gaininghobbies

[gaininghobbies]

Day #6

Ahhh I almost forgot to write this! I really want to keep this streak as long as I can. Let's get right into it!

So, I got the job!!!! ^-^ I make sure kids are the right height for slides and use a sack on a specific one. Honestly, it's a mix of boring and exciting. Most of the kids are sweet while others try to be sneaky and do stuff they aren't supposed to. In the documents, we allowed to gently tug or even lift children as long as it's for safety reasons. I really like this as one of my worries was that the children could just not listen to me and I could do nothing about it. I'm allowed to gently move children, tell them off(nicely), and tell people to leave if they're repeatedly not listening to me. All the rules are there for safety so I feel okay being able to do this stuff. It's all to prevent friction burns and injury, the place is super relaxed about other stuff. One thing I noticed pretty fast was that some children just needed a bit of correcting and that was done. A little shoulder grab and "if you do that you will hit your head and crack it" if they try to go head first down a drop slide. The only children who didn't listen had parents who also didn't listen. How did I find that out? The parents are allowed to accompany their kids into the play area if want to. Most parents were fine, being very kind and patient with the regulations and other children. There were a few who just didn't listen. I told them they needed to use a sack for this slide, that their child was like 6 inches below the height limit so they cannot go on a slide that begins by dropping them a meter and no, they cannot eat in the play area, there are so many signs how did you not know? Instead of listening, some parents just tried to be sneaky (a group of 4 parents and 3 kids). I just got my supervisor to tell them off on my break as this was 2 hours into my first shift and I was still getting used to things. I'm assured she handled it like a boss and they were gone when I got back. After that, I begin to give reasons to disobeying people. "You need a sack because the material can easily cause burns and gets chemicals sprayed on it" "You will literally crack a bone if you do that" both of these are true. I know reasoning with a child is meant to be difficult but honestly all the children just listened to me on my word, really. It was the adults that were skeptical. I didn't read a 20 page document on play area safety to not be taken seriously. It honestly makes me lose a bit of hope in humanity when stuff like this happens. Just got to be firmer.

Worked on the comic a bit today, just tidying the background concepts. Hoping to get at least all the colour done tomorrow as I don't have much to do. Also, going to be taking a break from all my hobby stuff for a bit as now with a work schedule and a comicon to prep for, my time will be pretty full. I'll do my hobbies! Just less new ones and more ones I need to get done before I leave (foam crafts, comic, making stickers, etc). This also just made me realise I still need to finish designing some stickers to give out at the con :(( got so much to do but I bet I can grind it on my off days!!

Hope you all have a wonderful day!<33

[gaininghobbies]

Day #5

Heyy

Today I was feeling a lot better! Didn't really do any hobbies because instead of ill I felt depressed but oh well.

I started by finishing one of the art fights I've been working on and uploading it. I was going to work on more art but my mum keeps hassling me about reading a work thing I was going to read. You know the the weird psychology of "You told me to do something I was about to do, now I don't want it anymore". She halts me from doing a lot of stuff this way, despite telling her many times I'm more likely to do it if she doesn't ask. This time was different though. Backstory: not many people take interest in me. I don't have many friends and the only people that are interested in my hobbies are my cousin and my partner. This leads to pretty validation seeking mindsets, even when I know it's not good for me I can't seem to lose hope in it. Fake interest hurts the most. You know the kind, where someone asks you about something but it's something you're really passionate about, so you begin to talk about it and before you can get into depth they halt you with a "that's nice" and move on? Yeah. So my mum asks about what I'm doing and I say I'm uploading the art I just finished to art fight. I was really proud of this piece as I used a new style I usually didn't and was excited to talk about it but before I could expand I was met with "You should be reading your booklet". It hurt, a lot. And I was planning on reading it after cleaning up a few sketches (less than an hour's work) but I just felt so defeated. I think it was the straw that broke the camel's back. All the stress, fear, unknown and nerves of a new job with the pages to finish and other stuff on my mind. I could feel my depression creeping in and I was so tired I just let it. I didn't really do much for 2-3 hours. I'm not proud of it and it's been almost 10 hours and I still haven't finished reading it.

This next paragraph ended up being pretty vent-y so you can skip it if you like<33 I knew I should've just brought everything into my room and locked myself in so nothing could effect me but I just have to expect things to be different every. damn. time. I feel pretty aimless right now, like I'm drowning. This job offer felt like a life ring had been thrown my way and everyone just has to try to submerge me again. "You need to do this" "What if they don't hire you?" "What if you never find another job and go homeless?" How is that even meant to help me?? Why are you trying to scare me? Am I not already scared enough? Wouldn't being supportive and encouraging be better?

Anyway, I did end up reading around 20 pages out of 80, so at least I'm a quarter way through? I plan on showering early and trying to read most of it before bed but I'm a slow reader so I'm not hopeful. I made sure all the sketched pages of my comic were ready for line art and planned my next art attack. Planning to do some art after my trial shift tomorrow as well. I'm still pretty confident about meeting the deadline for my comic pages at least. That's nice.

Sorry this update was a bit lacklustre and depressing, I'm sure tomorrow will be wayy better. I hope you have a good day<3

[gaininghobbies]

Day #4

Hey guys Sorry this is a bit late

Today hasn't been the best. Volunteering was alright and I've done a little bit of art today (bit of art fight and a bit of my comic) but I think I've come down with something.

Partway through the day, maybe 3pm, my eyes started hurting and I've gotten a headache. Not sure what's causing it so just gonna take it easy and drink plenty of water (I haven't been good with hydration lately). I need to read and fill in some papers for my trial shift and it's really long so I'm dreading it now because my eyes are killing me. Gonna aim to get a quarter to half way through it tonight and not beat myself up if I can't do that. Going to scrap tomorrow's schedule if I'm still not feeling well to concentrate on all the important stuff I need to do / catch up on (work forms, comic, art fight, etc).

Sorry for the small blog, hopefully I'll have more to say tomorrow.

Have a lovely day<3

[gaininghobbies]

Day #3

Heyyyy

I had my interview today and it went really well ^-^ I didn't end up with the role I wanted but did get offered a different position, which I have a trial shift for soon!

I did get up a bit late and had the interview so only did one thing today. It was writing! I had a look around some of my idea docs before settling on a simple idea. I kind of suck at writing complete stories - I'm much better at writing for others, blogs, essays, etc. I began by writing out some of the important world building features, then wrote a few paragraphs about how I want the story to flow. I felt happy with this so I wrote out the key points in bullet point form then began writing. That.. didn't go well. The writing sucks. I couldn't think of how to start it so went with the first thing that came into my head and tried to continue from there. It all felt really clunky and unnatural but I think that's normal starting out. I'm going to give it another try tomorrow so see if it ends up better.

As for tonight, I'm going to (try to) work on my comic. I need to get 5 pages done by Tuesday and that's a bit of a grind but I think if I do the process right, I can do it - I might be burnt out but I'm not sure as I'd be trying a different method. I'm going to complete all the sketches, then all the line art, then all the colour, then all the shading. I usually just draw a page at a time but it might feel like less work to my brain if I do it in batches. If it helps me create pages faster, that means I can have a pretty backlog in the future :3

That's all, sorry it's short. If I do enough tonight, I might edit this. Have a fabulous day<33

[gaininghobbies]

Day #2

Today went well too! It wasn't as productive as yesterday but my environment was harder to concentrate in so I can't beat myself up too hard.

It started the day at 10am, where I created the template for the horns I have to make for my next cosplay. The con is in 2 weeks so I need to get a wriggle on, but after I cut them out it should be pretty smooth sailing. While looking through my craft box (if I don't put it away fast enough, my family will just shove things in haphazardly), I found a little book I'd sewn a few months back. It's just cut up and folded rough card paper sewn together, and the book is only like 12 pages and size of my hand, but is still pretty cool. I decided to move a hobby up early and try to bind the book myself with some black fabric and my hot glue gun. It was actually way easier than I thought and I used a cheap paint pen to write "Doodle Book" on the cover. I think if I ever do this again (which I will), I'll either sew or bleach/dye the imagery I want onto the cover. I've always wanted to make recycled paper so I could make little recycled notebook to sell when I have my own market stall ^-^ Pictures of book vvv

After this, I ate lunch then back to my pathetic grind :D I looked into how to make graphs on Google Sheets, which was actually quite fun and hopefully useful if I can get an office job. I just used some made up stats, and it has a lot of different graphs to use.

Then I began an animal study as I wanted to redesign my main character in my comic to look more accurate. I felt okay because he does look very close to the animal and the changes to his design are pretty minimum, but still noticeable. I love doing animal studies though because it just means I get to draw a shit ton of animals, which is my favourite thing to draw ^-^

After all my hobby time was over, I sketched up concepts for my next 2 art fights. After writing this blog, I will be doing more animal care studies for my interview tomorrow and continuing to sketch pages for my comic because I need to get 5 pages done by next week ^-^" this is why I needed more self discipline. Worst comes to worst I replaced all my hobby stuff this week with grinding art.

Wish me luck for my interview and I hope you're day is really great<3

[gaininghobbies]

Day #1

Today was pretty good!

I started out by attempting to get an overview on Folklore. Turns out it's more extensive than I thought as it's basically an umbrella term for all cultural traditions, stories, and myths. It was very fun to learn about the different types of folklore, it's origins, which go all the way back to Mesopotamia, and that Mythology is also under the Folklore umbrella! I think it will be something I'd study after I finish other things though, since it's quite broad. I'd like go for Mesopotamian Folklore for it's the earliest we have or German as I'm interested in German stuff in general.

Next I worked on my comic a bit, then remembered I was going to revamp the main character's design a little bit to be more accurate to the creature. I love doing animal studies and plan to do more tonight or tomorrow.

After lunch, I studied a bit of animal care for an upcoming job interview. Even though I spent quite a bit of time on it, I only managed to do 2 pages of research! I didn't realise how time consuming researching specific animal handling facts are and it's making me rethink to learn speed reading sooner rather than later. I did learn a lot about rabbits though, which even if I don't get the job, I can use the diet, habitat, and body language knowledge for my comic so it won't go to waste.

On an alternative note, I planned my next 2 art fight attacks and am going to start tonight. I also applied to another online project (is helping passion projects for free a hobby?) and they want an art style I've been wanting to learn for a little while now :DD I should probably attach a few pictures to these blogs so I can show off what I've done. If I can edit this to add the pictures, I will. If not, I'll do it in a separate post and link it, and be more prepared tomorrow<3

That's all for me, I think. I'm gonna go learn that art style! Have a wonderful day<3

[gaininghobbies]

Day #0

Today was good! Wanted to do my first today, even tho I technically start tomorrow.

I played DnD today! We were all here today and it was a ton of fun. For some background, my group has an experienced, very nice DM and we are more of a roleplay group vs serious fighters. All our characters have no background in fighting. We had just defeated a witch and looted her stuff. We explored further, finding a women chained up and on the brink of death. We tried breaking the shackles before realising we had the key. Further on, we found an old women who had been the slave of the cult we were investigating. She said she knew of a hidden way out, but was too frail to get out. She lead us to a room with holes that looked like tunnels. We sent out our cat in to check it out and it was an illusion! The tunnels turned to barracks and we were surrounded by enemies with the old lady transforming into a middle aged, powerful sorcerer that turned invisible! This is where it really shined none of us had a background in battle. We constantly missed, only surviving because I had a wide array of healing spells to use (I had just turned level 3) and that Guiding Bolt had been suped up from the latest update (seriously, 4D8 at level 2??) that allowed me to one shot an enemy and intimidate another. The sorcerer was powerful tho, charming my friend and making him walk into a trap. We ended up defeating all the enemies besides the scared one, and plan on trying to convert him into a DMPC to join our party. We still need to heal my friend (her character is Balthasar) but it was cut short as my other friend had to go home to look after his grandma.

Haven't really done much else today. My wrist hurts a bit (I have wrist issues) so I'm resting it up for tomorrow. I need to draw a lot too because I need to get 5 comic pages ready to upload for next week. I've been lazy over the past 1-3 weeks and need to change it, which is part of the reason I'm gonna force some self discipline into myself and study all there subjects! Hoping this blog will keep me accountable for not doing stuff + track my progress :3

Hope you guys enjoyed reading and have a beautiful night<33

[gaininghobbies]

Small Update

Heyy

Although I start my journey tomorrow, I realised I'm technically doing it today! Some things are technically hobbies and we don't even realise, and I thought I'd make a little post about it! :3

My one I'm doing today is DnD! I play at my friend's house, it's our 6th(?) session. I play a Tiefling cleric based on a YouTuber, and really enjoy the character I use. One of my future hobbies will be writing my own campaign! I'm really excited to do it, and will be making it short so I can get a feel for DMing, how time and balancing works with it, etc.

A hobby is really anything we do in leisure time. It's a very broad definition, and includes some stuff we shouldn't really count, in my opinion. Hobbies we may not realise we have could be walking, baking, researching, and puzzles. The broad term is nice, as it allows us to label it as things we regularly do, but does have a downside. This definition also includes stuff like watching TV, doomscolling, and other things that shouldn't technically be hobbies.

Why don't I think they should be hobbies? It just doesn't sit right with me. I believe a hobby should be something you actively do, something that at least requires a bit more cognitive thinking than just paying attention. Example: cloud watching. Cloud watching is paying attention mostly, but also includes thinking about shapes, direction, and potentially identifying types too. While you could say watching videos may produce the same effects, the information is being fed to you instead of discovered yourself a good portion of the time. It just feels wrong that a hobby could allow you to turn off your brain literally. There just needs to be something more stimulating for it to be a hobby to me. I believe they can be modified into a hobby, however, by conjoining with another activity or theme. Like watching a video and taking notes to turn it into research, or following a tutorial to turn it into learning.

Just realised this may count as philosophy, so this account could be a good place to practice my philosophical thinking. At the end of the day, philosophy is just opinions and theorising stuff, to be honest. If it could be proven, that would make it a science. It's a pretty subjective subject, with many branches just being the different views and opinions we can hold. That's probably why I like it so much. I grew up seeing the world as black and white but my family is pretty law flexible so I learnt to see in shades of grey. I think this created my love of philosophy as there is no "one true answer", just an answer that we choose to accept. I think this makes me a better person as seeing in grey helps you understand complex situations better because it lets you see more than 2 answers, you can see hundreds of shades of answer. It all starts with seeing your first shade of grey.

I hope whoever reads this enjoyed my ramble! It took a few twists in subjects but I think (hope) it flows okay for people. Going to ask about the hobby question in a small server I'm in then if I get any cool answers, I'll make an edit to reveal them here! ^-^ Hope you have a wonderful day!<3

Edit: I did ask the server, which is a Philosophy server with 4 other people in it. One guy replied - he said "Arbitrary - it's whatever you like" which either means 1. It doesn't matter because it's whatever you want the definition to be 2. A hobby is whatever you like This wasn't really a useful answer because 1 doesn't answer the question and 2 doesn't seem thought out because of the broadness (I can like my fridge but that isn't a hobby, you know?). I said his answer was kind of boring, and he said boring stuff is true because if the sun was magic it'd be interesting but the sun is boring because it's made of nuclear fusion. I said that is interesting though (also, magic would've been the simple answer and fusion is the complex one, so how is that supporting his argument?? Magic is the wrong and oversimplified(I did not say this part)) and that it's okay if he doesn't really have an answer. He proceeded to tell me that it's sad I didn't understand and he couldn't believe I simplified his arguments into a personal spiel. I don't even get what that meant because I just said his answer was boring and real answers are interesting, and that I did find how the sun worked interesting. I'm not sure what part of that conversation was even personal. Anyway, I asked what spiel he was on about and haven't received a reply. Not sure if that means he doesn't have an answer or doesn't feel like continuing anymore. Anyone who replies to an opposite answer with "it's sad you can't understand and can't believe you did x to me" tend to be having bad faith arguments anyway so I'm not going to let it get to me. Will update if I ever get a reply or a good answer to this, or might just make it into a new post and link it so it can all be together.

Edit 2: Gonna make my own Philosophy group chat

[gaininghobbies]

Getting Started

Heyyyy!

I'm Punky and this is my new blog!

I've been unemployed for 10 months now as jobs are difficult to get in my area. I feel like I've wasted a lot of time between my volunteering and the course I went on. I do a lot of art - but only doing art constantly leads to burnout and my biggest fear right now is becoming a mindless doomscroller :(( I have scoured the internet for different hobbies and skills people do for fun and compiled it into a list of 73 things! (wow!) My aim is to try to do as many hobbies as I can while I'm unemployed, along with taking free online courses and looking for a job or apprenticeship. I'm figuring out a schedule for myself to learn all these things, from learning to juggle to making a game to studying folklore from around the world!

Currently, my plan is to try out all of the big ones over the next few weeks (folklore, art, coding, philosophy, etc) to get an overview understanding of each so I can properly organise lessons for myself into units to make sure I cover everything in a subject. This will lead to me making my own lessons and steadily getting through all the big things I want to do. As for the smaller ones(juggling, calligraphy, coin tricks, etc), I will work on those over time, since they tend to only take 1-4 weeks to get intermediate at.

Why make this blog? One I saw suggested a lot was to start a blog! So why not knock it out straight away by turning my hobby adventure into a blog?

What happens when I (hopefully) finally get a job? Posts here will probably slow down a bit, since I'll have less time for my hobbies, but I'll still try to keep up with as many as I can! I'll probably switch between some of the bigger ones and do less of the smaller ones at a time. After I wrote this part, I actually got a phone call about an interview so there is hope! I don't know if I'll get the job but I'm crossing my fingers (this is my first interview in months). I think that covers basically everything. Hoping to at least keep this blog alive because that'll be at least 1 successful hobby! Hope this was okay and happy reading :3