It’s almost September again, the summer break that us teachers get that feels like it lasts forever to get to also is over in a flash. I suppose I shouldn’t complain since 6 weeks in a row is much more than most anyone else gets, but I definitely need the first 2 or 3 of those weeks to go from a human blob of exhaustion back to somewhat regular levels of exhaustion. And what better way to do so than by spending time with your favorite hobbies.
For me those mainly include reading, writing, gaming and watching dubious amounts of British panel shows. I talked about Taskmaster the other day for a reason, I’ve watched yet another full series of it since we last spoke. Series 16 has some incredibly funny guests. But I’ve also been working hard on my other hobbies.
And that right there is the core problem I’m currently trying to get past in my life. I tend to “work” on my hobbies. I don’t always give myself the space to properly enjoy them, since I need to be at least somewhat efficient at them. To give you an idea into my weird brain, let me take you through my planning for a day.
I’ll look at the things I absolutely have to do like work, household chores, eating lunch and dinner and finishing my damn teaching degree. That all just has to happen, so it’ll be scheduled accordingly. Then the remaining time is for my hobbies. But in the MMO I’m playing, I want to spend 2 hours on my dailies. Then I also want to do at least 30 minutes to an hour of writing, as well as 30 minutes to an hour of reading. I’m currently re-reading the Soul Eater manga, but more on that in a later post. On top of that, I need to watch all the anime that I’m keeping up with as well as the Youtubers I am subscribed to. Lastly, I need to work on my gaming backlog – a post on that coming soon as well – and when all that is done, I can fill in the rest of the day for whatever leisure I feel like partaking in.
The problem is that if you count all of that up and start at – let’s say – 5 pm since that means work and household chores are mostly done, then you quickly get to 4 or 5 hours and it’ll be time for bed after I do everything I want to do in a day. Now don’t misunderstand, I enjoy all of the things I mentioned in the paragraph above, but if I don’t plan them in, I’ll often find that I don’t get to all of them. So it almost turns into work in a way, and that is a problem. I wish I was better at just enjoying one thing at a time without worrying too much about other things, but that doesn’t really work for me. It’s probably one of the bigger roadblocks I’m dealing with right now – and yes I’m aware that out of all the problems life can throw at you, this isn’t really all that bad – alongside finishing my degree. I do hope that once I’ve got that degree, have my own place, and get through my backlog of games (there it is, the work requirement to get to have fun) I can find it in myself to be a bit more relaxed about it. But I’ve been telling myself this for years, so I’m not hopeful. Maybe I should go back to therapy.
Either way, with summer break almost over, I am pleased with how much I’ve done over the break, but I do wish I’d feel less tired than I do. Not sure if that’s due to the way my brain works or something else. I should go to the doctor again, but he’ll probably just tell me I’m stressed and need to take time off work. Yeah right. Thanks for reading.
Another quick reminder that there will not be a chapter of The Hesitant Hero this week.
Opal Kaharis 