I doubt using PDO or MySQLi will be bottleneck, though, if you ask for bechmarks here they are (nothing serious, just couple of tests).
I did a mini benchmark on this a while back. Conclusion. PDO and MySQLi are very similar but the features in PDO are worth using.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.