Reading
I read everything. I mean everything. I read the instructions on shampoo bottles.
This disgusting habit was essentially forced upon me because, except for about a year when I was 12, I didn't have a TV until after I left home at age 17. This meant that I had to read as a way of annoying my sisters. I'd find the book they were reading and try to read fast enough to get ahead of where they were in it. The rule in my family (we had lots of arguments about books!) was that the person furthest ahead had priority over the book.
So now I'm addicted to reading. Its caused me much shame over the years, culminating in the humiliation of my best subject in high school being english. Not physics, english. All because of this damned addiction to reading. I've tried everything to quit - I've even tried smoking a cigarette whenever I felt like a book. All to no avail. So now I've quit quitting and resigned myself to spending my life as a "reader" - a perennial outcast (certainly of North American society).
Painting
I pretty much suck as a painter, but I paint (mainly oils) because of what it does for me, not because I am talented enough to communicate what I'd like to through my art (although I realize a few lessons would help!). I think too many people are inhibited from expressing themselves creatively because they've bought some nonsense about the need for your art to communicate to someone else. Good art should, I agree. But, at a personal level, it can be extremely gratifying to produce any art, and why deny yourself this coz of a bunch of art snobs?
Playing Guitar
As with my painting, my playing isn't great. However I love the guitar as an instrument, and no guitar should be held responsible for the sound that emanates from it when I play. What makes guitar a fantastic instrument to learn is:
(i) Within a couple of weeks of starting, often less, you can begin playing some classic pop songs; songs you actually like. This positive feedback encourages you to keep going.
(ii) Everyone can be an autodidact: You can teach yourself everything you need to know, if all you want is to be able to play and write songs for your enjoyment. This is because guitar music comes with very simple little boxes showing the chord shapes written on top.
Try that with a piano. (And try taking a piano to a party for that matter).
I write some songs, normally they reflect whatever it is I'm thinking a lot about at the time. The most recent one I wrote is called Ontology - its about interpreting quantum mechanics. Unfortunately I cant sing, and I have no-one around volunteering to sing for me! (Kipper, Thomas - where are you guys?) So here are the lyrics. If you're not yet desperate for death but wish to become so, I can email you an mp3 of the music...
Squash
I'm not one of these nutcases who enjoys exercise for its own sake. In fact, I cant even stand walking. However a form of exercise I do enjoy is playing squash, and I only came back into really enjoying it fairly recently.
There are two types of squash players in this world:
(i)Those who do it for the fun and the exercise; they really love the game and its intricacies of strategy.
(ii)Those who do it because they get so much satisfaction from crushing and humiliating an opponent, that they get exercised along the way without experiencing the abject misery that the mere thought of going for a jog induces.
I fall into category (ii).
When I was young I actually thought my career would be to play squash professionally for 10 years, and then get a coaching job. I was fortunate enough to be accepted into the Australian Institute of Sport. There I played squash "full time". I discovered very rapidly that playing full time means that day after day after day you spend 4 full hours doing fitness work or in the gym, and less than 2 hours on the court. I ran sprints, I ran up mountains, I ran up stairs, I ran down stairs, I swam, I did interval training you wouldn't believe, I pushed weights I didn't believe and I very, very rapidly became completely bored out of my skull. Fortunately, initially only to appease my folks, I was simultaneously doing a BSc. at the University of Queensland. Now I'm a physics nerd.
Cooking, especially veggies
Just kidding Mum. My favorite food really is absolutely anything I didn't have to cook myself.
|
