During my first semester at St. Bonaventure, I’ve been pretty busy with acclimating to college life and the college work load. To balance school and leisure, there have been a few hobbies or frequent activities that I have picked up new or have started back up since arriving.
Piano
While I may not be the next Chopin, I have always enjoyed both listening to music and playing instruments. For the past few years I have been trying to reteach myself how to play piano, so when I’m done with my work at a reasonable time, I will walk into The Quick and find a practice room. Recently I have been trying to learn Clair de Lune, and although I find it difficult, it’s still so fun for me to learn. I was especially excited to attempt learning this piece because of the emotion and overarching beauty within it.
exercise
While I was was more consistent during the first few weeks of the semester, the gym was a great way to release stress. I would usually go after class around 5:00pm with a friend or two. There we would run on the track, use one of the machines, or do some other workout. It was something that I looked forward to at the end of the day and was a healthy way to spend my free time.
When it was still warm enough out, I would also go for walks and runs on the trails surrounding campus, which had an added bonus of observing the nature of Allegheny.
When exercising, I can incorporate my love for music since my AirPods are almost always in, especially when working out.
Reading
While this is still a work in progress, I’ve been putting in effort into reading in my free time in comparison to scrolling on the phone. I find it exciting and even rewarding when I finish a book, which motivates me to move on to the next one.
At the moment I’m reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, which I find to be interesting so far. My biggest issue with trying to maintain this hobby is that I will start the book and then seemingly never find time to finish it, so by the time I have an available part of my day to read, I have forgotten everything that happened prior.
In the past to help me with this I would hold myself to a schedule. I would give myself a small and manageable amount of pages to read in a certain timeframe so the task seemed effortless and enjoyable like reading should be!