Thursday 30 June 2011

Carpe Diem

.Whatever you do, don’t waste your youth.

Nothing makes you appreciate your youth more than 5 nights stay in hospital. 5 nights stuck in a hospital bed with no entertainment other than a stack of magazines and an old TV with only channels 1 to 5 to get me through the day. By the end of the first day I had thoroughly run bored of the TV and read the magazine’s cover to cover. What now. What to do now..

I guess the interesting thing about this particular hospital stay was my neighbour, a 76 year old Dora Porter. She seemed awfully cheery for a woman who had been confined to her hospital bed for a number of weeks, and I soon found out why, she had a load of interesting stories to share to anyone, and I mean anyone, who would stop to listen. Stories about her life, what she did, were she went and what she saw. Who needs a TV when you have a life full of memories?  It got me to thinking, maybe it’s about time to take my mum seriously whenever she would go on about ‘Carpe Diem’. Carpe Diem, yeah, yeah, ‘seize the day’ and all that, I would always think whilst sat watching the latest episode of Gossip Girls. Now I think about it though, why not? Why not seize the day?  I’m not about to suggest we all blow the rest of our overdrafts on flights around the world and go backpacking in remote areas of Thailand (although that does sound quite appealing!) I’m talking about the simple things that can happen. I have a friend who, every summer, manages to mention how he could have been the next Roger Federer if he had continued with his tennis lessons. Well, you don’t have to be Roger Federer or Andy Murray to play tennis, you don't have to be Picasso to paint and you certainly don’t have to be Beyonce to sing and dance.

It sounds oh so cliché but there is a whole world out there, sometimes; you just need to open your mind. If you can travel, go travelling, if you can dance, go dancing, if you can swim, go swimming, if you can draw, go and draw, if you can run, go running. Do things, instead of wanting to do things. It always seems harder to live with the regret of not doing something than the effort of actually doing it.  I think the best things to spend your money on are memories not things, or 'stuff'. ‘Things’ can break, become old or out of fashion, but memories, well that stuff stays with you for life.

University really is a great place to do this. Where else can you experiment with who you are and no-one will give a blind bit of notice because everyone else is doing the exact same thing aswell?



‘Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing... And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.'

Monday 20 June 2011

I want to travel

I am currently sat in my living room 23:55 on a Sunday evening. I should probably be in bed but I can't help thinking about my first day at work tomorrow and my exam re-sits I have to revise for over this summer.
But most of all I keep thinking about travelling. I love travelling. And people. Put both of them together and I will Implode, I kid, I kid. I'm just huge on travelling, I think that this world is so big and v  a  s  t and just amazing that I have to see it. Even if it is just a slice.
Just a town in France, 
or a city in Northern America,
or some golden beach on the coast of Sidney, Australia.


I want to go everywhere. I hate going on holiday and just laying on the beach all day. It just gets kinda boring after a while for me. I mean, I didn't travel all this way to just lay here. Go and see the sights. But don't be a tourist, interact with the locals, pretend you live there, get to know people, though that can be hard if your speaking two different languages! - I remember going to Bulgaria in the summer of 2009 and we were sooo happy to bump into some English speaking people!

One of my uni friends is currently in America taking part in 'Camp America' (any of you guys heard of it?) and oh my gosh I am so jealous right now! His whole summer consists of working in a camp close to New York City and then the rest he's gonna take a road trip round the place. I want to do something like that. I don't want to stay in some hotel resort in a little bubble. I want a proper adventure / exploring holiday. I want to take my map, put on my walking shoes and hit the towns, the roads, the restaurants, get to know the city for myself.

Oh I cant wait to just travel. And even If I get bored it wouldn't matter because I would be in a different city, a different country, a different continent.

I kinda feel sorry for my future boyfriend/husband. I'm that annoying friend that will drag you to all the museums,  the art galleries, the best places to eat, the best beaches. 
Oh yes, that is me. And I love it.

Dubai


Mexico

Barcelona


Rome

Greece

Monday 6 June 2011

'Expectation is the root of all heartache'

 - William Shakespeare


I think this is the truest thing I have heard in a long time. Our expectations and our realities never really do match up. Not always. Not completely. Well mine don't anyway.

When you seem to expect something, you tend to get disappointed by the outcome. Take an exam for example, you may expect to get an A but once you get your results you see that you've actually gotten a C. What happened? Are you just going through life just distorting reality?  And maybe you would have even been able to cope with the C grade if you hadn't been expecting to see an A grade on your results sheet. It hurts the most when you apply this theory to people. You expect them to be there for you. Or you expect them to just accompany you through life. Through it's ups and downs etc etc. But then the reality can be so different.
Expectations are daydreams to an extent. Do you ever sit in class or on the bus or wherever and just let your mind wander for a while? Maybe you're picturing yourself going up to that guy or girl you are a little bit in love with and finally asking them out. And in your head you expect them to vocalise that they have the same feelings for you too. But in reality you end up looking like an idiot in front of them or they laugh in your face (Yesss, people can be mean). How did you manage to distort things this time?

So then what do you do in life when you realise that expectation really is the root of heartache? Do you stop expecting to see the kindness in people? Do you stop expecting that you could really achieve your dreams? Do you stop expecting things?

'Hope for the best, expect the worst. Life is a play, we're unrehearsed.' - Mel Brooks
Maybe you just learn to realise that your expectations are just that. Expectation. They have no link whatsoever to reality. Just because you expect to get an A grade does not mean this will happen. Just because you expect your crush to like you back does not mean this will happen. You just have to learn to remain optimistic but realise that what is going on in your head and what will happen in reality can be two very different things indeed.  
So maybe it is best to just expect that C but hope your damned hardest for that A.


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