The world is a thin, hollow place.

One wrong step, and you break through the shell, and you go tumbling, tumbling down.

It is oft repeated to students that an exam is not the be all and end all in their lives, that many opportunities await all in this bountiful land of plenty.

These words are reassuring, it gives hope, and puts your life into place in comparison to all the many other people in the world, with no opportunity to even sit an exam. In some ways, it makes you feel lucky for your high, pedestalled position.

Until you break through and start falling that is.

People tell me that I should be grateful for what I have, for where I am. But these are people who have not fallen down, they don't know what it's like to be at the bottom.

It's difficult being at the bottom of life, looking up. I think I could live my life fine if everybody else was like me, struggling for food, shelter, social contact, anything. But when everybody else just seems so, ok, content, not utterly depressed, it makes everything seem hope