Young women - not all wastes of space?

To be ruthlessly fair, I haven't really worked out a code of points for evaluating space wasting existence vs worthwhile use of space.

When I was younger I thought there was a lot to be said (mostly by Nietzsche, Sartre and de Beauvoir) about existentialism. I happily justified my useless existence, in fact, I segued blithely into Anarchy and set it to music.

I think I have had too much teenage angst happening at home recently.

clipped from www.smh.com.au A hand-up to school offers a way out of poverty Phoebe Williams … crusader for street children in Africa. Photo: Bob Pearce "It is completely lifting that child out of the circle of poverty by giving them access to secondary education and if they don't make it through the exams, we then offer them a place in a vocational training college," Williams says. What makes a twentysomething university student from Sydney's eastern suburbs decide to take on the cause of African children? A bout of meningococcal meningitis at 14 gave Williams a surprisingly mature sense of mortality. The potentially fatal experience left her with a sense of survivor's guilt and inspired her own educational choices. With degrees in commerce and science - majoring in development economics and finance - under her belt, she enrolled in a postgraduate medical degree at the University of Sydney.