Our train was running late today due to technical difficulties, and all I could think was, “I hope this is not another travel disaster.” I soon realized that we were the lucky travellers today. Our lives were left unharmed, while many others were threatened and even taken by the acts of a few young men.

Initially, I was in disbelief and regarded news about a bomb going off in the Tube as a hoax. Thoughts such as “what does he know?” crossed my mind as one of the other SMU students informed us of the news. Soon the story was validated as I overheard calls received by other passengers sitting next to me.

I was surprised at the lack of effort by the train crew to inform passengers of what had just occurred. Different versions of the events were passed along from passenger to passenger.

I was amazed by the reactions of my peers. They were frantic and worried, as if they were unaware that people were capable of such actions as these. They kept comparing these bombings to the events of 9/11 in the United States. I am assuming this is the only recent event of terrorist attacks in which they are aware. I remember thinking to myself, “Don’t you know that things like this happen everyday in countries around the world? People, even 5-year-old children, are constantly fighting for their lives, with fear and violence being the only thing they may ever know.” Most of those stories don’t even make headline news because it is so common in those countries. I fear that we, as a group, wouldn’t have felt so strongly about this attack had we not been so close to the sites of destruction. This is a sad and unfortunate truth about how human nature works.