Hobbies... Or the Lack Thereof

Today I was struck by the strong urge to do a musical. Sadly the local theater groups aren't doing anything that interests me right now. The urge hit me after watching a short video of Lego minifigures singing "One Day More" from "Les Miserables". Les Miz is my very favorite musical and, in my opinion, it is simply the best ever.

But that was only the beginning of the train of thought for this post. As I realized that there were no musicals I wanted to do right now, I also realized that, except for Choir, Greek, and sporadic DnD, I have little to occupy my time. I lack a serious hobby. I sing, but apart from memorization and theory there is not much there on which to invest my time. I have been taking piano, but it does not take me very long every day to play through all of my practice pieces several times.

So then, my dilemma is this; I have too much time on my hands and I often find myself frittering it away in a mixture of anxious thought, boredom, passive entertainments, and frustratedly rambling at anyone who will listen. I spend much time at church, but not often doing anything of real use, aside from attending matins or the Divine service. I asked a friend what she thought and she told me what should have been obvious to me, I need to find something to interest myself in, a skill or hobby.

And so I find myself in a dilemma which I am not unfamiliar with. What should I spend my extra time on? I could certainly read more than I currently do, I definitely do not do enough of it. I could hunker down and work hard on my Greek, however most of the time that I am looking for something to do I am not looking for the mental gymnastics of Greek.... Or maybe I'm just too lazy....


I would appreciate any suggestions. Right now I am at a mental impasse, so any fresh thoughts would be lovely.

Laying Down the Law

Earlier this morning my brother and I taught a Biblical Greek class. We have been doing this regularly on Thursdays, and sometimes Mondays, for about four months. We are actually more like TAs; we teach so that the primary teacher, our Pastor, can continue the teaching of the students while still having flexibility with his schedule. We are competent readers of Greek but much less competent teachers. But we do our best and the students are learning Greek slowly but surely.

Today, we had a "Law Moment" Recently the students had been falling behind on their homework; not doing translations, laboring over some of the more basic grammar concepts and they were falling behind on vocabulary. Today we assigned them a vocab quiz. All vocab, about an hundred and some words; they were given thirty-five minutes to fill it out and afterwards we walked through it and marked anything that they got wrong or missed in red crayon, crayon 'cause we're cool like that, and between now and next class, they need to have their parents sign every page of the test to show that they know how much they need to work on it. Pastor hated to have to assign this, but it's the best way to get them to work. He knows from experience...

How about a little story, hmm? Once upon a time, there was a homeschool Greek class taught by a generous Pastor. The Pastor was a good teacher and well loved by all his students. Time passed and the class grew smaller, people moved, people decided they would rather spend their time doing other things; some just wanted to learn Latin instead. And eventually there were only two students. These two students, despite the fact that they were the only ones left, were not the most studious pair. They had always had bad study habits, not memorizing their vocab and not learning their grammar.
One day, the Pastor decided to give his two remaining students a full comprehensive test; including a large vocab test, grammar, and direct translations. The two students did terribly. In less than an hour the Pastor learned that they retained very little of what he had taught them. He decided that he had to lay down the law. Starting from the beginning of the book, he walked the students through everything again, sending assignments with them every week that they would have to do and then have signed by their parents.
The Pastor's plan worked! It was not long before the students were back up to speed and studying new concepts. In fact, they did so well that a couple years after these events, the Pastor had them start assisting with the teaching of a new crop of students...

And so, by the grace of God and the dedicated perseverance of his servant, I have a greater appreciation not only for Ancient Greek, but also for the written word.
I look forward to my continued study of the language as my brother and I slowly move towards almost complete independence from lexicons.