Do Schools Help Or Hinder School. It's a phase everyone's gone through. But looking back, did school help you? Did it push you towards what you wanted to do? Or did it lead you to conform? That may have sounded very accusing and direct but even though I am young I can see that school hasn't really helped me develop as a person. I am trained to pass an exam not to live if that makes sense. Admittedly that's what the world wants: high grades and intelligence, but why base it on exams? Why purely test short term memory on a limited subject? A lot of exams, particularly GCSEs, seem not to be about understanding or skill, but rather whoever has got the best memory or whoever puts in the most time. However, some subjects, like english, are ones where I think the exam boards have got it right (a lot of people do disagree with me though). That's my opinion anyway. I personally think exams should not be what they are and should be changed. Changed to what though? I myself can only see the problem not a full-proof solution. Testing understanding over time would be more effective as would focusing predominantly on coursework rather than whoever can cram the best at the end of it all. I think this opus is becoming dangerously close to a full on rant so before I go into rage mode I would like to ask a few questions. Does anyone else think school prepares you for exams not anything else? I would be interested in any suggestion to a solution to what I think is a problem Much appreciated David

Fallout Part One Of My father was always a paranoid man. It got worse as he got older. He kept getting me to taste his drinks before he drank it, thoroughly convinced I was trying to poison him. With no wife and only a son his mind slowly started to distort with the world. The news told him what to believe and he did. He was a patriotic conservative through and through. A nutty, old nationalist - ha; we could have done with less of them. He was a bit racist as well. Not on the scale of abuse or anything like that, but, nevertheless, it was one of those conventions that was beaten into him and he had never managed to remove the habit from his mind. All in all he was my imperfect dad. But anyway, he was paranoid. He saw the news about terrorists blowing up more and more stuff and he felt he was at risk. Of course he did. The advances in technology made the events seem too close, too personal. So, being a rich, nutty, nationalist he bought himself a deep, nuclear bunker in his garden. He went on the Internet, he googled "best foods for a nuclear winter" and went out and bought the whole lot a hundred times over. I remember coming home finding a digger in the garden, two hundred cans of tinned fruit or meat or whatever it was, and I found my dad in his armchair with a cigar watching the news, again, and when he saw me he said "You'll thank me when them lot come with bombs for us" I rolled my eyes as though Mario Balotelli had just proposed his solution for the recession. I thought nothing of it. Let him be at peace, that's all I thought, that's all I wanted. But peace at that time was rare. It's not all I thought of. I did think for several minutes, and even interrogated one of the workers, on whether there was a company dedicated to this crap. I mean of course there had to be but, come on, business could hardly have been booming. I asked him and he had said that they installed one bunker a day minimum. He placed huge emphasis on the technical skill it required. I'm sure it does require skill but it felt as though he was pressing me for an extension on the state of art bunker. He was a pretty humourless guy. I was so tempted to press him on several issues but I thought better of it. I mean, I wouldn't want him to 'accidentally misplace' a part. But I did want to rip into him about the morality of this man letting old nuts spend hundred of thousands of pounds on a useless bunker, but, a business is a business, and a worker is fish on a hook. These were the thoughts that jumped in and out of my mind as I sat in that bunker. I cast my cynical eye over every move I ever made and every character I ever met to keep my sanity. There was bitter irony in how my dad isn't here with me. I mocked this bunker with every ounce of sarcasm in my body till I went blue and yet here I am and here he isn't. He had gone shopping. He was probably sprinting home when it hit. I wish he was here. His stories would have been so much more intriguing than mine. After all I was sixteen and probably half of that time was spent not making my own story but following virtual ones or following other people's stories. I never wrote a book like him. I never played sport as well as him. But I bet he hadn't completed fallout three and new Vegas several times over. I smiled at that. It was a sad smile. If you've read up to here I would sincerely like to thank you. Any feedback is good feedback and if anyone wants to share ideas of where the story should go from here I would be happy to talk about them. Any comment will get a reply From here, the story will begin to bring in other characters (lots of them) and, if you couldn't tell from the opening, the story will follow this character - who's name I haven't decided, maybe I won't give him a name? - predominantly as he describes his journey through through the remains of civilisation. Again, I beg for feedback, this is sort of my first writing piece that was written purely by choice and I am new to the non-analytical side of English.

Am I Odd Is it only me who finds I am most creative and motivated at night time? Does anyone else feel this way? Would anyone like to offer a reason why?

Eyes Does anyone know why we can't move a singular eye? Why do both eyes always have in tandem?

Morality Of Medicine Is preserving #life in all situations right? Please tell me what you think. Personally, I'm undecided there is so much to live for and I don't know if anyone should not be given that opportunity but would keeping a person with a 0.5% chance of survival alive be morally right?