I'm curious about what people do when they've got free time.

I learn Wing Chun kung fu, I go to the gym, I draw my comic strips, browse the internet, play computer games, and I'm currently planning a novel. I'm pretty busy! When I get time I also paint, but that's more of an irregular thing.

How about you? Is there anything you'd like to start doing?

Look! Its me on Matazone!

I recently started sewing again, and messing around on the guitar.... Its not really something I do too regularly, because I get frustrated at it easily, but its something I do I plan to pick up reading again, I dont think I've finished a book in the past year.... which is kind of sad. Most of my freetime I spend talking to people online....

I am learning Russian. I also like sewing but as with Kitty, I get frustrated too easily- I also don't have my sewing machine with me in London
I also draw cartoons about Monty's Enchanting Eyeball, and odd conversations I have had. And I go to gigs. Lots and lots of gigs.

GUITAR! That's what 90% of my free time is. The other 10% is probably a mixture between being online and being outside. And I read. Sometimes.

Ooh, I like talking about this. I do a lot of music. Well actually, I only practise the piano really and occassionally the other instruments if I've got a concert or exam. And all other time is spent procrastinating, probably on the computer. Work doesn't come into the equation.

I read. And read. And then read a bit more. I can just disappear into a different world and absorb myself into a book. I actually feel sad for people who don't read for enjoyment. I read every single day without fail and I certainly can't sleep without a book. (there have been a couple that have kept me rapt all night)

I used to draw. When I was a bit younger and 'emo' it was a fantastic way to lose a few hours. I have several lovely drawings of dragons from when I was off on one. Unfortunately, I have little time for it nowadays. I'll get the old kit out when my son wants a drawing or someone needs a tattoo but it's a talent that I've sadly allowed to go to seed.

I never knew that, you simply MUST show me your etchings!

We've got a lot of musical people. There should be a Matazone band!

I used to read a lot, but these days I don't get as much time and so I spend a lot of time thinking about things I'm writing. Instead, for my fiction intake, I listen to lots of audio books. That way I still get stories, but I get to do other things at the same time too.

You seem like the type that is open to my ideas. Now if you could just place your clothes over there...

In my free time I enjoy climbing indoors and outdoors (been showing off my grip muscles to Daria and Wytu today and did my first outdoor 4c on Saturday!);trips to the cinema (Prince Charles & Peckahm are nice an cheap-when I can afford them); live funk (live music just has a way of reaching into you that playing a record just can't seem to do as often. Went over to Lille the other day for a DJ set of hip hop and funk, they played Mace & the Macs Soul Power for me, just totally awesome!); trampolining (four consecutive swivel hips with out much practive so far this year, hopefully I'll surpass my highest of six soon); interweb surfing (well, here I am, aren't I? ) ; slowly getting back into reading -before bed (yes, it was fantasy that bought me back) and leaving notes/ drawings/ lymericks on bikes tied up in public (hit a bit of a creative block at the moment, been tihnking abour making collages from those free papers to ties on). Also, just a little bit, but not really a hobby, of late I've been writing words and, or number on my finger nails with these nifty thin brush, neon nail varnishes I borrowed from a cousin.

I'd like to dine out more often, just restricted by finances now- as in, I'd like to eat more types of foods. I'd also like to attend more art exhibitions. When I am fitter, and hopefully by high summer I'll have the finances I'd like to start learning some parkour, it looks totally fun and would compliment my climbing.


What's this novel you're planning on, Mata?

That's the only way I've found recently that I have time to get to "read" for pleasure. Most of the actual reading I do is text books.

My hobbies used to be painting, sculpting, drawing, reading, some minor photography, but now my one and only hobby seems to be sleeping, since I rarely have time to do it.

I have ALWAYS wondered if you ever have times where you just sit down and stop thinking. Ever?? It seems that every time I hear about something you're doing you're also doing something else at the same time.

Procrastinating, thats another hobby of mine. I like to think alot about what I should do/want to do and then think about how I'm procrastinating about it.

i mud

yeah im really that much of a geek.

As in driving around in the mud in a 4 wheel drive vehicle?

I've actually had something like on that on my mind for a while now. An online band type of thing where a few people record some stuff, someone makes some lyrics, and the we just mix it all together. It'd be something really cool to do.

I climb too, frog! Do you happen to know what a 4c is in US terms (because I am scratching my head)?

I also cook (makin the illest chocolate chip cookies as well as assorted, mostly indian-flavored veg items) and sing. I play the viola poorly and send letters to people I don't know (many thanks to Feral Polyglot (I think it was him) for making Postcardx known to me.) I read like a fiend and learn about public transit systems compulsively. Knitting, writing and sculpturing make the list as well--I basically can't sit still and get really bored watching TV. Is anyone else the same way?

I read a fair bit, rarely at home though. I spend vast quantities of time on public transport, so have about 3+ reading hours every day on london's transport. I get lost a lot in books to like miss snugglebum.

I sadly also make facial expressions when I read, I can't help it. If something is suprising I look suprised etc..

I draw a fudge load too. It helps that I used to be a graphic designer and helps even more that I am currently studying animation. I pretty much HAVE to sketch all the time for projects. Plus unlike some poor souls I seem able to still enjoy sketching even though I also do it for work type stuff.

Also into photography a lot, and am slowly building a lovely lens set for my canon 400d slr camera which I am proud of. I pretty much photograph whatever and whoever I am can without being arrested for it (sometimes I consider taking pictures of things I would be arrested for... )

Also make short films.. though not so much in my free time anymore. Most of the time it's for actual uni/old job. But once I free up some time I will get back on that again.

And finally I play computer games... noticeably world of warcraft with Cath sometimes.

as in playing text based multi player games.

I LOVE music! I listen to good music as much as I can. And do to how my room is setup, I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to enjoying bedroom stereos or boom boxes (I listen to music on the surround speakers now).
I also like movies, but I don't get around to watching that many.

I really like books too, although quite often, I haven't too much time to spare for them!

Bokuwa nihongo benko o shimasu (i think that's how it goes): I learn Japanese. And I spend some time messing with languages and working on Langhadêjé, my conlang.

I've also recently got back into the drums, and have been playing alot. I've been getting pretty good at them too.

That's most of my hobbies/free time things.

Well, I do most of my hobbies part-time, since many of them are very involving, and mostly because I have so many. Since I was old enough to stand on my own two feet, my hobbies have included:

Model railways, Airfix kits, reading, drawing, painting, football, exploring, writing (lots), hillwalking, collecting, miniature modelling/painting, wargaming, tabletop RPGing, boardgaming, computers/computer games, listening to music, playing the ocarina (though this is now dead and buried), design, ultimate, a bit of acting, singing (mostly at karaoke), building stuff (absolutely anything, really, from houses to circuit boards), mathematics (sad, but I have more maths awards than any other type), casual history, dancing, orienteering and occasionally socialising.

How I find time to do anything really escapes me.

Snugs, I agree totally about the reading, and drawing is always good for emptying your mind of whatever else is going on at the time. I reccomend, as I always do, anything by Neil Gaiman. I'll have you all converted at some point. Start with Stardust, Neverwhere or American Gods. Hell, start anywhere, just read the bastage.

Now I am trying to learn guitar properly. I can play two songs (and neither of them are by Green Day)! Yay new hobby!

WHAT spare time. I live, breath and eat university at the moment....it's all good though

When I do have some spare time my favourite thing to do is go shopping. It's a total female cliche but I LOVE shopping

I also like going out with my mates, flirting, drinking (not getting stupid drunk), smoking and dancing.

I love to read a good trashy novel as well as something a little bit more hi brow every now and then.

Obviously I LOVE visiting museums, art galleries and heritage attractions (doing an MA in Arts & Museum Management that's why) and reading about them too - not really a spare time thing tho as it's what I'm supposed to be doing

I can change that, I hope!

Here's a really good tab for Good Riddance. It's the first song I ever learnt.

http://www.fretplay.com/tabs/g/green_day/g...dance-tab.shtml

Aw, thanks. Now I kind of feel obligated to learn it, even though I don't like Green Day very much at all. It's also embarassing to consider the fact that I might not even be able to play it (the two songs I learned are three/four chords each--Rebellion by the Arcade Fire and In The Aeroplane Over the Sea.) Maybe I will try.

(Chah, I sound like the indie scum.)

Learning Bloc Party would make you Indie Scum.

Learning Arcade Fire makes you awesome.

Naw, it's cool. If you don't like Green Day don't learn it.

elphaba2, a UK 4C is a US 5.8 according to this link.. What kinda climbing you do, indoor/ outdoor? if outdoor what kinda rock?

I also did my first 4A lead climb last week (indoor), which is bit more scary because you have to clip rope into secure points as you ascend, and also the potentiality for falling further distance is greater.

I am a lame wuss and do 5.7-8 indoor climbing--I have a few friends who got huge ugly fines from Parks Services for climbing in a big hiking park nearby and it's kind of scared me off of the whole outdoor business. But I'm helping a friend build a climbing wall in his backyard that transitions to a cliff face, so it might be legal for me to start pretty soon! I think the rock is granite--there's quite a lot of it around here.

I've never lead climbed, just lead belayed. It looks like a lot of fun; I need to kick myself over to the rock gym soon so I can learn how to do it properly. Argh, stupid busy.

I have discovered recently that my life appears to have been consumed by Rock Band. Today I'm buying Rock Band 2, so I await the demise of all my spare time with eager anticipation. Hooray!

I've also started very occasionally going indoor climbing. I have learnt basic fencing too. Life is fun.

Best use of your time ever. It's nicer hitting up natural rocks though.

*edit* Woah, totally just realized the start-date of this thread.

When I can get my hands on them (the lack of a TV in my house prevents that from happening often) I enjoy playing video games.
I'm hesitant to call art (Painting, drawing, writing, photography) a hobby because that's really something I base my life around. Not so much something I just do in my free time.
I listen to music and dance around to it often.
Recently, I took up going on bike rides (my bike is almost as old as I am, and therefor it is now a 1-speed bike instead of the 18-speed it was meant to be.)
I create fashion design sketches.
Occasionally, I sew.
and I read, a ton.

Wrong. The best use of his time is making animations (and novels I guess) for our amusement

I play go, and I'm also a diabolo-ist and occasional juggler

Heh, yeah. Second best then.

Crazymat: Diablo, the game right? Best one ever.

no
this kind of diabolo

I could bring my Guitar Hero World Tour band stuff to the next meet?

I like to play the violin in an orchestra, I play on the Wii (both with myself and mates), I like to read in bed, watch TV, surf the internet. Do those last ones count as hobbies? What the actual definition? I would say my work is my hobby as I love visiting heritage sites and looking at their digital interactives so I suppose I'm kinda lucky in that aspect

I very rarely get to do any of the circus stuff these days. I do more over the Crawley Circus Weekend than I do for the rest of the year!

Watching TV feels like a null activity to me, something to be done when there's not anything better to do, but that's for general programming. If I've downloaded a series or I'm watching a film then those feel more hobby-esque because there's been some input into the process. Even then, I'll often be playing a puzzle game on the DS or doing sudoku while watching TV.

And don't worry, I do spend a fair portion of my time working on my novel. You'll get to read it eventually! It has taken up the time that I would previously have spent animating, but it lets me tell stories in ways that would take a vast amount of time to do with animation. I'm vaguely thinking about doing a Little Goth Girl book to tell the story from beginning to end, but I'd need to rework it all quite a lot. That's only a vague idea, so don't get too keen because I highly doubt that will actually happen.

Oh I've seen some kid with that at school before, cool stuff.
Edit: Like half of all those people are from the Netherlands. : O

Yeah, I remember that from 5th grade. Ana-lee or something? Ana-belle? Something like that. Anyway. I was picked on to try, and failed epicly.

You just didn't have a good enough teacher then. Diabolo is one of the easiest circusy things to pick up. It's got a really gentle learning curve for the first few months, then becomes immensely difficult when you get onto the advanced stuff. It's sort-of the opposite of the devilstick, which is very hard to begin with and plateaus out at 'everything is pretty tricky' after a while.

I agree! Also, with diabolo, it's really easy to do stuff that looks impressive to normal people. I can do some basic devilstick tricks, but hitting a stick back and forth is pretty unremarkable

I'm looking forward to reading your novel Mata - good to know the editing is going well

This will probably be a big list. I seem to have spread myself a bit thinly over far too many hobbies.

Up until about a year ago I was going indoor climbing regularly and really getting into it. I really want to get back into it but the people I used to go with have moved on. Would like to move onto real rock at some point too.
Music is one of those things I dabble with but never seem to devote enough time to get really good at. I can play a few things on the keyboard and ukulele but very roughly. Synthesisers and other electronic music kit are fun to play with. Weird noises is in my Livejournal list of interests as a result.
Recently I got into miniatures painting and wargaming. Building or scultping my own figures and working on bigger and better custom projects is always great fun.
Have been playing various boardgames weekly with a group of friends and would like to get back into tabletop RPGs if I manage to get people interested.
I play video games but usually go in cycles of playing a lot of games for a few months then playing hardly any games for a while.
I do quite a bit of coding in my spare time but work has dampened my enthusiasm for that a bit. Still, I'm getting towards my eventual goal of a working game engine. It grows bit by bit with each little project I make.
Other sports I partake in when I get the chance are badminton and mountain biking.
Circus skills, specifically diabolo and juggling. I'm stuck with 3 or 4 balls for juggling but I am getting on to the advanced diabolo tricks. Similar to Mata, generally I find myself practicing in the few months running up to Crawley and then stopping again when the weather gets cold.
After 3 years I still don't have my TV antenna hooked up. Watching TV feels like a time suck when I could be doing more interesting things. Vegging out on the internet is a fine use of time however.
Making things and other crafty things, from painting to electronics happens from time to time.
Reading when I get the chance. Unfortunately getting less frequent recently.

I don't think I've changed at all. My only real hobby is music. Mainly piano, in the hope of getting into a decent music college, but horn too (a potential back-up plan?). I've given up the other instruments, which is a shame, but inevitable to an extent. I reckon this also includes listening, and concert-going too (admittedly mostly classical and jazz concerts). I also like painting, but I'm not very good and am always scared of starting in case I mess it up. I'm currently pondering and gathering materials for a large canvas based on 1001 nights, stories within stories, middle eastern patterns... these kinds of themes. Sewing too, I like sewing. I've made lots of pencil cases - possibly the easiest thing there is to make; most of them are panda-related for no particular reason, and a few kite-related ones too. I like walking too. As in... I like to leave the house without carrying anything at all, and just going somewhere. It's a nice free feeling. I dunno... perhaps I'm just a loser. I don't really do anything apart from that... do pubs count as hobbies? probably not.

At the moment, I have a lot of ex-hobbies. When not working, I generally spend time with my friends or family. My other two time sinks are studying to become an electrician (which involves more reading than you'd think), and a certain MMO that shall remain nameless. There's the usual music and movies which I tend to enjoy on the merits of their production values as much the actual content, I also occasionally read.

Speaking of ex-hobbies, I used to play guitar, collect miniatures, I've learnt and forgotten how to handle and care for birds of prey, I used to be a Sea Cadet through which I did sailing and was part of their band (and was part of larger bands that played for the Queen personally, in the Royal Tournament and in a carnival in Wiesbaden, Germany). There was also competitions that took up a lot of time.

Concerning one of my hobbies (all things Suikoden), I feel happiness and shame at the same time. Happiness because there is a new Suikoden game on the DS, and shame because I did not know of this until I went into the old video game store i worked in. I just needed to share, even though only 539 people know of this game, which also saddens me.

And for the record Mata, don't buy Rock Band, it will consume your life. Much like Fallout did.

Too late, I've already got Rock Band, and I've already had to put in my order for my second drum pedal! (This time I've gone for an expensive metal uber-pedal that won't break in two months.) Learning to drum is fun!

If you like great puzzle games, I highly recommend PicPic on the DS. It's hard to find, but well worth it. There are three types of puzzle and MagiPic mode is the best, but the other two are fun as well. Magipic is a bit like minesweeper but without the annoying instant-death thing, and it gives you lovely looking pictures at the end. It's a brilliant time sink, and usually play it while watching TV.

SPS, I didn't know you were in the Royal Tournament. That's really cool. I went to that a few times when I was a kid.

I started voluntary work in an animal charity shop, something to do in my spare time

Long story short, I've been collecting virtual pets roughly since 2005. Last time I counted them back in 2008 I had 107 I think. Haven't counted yet, but sure I'm up more than 107 lol.

I hope you are taking good care of them all!

Well obviously I do not have them all running at once else my head would explode LOL. Right now I have 6 activated.

Seriously though yes I do my best to keep them in decent condition. Some virtual pet enthusiasts are a lot more into keeping everything with the mint packaging and all that, but I generally do not keep the packaging and play with them as well as keep them in drawers and a jewellry box I got second hand.