Prompted by TheFullNelson's latest entry
When I was in elementary school, my parents used to make me do my homework at the kitchen table right after school. Since I was (am) more smart than clever, it took me until much later to realize that I could either 1) do my homework during school or 2) just lie that I didn't have homework and do it whenever I wanted, including the next day during school before it was collected. (I never figured out that I could just not do it)
However, the ability to make the best of a boring situation had been activated and nurtured at a very young age by numerous mandatory family activities (catholic mass, nursing home visits, etc). Being confined to the kitchen table for some time after school was exactly this sort of situation.
I've heard that a lot of people doing boring repetitive tasks often make up games to pass the time. I have always done this. Seeing how long I could remember meaningless strings of numbers (or mentally making obscene puns on the names of people) from the copies of the insurance forms I was filing in my first job in high school. Counting the number of tables I cleared into a single bus tub at my second job, and trying to beat my record each night. Trying to maintain constant breath to blink (or step to blink) ratios or trying to pattern my breathing with beats of songs I was singing (either mentally or aloud depending on how I was feeling) while running cross country. And so on...
The game I played while doing math homework in elementary school went like this: When starting to work on an assignment, get a package of fruit snacks from the cupboard and dump them out on the table. After completing 3 or 4 problems (sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the size of the assignment and the number of fruit snacks in the package), I'd eat one. I'd try to make it last until it was time to eat another one, either by taking tiny bites, or by letting a thick, gross, sugary mass form in my mouth as my saliva mixed with the partially chewed fruit snack. I'd change and add rules as I got closer to finishing the assignment as necessary to ensure that the assignment ended just as my supply of fruit snacks did. For example, if I was going to have some fruit snacks left over, I might eat two fruit snacks at once if I managed to make one last until it was time for the next. If I was going to run out, I might only eat a shark's tail or a monster's head, and eat the rest of the body in the next round.
I occasionally played similar games with other subjects and with other snacks; eating one of a stack of cookies for every short answer written in History, for example.
I can't say when it started, except that I cannot remember doing a set of math problems before 6th grade without it. As a result, math and fruit snacks will always be tightly and inexorably linked deep within my subconscious.
What do/did you do to pass the time when stuck in a boring situation you couldn't avoid?
When I was in elementary school, my parents used to make me do my homework at the kitchen table right after school. Since I was (am) more smart than clever, it took me until much later to realize that I could either 1) do my homework during school or 2) just lie that I didn't have homework and do it whenever I wanted, including the next day during school before it was collected. (I never figured out that I could just not do it)
However, the ability to make the best of a boring situation had been activated and nurtured at a very young age by numerous mandatory family activities (catholic mass, nursing home visits, etc). Being confined to the kitchen table for some time after school was exactly this sort of situation.
I've heard that a lot of people doing boring repetitive tasks often make up games to pass the time. I have always done this. Seeing how long I could remember meaningless strings of numbers (or mentally making obscene puns on the names of people) from the copies of the insurance forms I was filing in my first job in high school. Counting the number of tables I cleared into a single bus tub at my second job, and trying to beat my record each night. Trying to maintain constant breath to blink (or step to blink) ratios or trying to pattern my breathing with beats of songs I was singing (either mentally or aloud depending on how I was feeling) while running cross country. And so on...
The game I played while doing math homework in elementary school went like this: When starting to work on an assignment, get a package of fruit snacks from the cupboard and dump them out on the table. After completing 3 or 4 problems (sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the size of the assignment and the number of fruit snacks in the package), I'd eat one. I'd try to make it last until it was time to eat another one, either by taking tiny bites, or by letting a thick, gross, sugary mass form in my mouth as my saliva mixed with the partially chewed fruit snack. I'd change and add rules as I got closer to finishing the assignment as necessary to ensure that the assignment ended just as my supply of fruit snacks did. For example, if I was going to have some fruit snacks left over, I might eat two fruit snacks at once if I managed to make one last until it was time for the next. If I was going to run out, I might only eat a shark's tail or a monster's head, and eat the rest of the body in the next round.
I occasionally played similar games with other subjects and with other snacks; eating one of a stack of cookies for every short answer written in History, for example.
I can't say when it started, except that I cannot remember doing a set of math problems before 6th grade without it. As a result, math and fruit snacks will always be tightly and inexorably linked deep within my subconscious.
What do/did you do to pass the time when stuck in a boring situation you couldn't avoid?
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