Hobby Time!

Somehow I finally crossed all of the items off my to do list I made after Thanksgiving break for the end of the semester, and it feels so amazing!  Last night, I slipped in to an Italian writing trance and finished my two papers after banishing myself to the Communications library and promising myself I could go out only if I finished.  Thankfully I did and was able to go out and have a blast to celebrate the end of the semester.

I took this yesterday before I finished my Italian papers, but those two are crossed off now too :)

I've also finally had time to do things I actually enjoy to do.  At the beginning of the semester, I remember the Fulbright advisor asking me what I like to do in my free time, and the only thing I could think of was "I have free time?"  Between school work and my two jobs there was not really too much free time this semester.  Whatever time I did have was usually spent catching up with friends, so it was a strange feeling to have time to do things I really do enjoy doing.

I love all the colors!

Wednesday night I broke out the beads and jewelry making supplies to make bracelets for the first time in months, maybe even a year.  I had a blast picking out the different color, size, and shape combos of the beads that I felt best fit the people I was making the bracelets for.  After lots of time spent choosing beads, stringing them, judging the combos, and sometimes restringing all while watching Project Runway, I finally ended up with a red themed bracelet for one friend, a blue and green themed bracelet for another friend, and a purple, green, and flowered bead bracelet for myself.

I used to make jewelry all the time and had forgotten how much fun it is and how much I enjoy giving my jewelry as gifts or wearing the final products myself :)

This is obviously not at work, but oh well.

I got to read all of that just today!

I was truly thankful for the time I had to play with my beads, and then I had a full five hours of freedom at work to do whatever I wanted.  No online French workbook.  No class reading to catch up on.  No papers to write.  No studying.  Nothing except whatever I wanted to do.  I chose to read "The Pact" by Jodi Picoult, which Natalie lent to me a few weeks ago and hadn't had the time to even think about reading.

It almost felt like I was forgetting to do something or was doing something wrong having five full hours to just enjoy a personal book.  Even though I sometimes would stop and feel weird, it also felt so nice to truly sit and enjoy a book for a long period of time.

I look forward to many more opportunities to read and enjoy other hobbies over break.
Long live hobby time!