student blogger

Military service should be reintroduced because it is the only way to teach young people discipline and improve their fitness.

At times when a war is around the corner it is important for every human to know how to save their own life. Three to six months should be enough to learn the basics of weapon handling - though Counter-Strike players will have an advantage.

Fitness would be a tougher task, but an efficiently planned routine and regime can do wonders. Plus, I reckon that most of the men will preserve some of the habits into their later life. In Slovakia, our fathers still fold their clothes into stacks.

Military Discipline

But the textbook characteristic of a soldier is the discipline. Throughout history, the economic prosperity and cultural development of many nations has been rooted in their pristine military past. Just take the Roman Empire, Ancient Greeks, Vikings, the cultures of the Middle East - yes, those whom we often blame for wars without bothering to read a line about their history that would open our eyes.

More than 130 people drowned and about 200 are still accounted for after the shipwreck of a vessel full of African immigrants off Lampedusa island. Approximately 500 immigrants from Eritrea and Somalia were crammed on board of the flatboat, seeking a better future in Europe.

Without trying to diminish the severity of this tragedy, the overcrowded vessel reminds me of the situation on a train that I experienced last week. Many Slovaks are coming to the capital, Bratislava, attracted by the job opportunities and the cultural life. But on Friday afternoon, all of them want to get home. This means traffic jam, hundreds of people queuing at the ticket office and trains so full that 15 of us are standing at the toilet.

It is hard to sit down and the the price of privacy is so high in the big cities. I have nothing against the establishment, but they should at least provide decent transport for those who were deprived of work opportunities at home. Or maybe they want to prepare us for the worse.

When asked about your current job, it is almost compulsory to say: "it is fine", but I am looking for something better.

The Ernst & Young employees can say, I want to work for Google. But what would a Google employee say? Fortune's list of the best employers has been topped by Google for several consecutive years.

But, why do we all like Google? Probably for the same reason we like Christmas, or weddings. At either event, you are sure to gain something for little effort, which motivates us to participate and contribute towards the collective wealth.

At Christmas, children are asked to decorate the tree and adults are expected to bring their parents handy gifts such as a new baking oven. By offering a helping hand you can make a fortune - tons of cakes and sweets for the children, for example. The same applies to weddings. What do the adults look for at weddings? Maybe we should ask Owen Wilson.

I was surprised to see that one of the UCL student residences was nominated amongst the worst new buildings in Britain. Being used to the student life, I could imagine peeling walls, dirty lavatories, rusty pipes, hoards of unattended rubbish and so on. But my surprise grew when I realized that the main concern was the lack of sunshine due to the adjacent building. Moreover, it affected only 23 rooms.

In my experience, students usually go to their rooms only if they want to sleep. Often, they get to their bed early in the morning (after a night spent partying or studying) and in that case, the shadow would be an asset. It is hard to sleep when the morning sun knocks at your window.

Student residences in Slovakia, where I did my studies, have different problems - the ones I originally expected at the UK's. But the situation is not so bad, compared to the price. The monthly prices in the UK might run so high that in some residences in Slovakia you could live for the whole academic year.

We often discuss the stress and anxiety that comes with A-levels, but today I beg the question: what is their real purpose in everyday teenagers' lives? And why do we fail as a society to see the true meaning that each brown paper envelope holds to each individual?

Take Tom Daley for instance. He is young, talented, sporty and good looking- his rise to fame through his Olympic bronze last summer would suggest his astonishing A* A A, outcome on Thursday was simply a stroke of luck and means nothing to the young star. This argument in retrospect seems quite likely, so why on earth would heart throb Tom Daley need three A-levels at Russell group level to succeed in life? Quite simply, he doesn't.

Now we travel to the other end of the spectrum and in fact the other side of the world when we think of Katie Gee and Kirstie Trup. Two incredible 18-year-old girls not known due to Olympic stardom, but instead as victims in the horrific acid attack that happened last week as the girls continued their charity work at an orphanage in Tanzania. Their results and acceptance to the universities of their choice means the world to these girls, so I again suggest that we as a society fail to see the true meaning of each brown paper envelope to each student.