“Beware the hobby that eats”

As kids, teachers used to ask our top 3 ambitions when we grow up and our top 3 hobbies. Following the trend at the time, the answers were less varied among us. We wanted to grow up becoming a doctor, engineer, teacher or architect. We also loved reading, collecting stamps and ‘beriadah’.

But I never gave enough thought to the response I gave to my teachers. To me, a hobby is just a hobby. Something that we do in our spare time and there’s that.

During my final year of housemanship in Anaesthesia posting, a new specialist came to town. He was a very humble,  petite, Kelantanese family man. In short, a nice guy. I was scheduled to be in the operating theatre with him. After exchanging names a brief introduction of each other, the next question he asked was, “What is your hobby?”. I had to make him repeat his question as I wasnt sure if I heard it correctly. I mean, of all questions… why would you ask someone of their hobby?

He caught me mustering something under my breath. He was able to detect that I haven’t had a hobby since the very day I started my life as a houseman. He went on to say how important it was for someone like ourselves to have a particular interest or activity outside our jobs to relieve the stress, meet other people outside our line of work, to celebrate life!

Since then, I have given up mentioning reading as a hobby. Interesting, non tear jerking fictions are hard to come by. Eating out with friends experimenting new delicacies was a hobby. So is going to the cinema. Perhaps dating was also a hobby. At least I was fishing my fellow colleagues for a possible husband. To which I did.

Collecting cute contact lense cases became a new obsession as opposed to stamps. I seem to enjoy the hunt for  cases or weird ones. And am still looking for more to add on to the collection. I understand the joy of finding something that I like. Do let me know of any online store that sells these cute contact lense cases yah.. 

Lately, exercising and gardening has become an interest as well. I hope to lose more weight this year and make my backyard the cutest one on the block.  Ha ha.

Love, 

YASMIN MUSTA