I never considered myself to be a person with hobbies. I always had a hard time answering questions which contained that word or any of the synonyms (interests, pastimes, activities). When I was a kid, I was a kid, and I don’t remember too many things. I think I liked reading in winter, and running around the woods in spring. Trying to stay home alone so that I could try on all the nice dresses that didn’t belong to me.
When I was a teenager, I continued reading, started crying, fell in love with music and dead musicians, and with some other real boys who didn’t fall in love with me. I was too busy being sad or furious to indulge in any other free time activity.
When I was old enough to leave, I left, and started doing things that responsible people did, only I did them badly. That opened doors to new habits like worrying, not really sleeping and eating twice a week. I tried reading, nearly every day, but could focus on nothing more demanding than Harry Potter. And so I read the whole 7 of them. Or at least 6.
But you can’t really say your hobby is reading. It sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?
In the most recent phase of my life, I became The Volunteer. It started as a one year exotic experience in a foreign country and it developed into this chronic state of never working very hard, but still working every day for free. An outsider might say I live on extended vacation, but an insider (me) knows things are not as easy as they seem.
However, I learned how to have fun for cheap. Knitting, hiking, recycling, thinking about writing and most recently, summoning the balls to write seriously, have all become my official hobbies. For the first time in life, I’m doing things universaly recognizible as ACTIVITIES.
Writing a blog must be a fun way to explore your abilities as a writer, and a useful tool to get a new perspective on life. It is like journaling, people say. Bloggers suggest. Random people encourage. Everything about it sounds so promising.
Honestly, it scares the hell out of me.
But still, I guess this is my elevator pitch. I am excited about writing a blog, excited about the possibility of improving my writing, thinking and blog-making skills (how the hell do you make categories?), and being heard somewhere by somebody. That’s pretty amazing to me.
I think this could be a good way of pushing myself to stay positive, which I really want and need. Hopefully, it’ll work.
Work In Progress 
I think reading is the best hobby, you can disappear into worlds created by others and re-make them in your own vision. Get a secret connection with characters that no one else can see. it can be supportive when you need a pick-me-up, it can be informative when you need to research. I love reading, and for years it was my only hobby.
Voulenteering in a foreign country do sound exotic, and something I definetly have thought about doing my self. If you don’t mind me asking, where did you go? And what did you do? And what do you do now? Will you write about your experience in voulenteering?
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I will try writing about my experiences, I promise 🙂 but writing still feels vary scary to me.
In the meantime, you should check this website
https://europa.eu/youth/volunteering/evs-organisation_en
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I hope reading is allowable as a hobby because it’s one of the things I put down in application forms, along with skydiving, white water rafting and swimming with dolphins. (Psst… I actually lie about three of these four, but I’m not saying which ones.)
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