes overwhelming and you do want visit a psychic, there are plenty in London.

Angie Aristone can be reached through her website at www.angiearistone.com.