Due to the ongoing pandemic, we’ve all had (hopefully!) an unprecedented amount of time at home. My personal favorite hobby during this time has been “discovering my new passion,” and then forgetting about it in approximately 2 weeks when I discover a different passion. I know that we’ve all found creative ways to pass the time (anything to put off watching those pre-recorded lectures), and I’ve put together a list of just some of the highlights from my past 6 months.
- Painting like Bob Ross – 7.9/10
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This was really fun, but also much much harder than it seemed. It also made my brother and me really competitive and angry with each other. A great creative outlet, but not so great for preserving familial relationships.
- Finally downloading TikTok- 6/10
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Given that I am an OLD Gen-Zer, I missed the boat on TikTok when it first started and just watched Kurtis Conner make fun of them on YouTube. However, having nothing to do really makes people do crazy things! Now here I am, finding too many specific niches that I didn’t know existed and endlessly scrolling for hours. Fun way to pass the time, but loses points for enabling my procrastination.
- Learning how to give myself a real manicure- 7/10
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This was a fun and useful hobby to pick up, but less fun for my bank account when I got too enthused and wanted every nail polish collection that Instagram showed me.
- Zoombinis- 7/10
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This is where we start to get a little more specific. Did we all tie-dye our own sweatsuit? Sure. Did I start playing Animal Crossing with everyone else? No doubt. But did everyone discover this computer game for children about saving little monster creatures by taking them on a journey to a new home through a series of logic puzzles? Not so much. This video game has you build a team of little blue creatures (called Zoombinis) and you move them through a series of levels consisting of different types of obstacles that rely on finding patterns. It’s a super fun game, but it did give me some inferiority issues when the levels got harder. All of a sudden this game for children was getting too hard for me.
- Watching Avatar- 10/10
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After 100 years frozen in an iceberg (or 12 years since the show ended), Avatar the Last Airbender came to Netflix as the hero we all needed in 2020. Save us all, he did. This show is just really really good. I hadn’t seen it since it was actually airing on TV and man it just really hits. I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it at all, or if it’s just time for a rewatch. Also, I know that everyone knows “Secret Tunnel” but my brother and I are still singing “Four Seasons” as performed by Uncle Iroh. That’s a banger.
- Driving in an RV- 2/10
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Was it a safe way to travel from New York to Madison when I needed to go back and move my stuff out of my old apartment? Yes. Was the experience dampened when we hit a log in the middle of Ohio at midnight and sat in the middle of nowhere Ohio on the side of a highway for three hours waiting for our rental company to coordinate a mechanic to save us? Just a little.
- Wearing a Mask – 1000000000/10
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So chic! So considerate of other people’s wellbeing and safety! An air of mystery! Wearing a mask is the best possible thing I’ve done and I highly recommend that everyone do so. Please. I am really really begging you to. It is so easy, and it’s just science. Wearing masks saves lives, and there is nothing more fun than that.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I’m so glad that I was able to share some insight on how my 2020 has been (and maybe even give you some ideas for what to do while you continue to stay home and stop the spread of COVID-19).