Weird and Quirky Habits

Because I am slightly bored, and because I like embarrassing myself in public, I thought to list some really weird habits/hobbies that I have. You might know some of these already, either from previous blog posts, or if you know me personally. Some of these habits are really old, and some are relatively new, but all of them are rather odd.

Do you have any weird/wonderful habits like these? Let me know in the comments below :)

Reading the dictionary/thesaurus

Writing this makes me feel like such a bastard. But as a young kid I didn't really have that much entertainment at home. It was either go play outside in the park (which was awesome, and I did that most of the time) or stay at home with nothing much to do. We just had a television and that did not even have many channels.

I know I sound like I was born in the 50s ("where's the fucking PlayStation, you bitch!", I hear you yelling), but my family never really integrates new things into the house. It's just something that never happens. Plus all those electronic gadgets were just random luxuries which we couldn't be bothered to afford.

So there was nothing much to do in the house except play by myself. So I found this old Webster's Dictionary & Thesaurus in the drawers and just started looking up random words and greedily reading their meaning. I loved the thesaurus too, because I could see how all the words are related.

But let it be said that my vocabulary did not improve a great deal (as demonstrated by my copious use of the word "bastard" on this blog). I usually just read most of the words and forgot about them.

It sounds so odd, but I still find it entertaining to this day. I am still tempted to dig through drawers and find the old dictionary and flip through it. But I just use the online ones now.

I miss you too, Noah. 

Looking at maps

This is another thing born from childhood boredom/curiosity (see above). I found this large world map in one of the drawers and I loved spreading it out on the floor and looking excitedly at all the countries.

Mind you, this map was from the 80s (probably bought when my brother was a kid), so the Soviet Union was still on it. I always used to wonder what this gigantic red "country", which appeared to take up half of Earth's land mass, was like in real life.

Only when I had turned around nine I realised that the "Soviet Union" did not exist anymore. At eleven I realised that it hadn't been an actual country. >___<

So Mordor does not exist? :(

But I still like looking up maps every now and then. I particularly like Europe, especially looking at where all the Eastern European countries are positioned, and Central Asia.

Unable to sleep without the sound of nature documentaries

I just developed this habit during this summer vacation. I guess it's because I keep getting stressed whenever I lie down to sleep, so I need something to soothe me till I fall asleep (think of it as a lullaby, but not at all in a ridiculous, childish way).

I realised that I don't actually like watching the nature documentaries (at least not while I'm trying to sleep), I just like listening to their sound, especially when it's one of those BBC ones with a David Attenborough narration. They calm me down and make me feel relaxed.

So I ripped off the audio tracks from all these BBC nature documentaries, and put them on my iPod. I don't listen to them every night, but sometimes I like putting them on and just imagining being in some Redwood forest in northern Canada.


Unable to study without the television

I simply cannot concentrate on studying without the background noise of the television. God knows where I picked this up from, but it has been a great annoyance since I started college, because we don't have a working television in the dorms (first world pains?).

I prefer listening to something inconspicuous, like the news. Or just switching on some shitty music channel, which turns even shittier after 12 AM, when it starts playing a string of power ballads from the 80s.


Listening to movies/trailers/TV shows

I guess this habit is the result of the habit above.

I like the sound of the television while studying, but there is no television to turn on. So I do the next best thing - just play downloaded television shows on my laptop, while working, and just listening to the audio.

Mostly I listen to music while studying, but sometimes it distracts me, and I need to listen to something else. In times like these, studying with just the audio track from something makes it so much easier to concentrate.

But I find that I really enjoy listening to movie trailers. I think it's because I like putting my own images on top of the sound...?

Talking to myself

This is pretty much entering the schizophrenic zone (is this TMI for you?). Yeh, I talk to myself a lot. Does this mean that I am mental? I think if you see me around uni, you will notice me smiling to myself or having a little conversation with myself.

I think this might be another result of the stress...