Should Underage Teenagers Be Allowed To Drive?

Nowadays underage teenagers are commonly seen driving cars and bikes recklessly. Although it is not allowed by law teenagers openly perform this action and get away with it. According to me underage teenagers shouldn’t be allowed at all to drive any sort of vehicle. Driving is a task that needs expertise and skillfulness, which teenager’s lack. An inexperienced driver is a danger to himself as well as the people around him.
Teenagers particularly underage i.e. below 18 years of age are immature and careless. So allowing them to drive is a huge risk, at this young age they seldom think of consequences before performing any task. Driving in general seems like a harmless and safe thing but it is such a critical process that a small mistake often results in huge and irreparable damage. Even the most experienced drivers sometimes face accidents so it is extremely risky to let the youth who are not even permitted by law to drive, operate a vehicle.
Some people may say that in the increasingly developing and fast paced world we live in today, driving is necessary in order to keep up with the race. Others may say that it is not necessary that everyone is same why should all the youth suffer because of a few rebellious ones. But seeing it from a logical point of view it is not justifiable that one cannot keep up without a car, infect not everyone can even afford a car. One can easily survive and progress without owning or driving a car this concept that that driving is necessary in order to keep up is totally baseless. 
Letting young teens drive is a huge risk and is not worth taking. It can easily be explained by the phrase “It is better to be safe than sorry”. It is better to wait a few years and drive after being legally allowed to then to rush things and end up doing permanent damage.

By Robaid Malik

Should High School Graduates Take A Year Off Before Starting College

Graduating from high school and starting college is a stepping stone in anyone’s life. Some people consider taking a break in between the two phases. I for one think that one should definitely take a break after graduating from high school. Education up to the high school level is generalized and before starting college one needs to decide the major course of study for their higher education and that is not an easy task, one should definitely take a year off in order to decide.
With college, starts a new chapter of a person’s life and once college life starts one cannot spare themselves for anything else until it is over. This period of time between high school graduation and joining college, can be utilized in doing recreational activities e.g. traveling or taking a job, that one couldn’t do otherwise because of continuous pressure of studies. 
The gap between high school and college is the only major break that one gets in their life time, before retirement of course, after 12 years of continuous schooling it is the first time that one gets time off before starting another 6 years of specialized education. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” this saying fits perfectly in this situation, taking a break once in while is necessary for leading a healthy and productive life.
One can arguably say that taking a year off before college is not at all important and one should start college immediately as it is a complete waste of time to take a year off. Because taking a break may distract one from studies and result in an even longer delay or maybe even permanently suspend ones plans of joining college.
However, the importance of taking a break cannot be ignored, in order to clear one’s head and plan one’s future, it is extremely important as it is not something you get to do every day. Getting into college requires selecting a specialized field of study which you have to major in and pursue for the rest of your academic life and then employ it for the rest of your professional life. So it is a really critical choice and can certainly not be made overnight. In order to make the right decision, one needs to carefully explore their options, evaluate their outcomes, weigh the possibilities and then finally formulate a plan for their future.
In conclusion, one can say that taking a year off after high school is beyond doubt a reasonable and valid option and should be seriously considered.

By Robaid Malik

Fantasy

What is fantasy? The faculty or activity of imagining things that are impossible or improbable. But some things are just possible enough.

Everyone have some dreams in their lives to be accomplished. One among those is the success on the date of wedding. People, since their childhood days have a desire to make their wedding the most loved day of their lives. These all fantasies are set to them through reading a book where an involved marriage is taking place, or even in a movie where the couple is looking like moons and taking wedding. Off course, all of us want our marriage to be an even of status. But, sadly only few of them are lucky enough to get the same.


“MY DREAM WEDDING”

Though elegant and somewhat detailed, my wedding day should be everything I ever hoped for. The finger-tip length veil attached to me hairs. The wedding dress, which should be maroon and with grey lite colored. Being from an average family, I want to do my best to hold up my end of things and may my parents get enough blessed by wealth so that they would make my wedding day and every thing about it just right!
I want my best friends to surround me and rose petals should be scattered before me as candles lites up from every table as I moves across. All eyes should be at me as I enter the hall on my father’s arm and we walk together one last time. At the end of the read carpet stands my husband whose eyes should turn exclusively on me and who waits patiently to take my hand as my father offers him to.
The flowers, fresh gardenias, roses, and jasmine, to be chose. The tables should be set with white and dark red maroon color, and delicacies to be served as the guests enter. A sweet custard dessert, to be served to honor our guests and new in-laws. The ceremony should be cultural, what we all share, the need to love and be loved.
Fairy tales are stories and are made up, but dream weddings can come true. Waiting and settling for nothing less than the man you love and who loves you above and beyond everything else.
The truth is that all the extra stuff is great and made for a gorgeous wedding, but what would made a dream come true will be the fact that I would marry a man who would loved me more than life itself.

By Hania Rana

Tangled: Disney's Ripping Rapunzel

The current animation at Pixar, DreamWorks and Fox’s Blue Sky (the Ice Age series) concentrates on buddy movies and has all but female-centered stories. It can't be simply that the Cartoon Directors' Club is almost exclusively a male presenter, since the Disney films, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Mulan, were also men-made. It may be that their bosses think girls will go to boys' movies but boys won't go to girls'. Feature animation is an expensive business, and films are seen as a place too small to be worth the cost.

At the Disney animation unit, now under control by Pixar's John Lasseter, there's still a belief in girl power as shown, with amazing élan and skill, in last year's The Princess and the Frog and today in the pleasing, warming Tangled. It's the Brothers Grimm story of Rapunzel, imprisoned in a high tower by a witch, with the girl's long hair the witch's only means of way out. Under house arrest for years, disturbed for her freedom by the kingdom that misses her, she's the Aung San Suu Kyi of fairy-tale heroines. Just a few differences: Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore) has 70-ft.-long (21 m) hair that can serve as a rope ladder; her jailer is not the Burmese government but the Gothel (Donna Murphy); and whereas Suu Kyi remained in imprison while her husband died of cancer in London, our princess finds a dashing thief, known as Flynn Ryder (Zachary Levi), to facilitate her escape.

STORY LINE
Having spent her entire life within the tower Rapunzel is full of interest about the outside world. One day while Mother Gothel is away, Rapunzel is scared by a surprise visitor coming through her window, the dashing, mischievous bandit Flynn Rider Flynn is on the run from his brutish former partners, the Stabbing ton Brothers, after escaping with a jeweled crown they had stolen. 
Following their meet-cute introduction, Rapunzel and Flynn make a deal. He will guide her through the rough country to the kingdom, where she'll finally get to see the annual festival of lights. In exchange, Rapunzel will give Flynn back the stolen tiara she's hidden from him. 

The title was changed to Tangled because The Princess and the Frog was no great hit at the box office and because Disney wanted to make the project seem less ... girlish. The trailers suggest that the movie is an action comedy about a mischievous guy (Flynn) whose mission is to fight and free the girl from the tower. But no, this is your basic, and very enjoyable, Disney princess musical, a tale to teach bright, dreamy girls how to grow to maturity.

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By Hania Rana

A Human Being Is Never Happy

The title says it all! And I know everyone’s going to agree with me at this point. I mean seriously what’s wrong with us? Even God must be wondering all the time “What IS their problem!? What do they want!? Why wont they just be happy for once!?”

But we, human beings just cannot help being NOT this way. It’s a natural tendency of human beings to never be content with what we have. I guess God has created us with some ‘special’ ingredients or something which make us so impossible. We just cannot help but complain, complain and complain ALL THE TIME!

Let alone others, I’ll give you MY very own example. After I got done with my Inter exams last May, I was super happy. I had decided to party continuously for the next few months. My NED test wasn’t due until the next 5 months (Plus  3 more months free after that which makes it 8 freakin’ months of FREEEEDOM!!) So in short I had months and months of free time ahead of me. No more studying, no more college (which meant no more of that hideous off white and green uniform everyday and waking up 6 in the morning) No more staying up all night and scanning all the books and feeding the information into our tiny little brains. NO MORE TENSION! What could be more amazing than this? Perfect life huh?

Little did I know that this freedom-packed vacation a.k.a “PERFECT LIFE” would eventually turn out to be a nightmare for me.

Well, it did seem perfect at first. The first few months went by in a daze. I celebrated each day like my birthday or something. I’d sleep all I want. Spend all day with my laptop. Facebook all I want. Go out all I want. Watch movies all night .. (well you get the idea?) But gradually all the excitement started dying down. Slowly I ran out of things to do. I got bored of doing the same things over and over again. I got bored of all the freedom. I became a prisoner in my very own house.

Soon a lot of my friends got busy with their lives. Most of them started off with their universities. It seemed like everyone around me had something or the other to do. It seemed like everyone around me HAD A LIFE!! Unlike me. I started getting jealous of my sisters because they got to go to school everyday. Because they got homework everyday. Because they got tired after coming home and used to pass half of their day by sleeping. I couldn’t even do THAT. Because I was just NEVER TIRED.  I was just tired of not being tired! All the free time drove me crazy. I used to scream and tear my hair off because I just had NOTHING TO DO! AAAAAAAA

Soon my helplessness turned to desperateness and I started working in a school as a (computer :p) teacher. I was happy once again. I was busy. I had plenty of work to do. So much work that not a month later I was craving for my free time again. I left my job after three months (Man! Did they suck the blood out of me or what :l phew!) and now here I am today. TIRED, EXHAUSTED, WEARY, OVERBURDENED, WEAKENED, TIRED (Oh wait that’s already done) and all DRAINED OUT. (PAF KIET sure knows how to make the kids go bonkers) I miss those eight months of frustration more than anything. I’d do anything just to get even a day off.

So you see the contrast between the two situations? When we HAVE something we crave for something else and when we finally GET that ‘something else’ we long for that ‘something’ we had before. Get what I am saying? In short, we are just NEVER satisfied.There are a million other examples of our ungratefulness. You’d know better.

By Marium Aqeel

BOOKS vs INTERNET

 “We have got Internet. Why do we need libraries?” Isn’t that what almost everyone thinks now? Sometimes I wonder, that do I read books as passionately as I used to before? The answer is an obvious ‘no’. And that’s plainly because Internet has taken over now. We tend to look up for anything over the Internet without knowing the information we gain is authenticate or not. I myself am habituated to read off the internet. So, now I still read but not books!

Internet now is a ‘necessary-evil’. Researches show that whatever we search for, 8% of which is reliable only, rest either cost, or are unauthenticated or anonymous. Other than that quality control doesn’t exist on the Internet, where as in libraries each book is checked by a trained person if it is suitable for the required age group. Yes, we do need the internet for scientific or historical info (as far as it is accurate) but there is lots of trash uploaded too where parental control is overruled. Anyone can put up anything.
Don’t you think that other than authentication of information, the library provides you with a good peaceful environment along? Where do you find this when E-Booking? And medically reading in print is better than reading off the screen for one’s eyes. There are many E-Booking readers yet again most of it isn’t free. A library is in your reach as well as cheaper.
Aren’t there libraries-less universities now? What do you all think, having a library is useful or not in comparison to internet facility? Books are portable and they have their own feel. Even after having electronic tablets and Wi-Fi’s along they can’t replace books. No doubt the web is great but can never be a good substitute for books.
Surely Internet has gone a long way ahead but it’s a poor substitute for a full-service library. I would say ‘Choose smartly’, ‘Use wisely’ and stay happy!

By Sidra Muzaffar

What makes a good movie?

Art is reflection of our society and life and movies are often regarded as modern expressions of art. They make us laugh and cry and we often love to quote them, they edify us enlighten us. 

Every year numerous movies are made in the entertainment industries but all are not liked: some top the charts while others are kicked out of the box office. Some become the hot topic of discussion for the critics while others just escapes their notice, in short some get a thumps up while others a thumps down. 

But how many of these, which get a positive feedback, are actually good movies? Well it is not that simple to answer, as it seems. The topic is very much subjective. What seems good to some may not be the same for the others. What appears enjoyable to a few others might be enjoyable for others. Then what exactly is a good movie? To generalize it, we can say that those movies, which are liked by the mass and not by some class category of people, could be considered as a good movie. But what are the traits that are needed for a movie to qualify as a good one. First of all a movie should provide good entertainment.


-By Shaista Yousuf