carpe diem

In case you didn't already know, the phrase 'carpe diem' is Latin for 'seize the day'. Basically, it means to grab life with both hands and make the most of the here and now - instead of always putting things off until tomorrow.

Just recently, those two little words have been following me everywhere - they're engraved into the surface of the desk I sit at during directed study on Tuesday mornings, and they're written at the top of this week's page in my school diary. Someone has scrawled them on the front cover of a German dictionary I used in class yesterday, and every time I log onto Tumblr, someone else has posted a picture of their 'carpe diem' tattoo on my dashboard.

It got me wondering. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. Something like, 'Hey, Maya, start seizing the day!'

Lately, I've not been doing a lot of carpe diem-ing. I wake up, I eat breakfast, I go to school, I come home, do homework, eat dinner, go to sleep, wake up, eat breakfast.....and so on and so on until the weekend arrives and I do the same old thing, just minus the school.

Don't get me wrong, I understand how important it is to do well in school this year. It's just that, sometimes, I wonder if it'll all be worth it. I still have absolutely no idea what I want to do once I graduate - and it's been playing on my mind a lot. I know I should be aiming to do a course that will result in me getting an incredibly well-paid job later on, but my heart doesn't want that. At all. I'm still not entirely sure what it is exactly that I want, but I do know that I want to have a job that I'll enjoy. We only get one life. What's the point of spending it doing something that doesn't make you happy?

So, even though I still have to go to school and work hard for the rest of the year, I don't see why I still can't make the most out of every day.

For example, I well and truly seized today. This morning, I went on an excursion with my biology class to the beach (if you can even call it that!). The tide was in and the swell was up, so it was really just a rocky ledge, and the ocean. No sand to speak of.

The aim of the trip was to do a gastropod population survey and record our data in the tables we drew up in class. Due to the fact that there was no beach to stand on, most of the girls stayed up on the rocks and wrote down whatever numbers the boys in the water called up to them. My group of three, however, got stuck in and made the most of the time outside the class. It's not every day that you get to hit the beach to count limpets on a rock! Sure, it's not the most exciting thing to do, but with the waves breaking in our faces and the sand squelching between our toes, it wasn't the worst thing I've ever done either. My good friend Michelle, who features in a lot of my photos on here, was so dedicated, that she even brought her waterproof camera to take some shots of the gastropods. She was so dedicated to the task, that she ended up being tossed around by the waves and managed to scratch her leg (quite badly) on a rock. Still, she should get an A+ for enthusiasm!

We got back to school, drenched, and shivering, but a whole lot happier than the boring kids who stayed up top. Life is made up of moments. And in the end, it's the ones that you miss that you'll end up regretting the most.

I'm not sure how well my report will turn out - most of my data got soaked by the ocean, but I certainly had a laugh, and my teacher was damn proud of us for getting in there and giving the task everything we had.

We carped the hell out of this diem.

And that's what's important.

- Maya xx