I just graduated optometry school and I feel like I’ve lost a bit of my identity. I didn’t have much free time to focus on the things that make me happy and now I’m lacking inspiration. I can’t work until my license is approved so I’ve had days of doing nothing since May 7. It’s been great but it’s starting to get boring; I can only play so much Zelda and doom scroll so often.
So whatcha got? What do you like to do? What are some hobbies or passions everyone has? What are non-drinking related activities to do with a partner or friends?
Hiking. Now is the perfect season for it. If you partner has time off work, take a 1-2-3-4 days trip to any national park nearby and enjoy the nature. Or just venture out somewhere close for a couple hours walk.
Yes! We want to take a trip to the badlands but I need to start work before doing that because money is a bit tight until then. But we try to hit up local trails, which there aren’t many in my area. I’m going to research national parks near me for future trips! Great advice!
Absolutely do it. I am yet to regret any trip to a state or national park. Based on their size and proximity you can plan your yearly visits around long weekends or just take a couple of days off work and go.
Try out photography! Get some basic tips on composition and light before your trip. Use your own phone so you don’t have to make an initial investment. If you search for “badlands” on Flickr.com, you’ll get some ideas on photography and find some interesting places, too. You might even consider expanding your initial photography skills upon your return, and this could become a rewarding hobby that encourages you to visit and photograph beautiful places.
National parks are great, but also look for national forests and grasslands, state parks and forests, conservation areas, and BLM land.
National forests/grasslands are my favorite because they are free and well documented. Unfortunately I live in the midwest, so it’s a long-ass drive to the nearest ones, so for short trips I’m usually going to state-owned facilities (also great, but usually not as big or free to use).
As a hobby you can usually practice at home and then take on the road, try some stargazing and sky photography! With a little work most modern phones can do pretty fun astrophotography (not amazing, but interesting enough to make for some fun times, and maybe of interest if you like lenses and shit).
Ayyy fellow midwesterner! I used national parks/forests interchangeably and never made the connection they could be distinct things. I looked up some places within 4-5 hour drives and most were grassy areas with some type of small water feature. There’s some good primitive camping close to me too that I want to check out.
The grasslands are underappreciated in my view (good for me, fewer people out there using them!)
I have spent a lot of time out in the Bessey Ranger District near Halsey Nebraska. It’s a nice mix of hand-planted forest and prairie in the sandhills area. Great place to go for a variety of camping options, and really excellent for stargazing because it’s one of the darkest places in the US. I’ve spent many deep-black nights laying on top of my vehicle parked on top of a tall hill listening to the breeze in the grass while watching meteor showers and satellites (saw the ISS go over once, amazing sight!).
The landscape ranges from impenetrably dense forest to wide-open rolling native prairie. You can drive miles of trails (best in a moderate clearance 4x4, and informed by the Motor Vehicle Use Map loaded into the Avenza mobile app) to see seemingly endless interesting areas, and in most places you can pull off the side of the road and set up camp. We are getting into a good time of year to see big puffball mushrooms out there (edible if you like mushrooms).
The other national forest areas in Nebraska are similar, though the forest at Bessey is unique, being the largest hand-planted forest in the US. Also there was a large fire there (last year I think), so it’s a good time to see the recovery process and compare the recently burned areas to the unburned.
This is great info since I’ve had my eye on dark parks in Michigan for quite some time! I will definitely be adding this area to my list of possibilities to check out this fall. Gonna let the summer pass before doing too much outdoor things. Tho I’m sad I’ll miss the puffballs; I’ve been interested in foraging. The real bummer is we just sold our Tacoma so we no longer have a vehicle capable of off-roading. But that’s okay, camping and stargazing are enough for now :)
Maybe for you, it’s the middle of winter where I am! I agree though, I love hiking and don’t do it enough
Put some layers on! Jk I know winter stuff may not be as exciting but here’s hope that spring is just around the corner.
Ping pong.
I heartily recommend taking up an instrument. If it’s something you’ve long dreamt of, every day you don’t is a day you’ll wish you did ten years from now.
Music allows me to make friends quickly and easily, anywhere in the world, with all kinds of people. Up-front costs can seem high but if you care for your instrument and choose one that doesn’t require restringing, you will find the dollar cost per hour of entertainment just gets lower and lower.
That said, I do recommend getting a teacher for semi-regular lessons
I hope this helps someone!
Your statement about wishing is so true. I’m not musical but my partner started playing piano as an adult and almost daily mentions how much he regrets not having started as a child. He plays daily now but there’s so much time to make up compared to his peers who’ve been playing since they were kids.
Book an MSF course and learn to ride a motorcycle. It’s a weekend course and a lot of fun even if you don’t plan on buying one. You get a practice bike to learn on (and drop, a bit) and an instructor to get you comfortable riding.
Things I do as a hobby:
*Build minecraft mod packs
*Tutor high school and college students in chemistry, physics, math and biology
*Digital art
*Write flash fiction
*Read… a lot
*Adventurous cooking
*Compete in an amateur Starcraft league
*Build molecules that I think are interesting in Jmol and optimize them in nwchem
Adventurous cooking is such a good suggestion as a time killer.
It can be done for now and later abandoned if you end lacking the time for it.
Only effect that will have is you learned a bit of some important life skills.
I play with my dogs.
optometry school … focus on the things
heh.
Let’s see… Woodworking, car repair/restoration, home improvement (from redecoration to remodels), kayaking, camping, mild 4x4 offroad stuff, hiking, latte art, playing a banjo very poorly, 3D printing, coding for microcontrollers, coding dumb games, gardening, making my garage shop nicer, book binding, painting (as in walls, not that artistic stuff), making bread, diagraming the nightmare of 100-year-old wiring in my house (planning a rewire), occasional motorcycle rides. Probably some other things I’ve forgotten about.
If you’ll have free time for a while still you could maybe find an easy job to do. If you don’t really need the income there are a lot of things that can be fun.
Coffee shops can be pretty cool, depending on the business there are some interesting things to learn, and it’s generally low-pressure work if you’re not a complete idiot.
If you like cats and dogs animal shelters usually are happy to have volunteers. You’d probably be cleaning up shit a lot of the time, but that’s not hard and you can balance it by giving the critters much-needed and appreciated attention. You can also volunteer to do things like bottle-feeding baby animals, that tends to take a lot of time so shelters are frequently looking for volunteers.
Optometry is a small world so I had found a temporary part time job at a local office needing a tech so I was a “super tech” for the owner for 4-5 weeks. But I do start working for real next week already (it really snuck up on me, thought I had a couple more). I love some of your suggestions! I wish I had a house to do projects with and land to garden on. I’ve done hydroponic tomatoes at a precious apartment complex which was interesting but I prefer in ground.
Not necessarily a hobby, but have you considered volunteer work? It would keep your mind busy, while also giving back to your community/potential future patients.
Hiking, painting, 3d printing, board games, gardening.
Collecting and restoring knives.Whatever you feel like doing…
But find something that’s different enough than your future job.
I mean… I troubleshoot network stuff for a living and coming home and doing puzzles would absolutely suck, as it’s the same kind of stimuli (finding patterns).
Every job is different, and I burn out of different hobbies depending on what job I’m doing.Been also weekend hiking. Doesn’t have to be anything crazy either, sometimes I just like going on lowkey trails. Learning guitar via TakeLessons and Board game meetups
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