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What are you currently doing in your spare time?
When any of you are not working, are not at school, are not doing homework, etc; what do you pursue in your spare time? I'm talking along the lines of building something, having a hobby, learning something, etc.
I know I've done quite a lot of shit talking in the past, but I'm being totally serious when I am saying that I am taking on the dwarfing task of learning how to speak, write, and read Japanese. My teacher is the drunkenest and most antagonistic Japanese teacher on Youtube. Even though most people think his videos are (for the most part) for shits and giggles, I kid you not when I say that his lessons actually do work and I'm actually remembering how to do all that he is teaching me. Currently, I'm learning Hiragana and have learned the basic vowel sounds and characters, how a sentence is formed, and basic grammar. It'll take me a long time, but I'm willing to stay totally committed to this and keep on learning.
I know I've done quite a lot of shit talking in the past, but I'm being totally serious when I am saying that I am taking on the dwarfing task of learning how to speak, write, and read Japanese. My teacher is the drunkenest and most antagonistic Japanese teacher on Youtube. Even though most people think his videos are (for the most part) for shits and giggles, I kid you not when I say that his lessons actually do work and I'm actually remembering how to do all that he is teaching me. Currently, I'm learning Hiragana and have learned the basic vowel sounds and characters, how a sentence is formed, and basic grammar. It'll take me a long time, but I'm willing to stay totally committed to this and keep on learning.
Comments
2. Dragon Age
3. Preparing to brew my next beer: Dire Beer, an American Strong Ale/Old Ale; otherwise, my beer research and education continues
4. Continuing to refine my gluten-free baking. Most recent success: soft pretzels. Next idea: pizza with Carolina-style pulled pork, jack and cheddar cheeses, and a smoked tomato and chipotle sauce
2. FRC Forum
3. Cook food
4. Work on my car
On topic, though, I've been actually thinking about starting to do some small wooden models/figures lately... that is, if I can find the materials easily. I've also been learning analog photography (great fun, by the way, even though it's totally obsolete) and how to restore old furniture. Other than that, I've been building my repertoire of great books/movies/television shows that I have overlooked.
Past hobbies of mine have included learning Japanese (difficult but fun, and a great social tool), building Gundam models (fun but very expensive), learning to fly a stunt kite, fencing (on hiatus), and model rockets.
2. Cross-stitch/Craft
3. Video games (Dragon Age/Castle Crashers)
4. Play with the kitties
5. Watch tv/movies
For Japanese, you should really check out My Japanese Coach for the DS. It's pretty good. I recommend getting kana writing sheets or graph paper to practice your kana writing.
I started a little music label a few months ago, partially, for the purpose of keeping myself busy. College has left me with more free time than ever. The pros are that I've met a lot of awesome people through doing it and it's pretty fun to put together releases. On the flipside though, it's a pretty unforgiving thing to be managing my finances in such a way that I make sure that I limit greatly what I spend on myself in favor of having money to put together people's albums. I still love doing it, though, and I'm learning loads. I figure that even if I go completely broke, what I'm learning are skills that are valuable enough to be worth it,
1) Writing an online 2d Zelda clone.
2) Writing emails to my Japanese friends (Which I do a lot, I just never have enough drive to finish any.).
3) Starting a website like Kallow.com but instead listing devices that can be sure to work with Ubuntu.
4) Comic blog project.
I also wrote that novel last month, which I plan on editing bit over the next few weeks. It's not something that I want to publish or release to a wide audience, but I've got some friends and family who are curious about what I did all month. For the most part I want some scenes to actually make sense, and correct all of the times when I replaced place names I had forgotten with "(blah)".
I've also been playing drums in an orchestra, which has motivated me to improve my drumming skills all around. My sixteenth note bass hits (single pedal) are becoming nice and smooth, and once I get that mic I'll be able to start working on some more interesting music. As valuable as my experience with the chamber orchestra is, it's still classical music, which isn't really known for it's strong percussion section.
Along with all that, I plan on getting back into the modding community. With NS2 coming out, and the L4D2 SDK probably on it's way, I'm missing the days of Half Life 1 mapping and all the fun I had with that.
tl;dr: I have too much free time.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and that website + webcomic is forthcoming.
They're the same mic internally, but for the very tiny marginal cost, the very small marginal difference is going to be worth it for you.
Right now I'm working on freestyling. My current practice scheme is basically sit down with beats for ~30 minutes a day and just try to keep flowing without stopping very much. Slowly but steadily, I'm improving. I'm also writing everything that works well and coming back to it later, piecing together songs, trying to build a solid flow and expand my stock rhymes.
I'm planning on getting back into boxing, Muay Thai, or fencing. I'm leaning toward boxing, but I really need to start being active again. Maybe I'll start something completely different (I want to try Judo badly).
1) For the moment, finishing up my NaNoWriMo novel, highest priority.
2) Next side project after (1) is to finish the novel I started a year ago.
3) Playing Rock Band (all instruments, but mostly Guitar/Drums)
4) Playing other games (at least 10 I'm working on at once)
5) Watch whatever is next in my Netflix queue
6) Watch whatever anime I feel like at the moment
7) Watch video podcasts since I can't do them at work (I do audio ones at work)
8) Read for 30 min or so before bed
9) Chatting with friends
10) Going out for drinks/food with friends on the weekends
11) Taking a mental break from trying do so many damn things all the time!
There are many times when I wonder if I've somehow grown into having ADD in my adult life. Back when I was younger I could focus on doing one thing for 5-6 hours at a time, and sometimes I still can, but usually I have to switch activities every 2-3 hours, which is why I have so many things.
But in terms of things that I'm actually working on, for now it's mostly writing. Hopefully soon my friend will be able to get the band back together and I can work on my real drum skills. Playing live music has been one thing I've always wanted to do, so I want that to work out.
-Learning Bass.
-Knitting, cross-stitching, and sewing plushies. All for x-mas gifts.
-Reading cookbooks and cooking.
-Playing some PC games.
-Prototype and Assassin's Creed II
-Catching up on anime that I really should've seen ages ago.
-Enjoying the big TV that is now in my room, replacing the small one. Also, a working remote! Win.
2. Trying to prolong the life of my dying laptop.
3. Reading.
4. Learning to drive. (BTW, any tips would be greatly appreciated!)
5. Listening to music.
6. Messing around with Perl.
7. Working on my Hirigana/Katakana/Kanji. (Interestingly enough, I one of only three people in my school's Japanese class system who doesn't like anime.)
8. Unicycling.
9. Responding to clown jokes.
1) Drawing again. My drawing skills aren't stunning, but they're decent enough to work for point number 2...
2) Finish initial sketches, begin work on a webcomic, concatenate with number 3...
3) Set up blog, probably focusing around science, politics, and pop-culture oddities. Sort of BoingBoing-ish. Not sure how far this will get.
4) Get back to writing. Draft non-fiction pieces for submission to various sites and start back on fiction and slam poetry. If 3 and 4 work out, maybe I can escape my inevitable career as an engineer.
5) Start taking photos.
6) Actually get some of my summer projects ready to go. These include the BarBike, a self-explanatory concept that shouldn't be constructed by someone my age; the rebuild of a Harley/Aermacchi shortster (eff yeah, engines); and some bonsai experimentation.
7) Forums.
8) Learn some coding skills for some hardware hacking w/ Arduino and Android devices.
9) Back to work on learning more languages in my free time. French and German are next.
10) Find apartment.
11) Find girlfriend :P
2)Working on a Paint commission & painting collaboration with my boyfriend.
3) Sewing psp pouches
4) Learning to drive finally!
5) Braid/Lost Odyssey.
2. Video Games
3. Theorizing over my future
4. Crafting my cooking skills
5. Writing
Seriously though, if you're gonna drive slow, stay in the slow lane.