Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19421257

I don't usually post about random news stories, but this one really got to me. Normally, I read articles online, and take an average of around 5-10 minutes to click on something else, move on, and forget about it. However, something really affected me about this tragedy, I don't know if it's because; I was thinking about the concept of "YOLO" again,  because I'm thinking about moving into the next stage of my life (university) or whether the sense of human loss and complete injustice is just so obvious after reading it.

Clearly, once several moments had past and I had time to concerntrate I began to think about what a horrible, horrible shock this must have been, not just to those who witnessed the event, but to the parents and family of this young woman, whose life was ended so quickly, and without any kind of explanation, other than perhaps an inexorable fate. May she rest in peace.

It's not nice to think that perhaps the way that you will die has been decided since the day you were born, is it? I suppose that depends to what extent you believe in pre-determinism and stuff though. Either way, this has kind of been a wake up call for me, I've spent the last few days going out for the occasional dinner, going to the theatre, but doing nothing much productive, now however, I feel motivated to have a proper sort through all of my stuff in preparation to leave home in a month, and after that I'm going to start packing to go away for a couple of days.

After all, who knows how much time I have left, or any of us, for that matter.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
― Francis Scott Fitzgerald,  The Great Gatsby

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. (Gandhi)

It's been another long week (hence the late-night blog update!) in which I have been to the theatre twice to see Les Miserables and Trojan women. I know, cheerful stuff, right? Anyway, not much else has happened aside from the usual, except for some reason I seem to have spent a lot of time thinking about the brevity of life (ironic, surely thinking about this sort of thing defeats the purpose of living life to the full?) which may or may not have something to do with the fact that I only just learnt that YOLO is not actually some kind of African greeting, it means "You Only Live Once", which I'm guessing most people already know.

The only thing that annoys me about that saying is that recently people my age have been doing stupid things and then justifying it by tagging YOLO after (publicly advertising) whatever (usually reckless) thing that they're doing. Why can't YOLO be used in the context of "I'm helping a friend", YOLO or "I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing", YOLO. I guess the problem with humans is that we are attracted to things that don't conform.

The casual collage above however, has many objects in it that are completely normal, and seem very ordinary. That's the point, the things in my collage are what they seem to be, and the style is determined to be "mainstream" which is paradoxically the opposite these days, that is to say, it's a rarity, it feels like everyone is trying too hard to be "different" or "edgy", and due to this they loose sight of themselves. Speaking of which, I wish I owned half of the objects in the image, especially the vintage suitcase, badges and butterfly pictures, but that's just me.

In the true spirit of YOLO (although I prefer the above quote, captioned on this post) I'll be temporarily abandoning this blog to revise for my final exams, which mean a lot to me. My first exam is in 2 weeks, and I really don't want to keep staying up so late to fit everything in, so I'm cutting a lot of stuff out of my life for the next month and a half or so. I'll be back around the end of June, before I go on holiday (can't wait!:D) but life goes on in the meantime, and I think it'll be over quicker than I realise - especially with the last day of school approaching so soon :o

Don't forget me and I won't forget you! Have a nice few weeks - I'll be back ASAP- wish me luck! ;)