I Need a Hobby!
04 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
The Realization
So its come to my attention that my free time has mainly consisted of sitting around on my computer “stumbling”, browsing facebook, and reading recent Tweets. The stumbling hasn’t been too bad, since I do come across some different information I wouldn’t have thought to look up myself, but seriously? Its pretty pathetic.
A typical weekday in my life consists of me getting up at 5:30am and working from 7am-3ish… I use the term ‘work’ loosely here because my internship is more me observing other lab techs doing their jobs and helping from time to time followed by MWF lectures on various medical technologist topics (bringing my day to about 4 on those days). After that I come home and have free time from about 4-10… and then I read a little bit and go to bed. So that’s 6 hours of free time I have every day. I do cook dinner every night and watch some recordings from my dvr with my fiance (The Daily Show and Colbert Report usually)… but the rest of my time is spent sitting doing nothing!!
Ok, ok so that is a bit of an exaggeration. I do have some days where I study for the tests given at my internship and usually at least 3 times a week I spend around 40-60 minutes working out (WOO TRYING TO GET IN SHAPE!) And in my browsing of the internet I’ve picked up some new interests: cooking/food, make up and fashion. For those who know me, the newer ‘girly’ interests are a bit strange for me. Throughout high school and college I was very much the t-shirt and jeans kind of girl, wearing flip flops at any temperature higher than 50! I would get dressed up on the weekends if we were doing something but that was about it. Well my friends, don’t get your panties in a bunch; I still plan on wearing scrubs and zero make up 5 days of the week!
The Plan
I digress, the whole point of this ranting is this: I need a hobby. Being out of college now I don’t have homework, exams to study for, and a plethora of friends surrounding me 24-7 to fill my time… so I need to keep my brain busy somehow! We’ll see how this planning thing goes but I have a few things I plan to do more frequently to keep myself busy!
1. Work out more. Now I know this is the number one on so many people’s lists, but its so true! For pretty much everyone! Being overweight has been a lifelong ailment of mine, and a few months ago when I reached an all time high weight (which I choose not to disclose 
) I decided it was enough. I have gone through all the excuses from ‘well my family eats unhealthy’ to ‘well now I’m eating dorm food’, but now I buy all my own groceries and am fortunate enough to have a supportive boyfriend. I’m taking charge! Ultimately I want to overall lose almost 100 pounds (and that still puts me at the top of my recommended BMI range) and so far I’ve lost about 15! Its at a slow down but I still have high hopes! Or low hopes if you will
2. Read more books. I’ve always regretted not reading more, and now I don’t have school work in the way so I need to just pick up a book and read! I’m not one of those people that can grab a book and read for hours on end most of the time, but there is nothing unrealistic about reading a half hour to an hour a day! I’ve got the time!
3. Read up on the Fashion/make up! I have a subscription to Glamour magazine and I LOVE it! I also started following them along with other fashion magazines and organizations as well as make up companies on twitter to try and keep up on the latest! (Sidenote: I could fill an entire post about my shifting views about twitter, but in short I didn’t think I would ever use it and now I am so excited to follow a lot of people. I’m still not one to ‘tweet’ much myself but that isn’t my main use for it anyways)
4. Food experimentation and documentation. In an Elle magazine I picked up in an airport for some light reading, they had a section on food blogs. From the frequency of posts I do here it might be clear that blogs have never really been that high on my personal life totem pole, but this might change. The idea of posting various things about foods cooked, restaurants dined in, or just interesting recipes sounds exciting! I know to some it might sound lame, and depending on my mood I might agree, but as a part of my healthy living self movement I think it might be helpful for me to document my experience along the way! So my new project (aka hobby) will be to start a food/health oriented blog to keep a kind of journal about my progress and discoveries. Here’s hoping it goes well!
