Whether these mechanisms are used to procrastinate writing a major essay, or quench my boredom on a Saturday night in, I have compiled a list of my most favorite ways to flush away potentially productive stretches of time.
1. I have always found the size of the world, in both physical mass and population, to be a major source of excitement.
While others waste innumerable hours on Facebook and Tumblr, my time is most vulnerable to Google Earth. I can spend hours on end inserting the 16-letter, unpronounceable names of obscure Welsh villages into the search bar, and I then proceed to meander through the quaint, dreary landscapes using the Street View feature.
2. While I do not allow my time to be consumed by elaborate morning routines involving layers upon layers of makeup, I do occasionally indulge in this hobby in the late hours of the night.
I do not engage in this practice to make myself pretty, rather, I use my assortment of eyeshadow palettes and blushes as paint. I end up looking totally bizarre; with streaks of electric blue and yellow reaching from my brow bone to the corners of my lips, or orange-hued lipstick blended into the apples of my cheeks. However odd the outcome, as I typically resemble a mutilated extraterrestrial by the time I have concluded this process, this strange time sink is truly an artistic outlet.
3. It is a tradition at many schools for seniors to change their names on Facebook to a punny, ridiculous version of their given name.
Typically, these nicknames will be accompanied by an outrageous, laugh-out-loud hilarious cover photo, involving the insertion of their face over another image. At the start of the year, two of my closest friends, EmmeNem TheReal SlimShady (Emme) and Mac NCheese (Mac), asked if I wouldn’t mind constructing their cover photos. I obliged, and from then on assumed the role of designated maker of senior name cover photos. I probably provided around a quarter of my class with these whimsical pieces of graphic design. The trash folder on my computer is now filled with an alarming amount of cropped photos of my peers’ faces.
When we indulge ourselves in acts of procrastination and dillydally, we explore esoteric areas of our brain that would usually remain dormant and unexposed. It is my belief that these unusual hobbies are at their core, untapped sources of creativity, or the seeds of an undiscovered passion. While this absurd medley of interests did not quite make the cut for my Common App activities list, I hope that you have learned a little more about my identity as an artistic mind, curious globetrotter…or however you would like to interpret it.
