"Cool" Hair

I dyed my hair recently. By recently, I mean within the past month or so and I kind of just neglected to tell anyone about it. I mean, I can't do all the things all the time. There's just so many movies that are calling my name! Netflix takes a hold on me and clings on like a gator pulling down a Floridian.

Dyeing hair is something really foreign to me. I've never really done it before and when I was younger, I just figured that it was something that disturbed teenagers did when they needed to "express" themselves. This could be categorized as that part of my life that I never got to experience, the disturbed teenager breaching the confines of my mental walls.

My hair hadn't been cut since before I got to China and I had honestly been avoiding it.  The obvious language barrier would keep me from saying exactly what I wanted done and who knows what I would come out with. Gigantic purple spikes? Bright blue mohawk? How about all the things because I have no idea what I'm doing. Lord knows I was horrified that I'd have to shave my head again. But, the heat had been getting to me, so I gave in. My roommate Jake had gotten his hair cut recently, so I looked into where.

"Oh, I'll just show you where it is."

Saturday morning, I hopped on a bus to meet Jake a stop where he took me to a salon. After a quick walk through a park, we came upon the building. The outside had two spinning barber poles (what I would have to assume was a good sign) large plate glass doors. Walking in, to my right was the reception desk with a sign reading, "Worship of Fashion" hung above it. The floors were white, as were the walls and fixtures. A rather immaculate looking place. I motioned (quite literally) that I wanted my hair cut and they ushered me over to the standard barber chair. There happened to be one employee there who spoke English and they had summoned her to deal with me.

"So, what do you want?"

What did I want? I had told myself coming in that I just needed a haircut, but part of me also wanted to put a streak of color in my hair. Nothing too extreme, just a stripe down the side. I'm aware that doing this usually proclaims that your hair is now trying to make some kind of statement. I'm not really one who tries too hard to give speeches with their hair, so I figured that if things went south, I could buzz everything off.

"Just buzz it on the sides and don't take too much off the top." This is the haircut that I have found to most flatter my weird head. It's easy to maintain while still hinting that I have a little bit of self-respect to take care of my hair. During all of this, my roommate Jake was at the front desk trying to explain everything that I wanted dyed. He came over to me with an outline of a human head.

"OK, so show them where you want to put the color."

I honestly hadn't thought out the plan this far and couldn't really give an answer. I ended up deciding to get the hair cut first, then save the dyeing for last.

"What do you want to do?" The female employee asked again in plain English.

"Well, I want it short on the sides, like...that guy." I said, pointed to one of the other salon employees.

"But his hair is permed."

"I can see that, I just want it like his hair."

"Then we're going to need to perm your hair."

"No, I just want you to shave it short on the sides."

The girl quickly conversed with the man who was currently cutting my hair and she came back to me with this message:

"He says that your hair is not like his. It won't look good."

Well that's exactly what I wanted to hear.

Eventually, we came to a compromise on the actually way to cut my hair. I tried to guide them the best I could with a few words here and there, but I let him go and hoped he'd do his best.

After all my excess locks had fallen to the floor, the man went and brought out a large book. This was apparently the bible of hair colors because upon opening, I saw the rainbow. Every which color was available and I started to doubt my original plan of a simple red. Did I really want red, or was blue better? Purple? The American flag dyed into the side of my head with a skull and crossbones made out of every color at the back!

"You probably don't want to go too bright of red, you know."

Jake was right, now was not the time to get carried away. In the end, I had them choose a middle ground between two different shades of red.

"OK."

The plunge began. The combed out my hair and procured a little basin of colorful goo that smelled like bleach. The man put on some plastic gloves and commenced to comb out my hair in the specified spot and apply the goo with his special comb. I had nothing to do but sit and smile. I mean, what does one do waiting for their hair to color? They answered this for me by handing me a Chinese fashion magazine. I will admit that I love flipping through these kinds of magazines, but I had to feint reading so as not to look completely inept. Sorry I can't read Chinese characters.

While I wait, the man left a plastic glove plastered to the top of my head. I still have no idea what normal procedures are in this type of situation, so I figured this was normal. By this time, all the other patrons of the hair salon had left, which left the me to the mercy of all the employees. One by one, they would come by, put on the plastic glove stuck to my head, and pick through my hair what I assumed was making sure all was going according to plan. At one point, I had every employees surrounding me, quickly talking to one another while pointing at my head. I felt like a patient on an operating table.

"Quick! Grab the shears!"

"Oh no! We need a comb, STAT. He's not going to make it!"

"His vitals are low. Someone grab the hair dryer!"

What was only ten or fifteen minutes felt like an eternity as hands fussed over my head. My salvation came when the female employee who spoke some English told me I could get up and have them wash my hair. After a quick rinse, I sat back down in the chair to stare at the creation on my head. It was definitely...red. Just down my head. My thoughts jumped from, "What have you done!?" to, "I think it looks pretty good." to, "Grab the buzzer, now!"

After getting my hair cut, I'm usually dissatisfied with it. While this could be operator error or simple mis-communication, I just don't think my hair looks nice after a hair cut. It always reminds me of a baby duck, with the hair sticking up every which way. This leaves me in the moral dilemma of what to tell the hairdresser. There is the part of me that wants to request some type of re-cut, but I never can. I tell myself that this will only offend them since they had already spent so much time shearing everything off to what they thought I'd want. These are the people who hold your hair in their hands--you can't offend them. I honestly think there is never anyone who is pleased with their initial haircut but we all do what I do: Opting for a large smile and tell them that it's "Great!" and then walk to the car and pull their hairs screaming, "WHY?"

They all seemed so happy, though. Each employee standing over me beaming at the work they had done as a group. Like I had been some hideous street bum and they had transformed me into the Cinderella of haircuts. They even styled my hair so that I'd have something to go home with.

"You look much cooler than when you came in." the Chinese girl said to me.

"Well, thank you very much. I think I do too." I said walking towards the door followed by each employee.

I paid at the counter and waved goodbye as each employee stood by the door watching me go. I made sure to be out of eyesight of the door to put my cap back on.

The Frenchie In The Elevator

I've been learning Chinese progressively as I try and establish my life here in Zhengzhou. When I first got here, my vocabulary consisted of only, "Hello," "What," and "Hello, how are you?"

To supplement, one of the first things I learned was the phrase for, "I don't understand." I've used this in basically every occasion you can think of. Now that my understanding of Chinese is getting a little better, I try and use it less, but people talk quickly so I'm subject to what I know.

Today I arrived at my building and ran to the elevator as the doors were slowly closing. Missing the elevator is basically the worst waiting game since everyone ever seems to be leaving or entering the building and it can take awhile for it to go all the way up and down (I've waited 10 minutes to get out of my building before. Why didn't I take the stairs? Because I live on the fourteenth floor and I do that justification thing where I've already been waiting for long enough so I just have to stay.). I reached the button just in time and climbed into the elevator where an older woman walked in after me.

As the doors closed, the woman looked at me and said something quickly. It was only minutes later that I understood it to vaguely mean, "You barely got in," but at the time I had no idea what she meant so I relied on my go to phrase.

"I don't understand."

She looked at me with a rather quizzical look. This phrase can backfire because when you say, "I don't understand." A lot of the time, Chinese take that for meaning you didn't hear or catch the meaning, so they say it again. I also see the irony that I'm saying I don't understand in the language I'm not understanding.

She looked at me and said, "You don't understand..." I looked down at her and smiled, trying to not really engage and just make it to my floor. The elevator bounced and opened up on the fifth floor where two other women hopped along for the ride. The first woman in the elevator turned to the first two and pointed at me,

"He told me he doesn't understand."

"He doesn't understand?" said the other women.

"Yes, he said he doesn't understand, in chinese." said the first woman

The group looked up at me and laughed a bit, repeatedly saying, "He doesn't understand..." followed by a little chuckle. The other two women arrived at their floor and exited the lift which left me and my first companion. We shortly rode to her floor and as the doors were beginning to open, she muttered to herself,"

"Ugh, French."

French? "No," I said in English, "I'm American," I said in Chinese.

She looked me up and down, shook her head, and walked out of the elevator.

Throwing Up

It's been one of the few days that I've decided not to wear my headphones on the way home from my kindergarten. I usually wear them to drown out the noise and also to avoid general conversation, but the new headphones I have don't really cooperate with the size of my ear-hole and after awhile they begin to hurt. Not that these headphones really stop anyone from talking to me here anyways, but I always hope that the western influence will leak over and that social barrier will come into effect.

Without my headphones, I got to hear a little splash on my last bus. It was right next to me and was accompanied by a wet feeling on my foot. Great, someone must have spilled some kind of juice all over me. I turned and expected to find some child being scolded by their mother for spilling their drink. I kept looking. And looking. I turned my head up and found the source of the liquid; a twenty-something year old man with glasses and little wet spots all down the front of his grey-blue polo. Then I noticed this was dripping down from his mouth.

Bodily fluids usually fall into a category that most people can agree upon as things that don't belong on anyone but yourself. Swallowing our own spittle: acceptable. Even consider swallowing another person's spittle: completely unacceptable beyond all reason. I'm not a stickler when it comes to sharing food or drink, but the very idea that someone else has inserted their saliva into something I'm about to consume makes my whole body seize up. I think this goes along with eating things off the ground. As a child, I'm sure I wouldn't have hesitated to rescue a fallen piece of chocolate had it escaped my grasp, no matter where it came to land. But like most people, I grew into a greater knowledge that ground food is off limits. Every single day I see children under the age of five picking food off the floor and stuffing it into their small mouths without a second thought. Basically anything can go into their mouth as far as they're concerned.

What really gets me now is the weird defining difference that I feel about these things whether they're coming from an adult or a child. If a child has their hand in their mouth and wants a high five, I try and steer them towards using the other hand, but if they manage to grab me, I try not to mind. Even when one student got so upset that their mother left them at school that they vomited all over my foot, I was surprisingly not very agitated. A quick wipe from a tissue and the vomit went out of my head.

But with an adult, there is a comfort threshold that is breached. All of the sudden my senses are heightened and I can feel every little droplet of vomit dripping down my leg. My mind identifies some sort of smell that must be everything littered all over the floor. I can feel my skin pull slightly tighter as the liquid begins to dry to the hairs on my leg and all I want to do is die.

What is this arbitrary line? Maybe it was just some point of innocence. Children usually don't intentionally mean to wrong you (in this case, vomiting on you, but other liquids are in the same category), they just do. An adult has this type of responsibility to the community to try and keep their fluids inside their bodies (at least until we get to the next bus stop). Is it really some kind of innocent vomit if it comes from a child's mouth? What is the distinction? There was the possibility that I was being highly inconsiderate with this man's expulsion. I really took no account of what had been happening to him, maybe he had innocent vomit too.

Despite this, I found myself sitting on a bus for another ten minutes as saw the liquid spread itself throughout the bus. I had been fortunate in that aspect that nothing was chunky and he hadn't fully thrown up on me.

I stared at this man with a look of utter disgust on my face. I'm sure that I made an audible sound of disgust, but the man never noticed as he seemed to be in his own world. Whether drunk or sick, the man stood up with some after-vomit still clinging to his nose, and stumbled off at the next stop, leaving the rest of us to deal with his mess.

Moving my head around, I gave a look that said, "I can't believe something disgusting like this could happen." and expected to get this look in return. As I kept looking, the look I read on people's faces generally said something like, "Eh." as they turned their heads back to the windows. It was like I was the only one who knew what this man had done. I looked around again, almost desperate for someone to agree with me in this. Was it the same look, or were they saying, "It was an innocent vomit."?

I resigned myself to staring down resentfully at the mess that was now moving towards my other foot until my stop came. As the doors opened, the next crowd of people exited and entered the bus as I hopped over a puddle, now smeared and forgotten so quickly.

The Saga of the Toilet

The bathroom has been in revolt. As a crucial part of my apartment, I was getting fed up with its constant complaining and spewing up shit that I plainly didn't want to deal with.

My bathroom first started behaving terribly awhile ago. We thought we fixed the problem with a copious amount of cement but that only held down our anarchist toilet...for awhile. I couldn't have known that it was just quietly plotting its revenge for this insurrection.

Like most upheavals, things started off small and quietly. A few times the flush wouldn't completely flush everything in the bowl. Next, I would hear a gurgling noise, a noise that would soon be synonymous with a rebellion; the cries of the toilet empire.

In the passing weeks, things started to move more quickly with this little troublemaker. His sudden cries would be accompanied by a small stream of water trickling out from the bottom of the sink. How dare he. Roping the poor, innocent sink into this he was risking war, war I say! What started off as water soon became littered with the casualties of the fallen toilet paper that had braved the porcelain bowl, only to see the light of day again so soon. To have pledged their service so young, it was heart-wrenching.

Not wanting to risk any more casualties, we made the pact of not sending in any more troops to fuel the fire. We figured that this would stop the floods and for a time, we thought we had won. We cleaned up the mess left behind by the toilet and hoped for the best. He stayed quiet for some time, but there was still that aching fear that he would once again try his hand at overtaking the bathroom.

We went on and off like this for a few days until the toilet decided that it was time to pull out the big guns. One fateful Saturday night, my roommate and I were having people over to our house to eat pizza and socialize. One of our Chinese friends ventured into the bathroom, only to return with the sound of an attack.

"Something is wrong with your toilet."

Our fears had come to a head. We were sure that without the assistance of toilet paper, nothing would come up. Our toilet had decided it was going to just send everything back up. Everything. From sink to wall, the feces looked up at us while we looked down in defeat. We locked the bathroom door and resigned that the bathroom was simply "broken."

The next few days we feared to enter the room. The toilet was seemingly winning with each flush. We attempted a plunger, but nothing could calm his rage. The poop remained stale on the floor as we waited for backup to arrive. It was kind of a shitty time.

The next Friday rolled around and tensions were growing high. Our bathroom had become an unusable mess with a smell that lingered any time we ever tried to venture into it. We even sacrificed a pair of unwanted flip-flops that we'd use like a hazmat suit when we'd walk into the poop zone.

Fortunately to our rescue came our landlord. She ventured into the bathroom and gave the toilet a few flushes to see what the problem was (because fecal matter strewn across the floor wasn't enough). Lacking the ability to properly communicate with her, I can only assume she said, "The plumber will be here soon." That or, "You're on your own, bud."

Fortunately, it was the former. I went to work and came back to find a spotless bathroom accompanied by our toilet standing alone. I doused the bathroom floor in bleach just to make sure things were...sanitized. The cement that had been holding it back was gone, only leaving behind a faint ring to remind us it had actually been there. I walked tentatively into the room, staring at the toilet expecting there to be still be some recoil from our battles, but he didn't make a move. In fact, he seemed slightly askew from his previous position. He was stuck to the floor with actual sealant that was going to forever hold him in this new angle to remind us of his past misdoings.

Could this really be true? I texted my roommate the joyous news.

 "The cement around our toilet is gone."

He responded in kind.

"The toilet gods have blessed us!"

It actually felt like that, like some porcelain deity had intervened to let us release our bowels peacefully. That, or a plumber.

I gave it a flush. Only the sweet sound of trickling water going down a drain was heard. No backing up, no gurgling, no more rebellion; we had won. Every time I flushed, there's still that slight feeling of fear that our own sewage is going to come breaching the borders of the sink, but nothing has happened yet.

He sits in the bathroom quietly now. I wonder if he's resigned his plans to take over the apartment or he's simply biding his time for when we get too comfortable. Strangely, I got used to being on my toes all the time.

 Looking at him without the cement made him seem kind of naked. Now, he was just a toilet that sat slightly askew instead of toilet that seemingly sprang from the ground bursting forth from the cement that housed him.

Still Here

I feel like I've been neglecting you all. I mean, I told myself that I'd write more all about the experiences I would have in China since they are more unique. I wouldn't go as far to say that they're one of a kind since there are about nine million people in my city, but I can at least share my perspective, right? It's the least I could do.

I'd like to say that this sort of hiatus is due to some sort of influx in work, but that's a lie. I always seem to find myself with time on my hands and instead of writing things down, I find myself watching reruns of America's Next Top Model and The Newsroom (Which I'm kind of obsessed with; thanks a lot, Brad.). The closest thing that I think I could call this would be some kind of mental rut. I know that I have the time and capacity to do something, but I find it a lot easier to just lie back and drink in someone else's creation. You should be writing in your journal. You should be studying your Chinese. You should researching something. These could-a, should-a, would-a's start to pile up and it's really easy to tell myself that it's too much. I've done enough today, I can always do it tomorrow. I don't though and it's frustrating.

I've mostly been the type of person that tries to keep up to date on their word and when I don't, I put myself down. It becomes a weird cycle where I eventually have to force myself to do something. Even if I think the project I churn out is mediocre, I force myself to do it to kick my brain into gear. Oh yeah, this is something that I like doing. It becomes less of a chore and I can pull myself out of that mental rut.

Part of the downward cycle I've been in recently is attributed to my move, I won't lie. Was it the expectation that I set things so high that I'd have the most interesting time; more so than everyone else? I really must have just not been looking hard enough at the situations I was having to get anything out of them, which means I'm a dull person. These thoughts that I kept having didn't really get me anywhere at the time. They are valid questions, but in the state of mind I was in they just cemented the idea that I didn't need to--that a lot of didn't matter.

Moving halfway across the world was incredibly exciting at first and still is. What I hadn't prepared for was the reality of the different. Back in little Cedar City, even going to the store to pick up some groceries meant I would be able to communicate with a human being. Now, just leaving my house and talking to another presents problems on its own, mostly dealing with communication. Growing up in a largely individualistic society, I wasn't prepared for the different sense of community here. It'd be false to say that I didn't find some things annoying, because I can name several, but that's culture. I'd say I'm experiencing a certain type of longing for the culture I grew up in; to have people back to how I was used to them acting. In truth it's lonely.

But do I have to stay lonely? No, was the conclusion I came to. I could take the path I seem to be going and drudge through my days, just waiting for an end, or, I could try and alter my perspective. In no way am I forcing myself into a mold that makes me uncomfortable, but more of like into a new speedo that I have to break in. It feels kind of foreign, but I've already known the feeling, and before long I can get back to swimming the laps...of life.

 So bad simile/metaphor aside, I gave myself attainable goals. Literally, wrote out goals and posted them on my wall to remind myself. Each one has a subheading to further explain the point and also to give myself a pep talk so I can't weasel my way out of it. I can take this chance to redefine my mental vocabulary and set myself on a better path. If I've learned anything from watching internet videos, is that you can't reach too far and expect to not fall off of a moving car. I can start at the bottom of the stairs and take one at a time...or any other goal reaching metaphor you can think of.

That makes this the mediocre jump start. Even in writing this, I veered way off topic of what I was actually going to write about (simple updates, blah blah blah) and my brain guilted me into being honest with how I really feel sometimes. To me the public declaration to be more proactive says that I have to hold myself to that promise. Even though this could turn on itself in the ugly spiral of defeat, I'm still taking that chance. Euch, feelings. But now I have the goal to keep myself on some type of schedule, sharing with you whether you like it or not.

Now how about something to take your mind off all that. Here you go:

I actually own this entire calendar.
Cats doing yoga. Yup.

"I Want To Be A Bro"

In my city, I attend a rather small gym. It has all the necessary equipment that I could want (considering I try and do pretty basic exercises) and it usually isn't very crowded.

Occasionally, a stranger will approach me and strike up some type of conversation. If they speak a little English, the conversation usually is minced words like, "strong" and "good." But most of the time these conversations are with people who speak English. Culturally, I've just had to get used to people approaching me for no reason other than to engage in conversation. That's basically a normal thing to do here. Oh, you look interesting. I'm going to come ask you questions now.

With that in mind, I met a few students who actually went to (or currently attend) school in the states, but had come home for the summer holiday. One in particular is named Ming. He's approached me many times before and he usually likes to talk about one thing: working out. I know some things about working out, but I'm definitely no source of wisdom, which means I always just nod along when he approaches. Oh, you're doing a cross-fit workout? Awesome. No, I don't eat six raw eggs a day, that's not really something for me.

Last week I found myself doing sit-ups, dangling on the apparatus by my feet and sweating, when who should approach, but Ming. Despite the fact I was mid sit-up, Ming decided that this was a perfect time for conversation,
   
"Hey Ryan, what are you doing?"

"Just doing some sit-ups." as I expelled air, moving up and down

"Cool, cool. Today is my upper body day."

"That's awesome." I said, very breathy

"Yeah, I want to be able to curl as much with my arms as most people bench press."

"Well, then your arms would be bigger than your head." I let out, sitting up for a second to catch my breath

"Ryan, do you know what they call the guys who wear tight shirts?"

"Huh?" OK, now he'd lost me

"The guys who wear backwards baseball hats, tight shirts, and are really...jacked."

"You mean a 'bro?'"

"What's a bro?"

"Those guys who wear the hats and the shirts and have lots of muscles. A bro."

"Oh...well I want to be a bro."

Oh no--what had I done. In my absence of thought, I had perpetuated an American stereotype; particularly one that I didn't like. What was I doing? I had come to this country to educate people about American culture and to teach English to the best of my ability. Now, I was introducing crappy vernacular to strangers. Failure filled my mind as I felt the Chinese/American cultural pool being tainted with my words. I had become the poison in the well. I usually joke about words like this, usually trying to use them in ironic ways, but with obvious language and cultural barriers, things had been overlooked in my speech.

With this in mind, I figured that I might as well just teach my Kindergarten class words like, "thug," "YOLO," and maybe "dawg." I was already on a downward spiral, I might as well just help the rest of the country get there too.

I sighed a little. Being a bro was something I had never aspired to, but apparently this was a Chinese university student's ultimate goal. Bro-status, I guess you could call it.

"Ryan, is there a Chinese word for this 'bro?'" Ming asked

"Mm...nah, I don't think there is. It's just kind of an...American thing I guess."

"Oh, well that's cool."

I had already taught him 'bro,' so by then I figured I might as well seal the deal.

"Yeah, now you're going to want to start wearing long socks with shorts." I said to him jokingly. If he was going to transition into bro, he should at least be thorough.

"Long socks with shorts?"

"Yeah, bro's wear long socks with shorts."

"...Why would I do that?"

Well, She Lives In The Moon...

The following are conversations I've had in my oral English classes. The class is centered around having conversations about certain topics picked every day in a group setting. My students are between the ages of 12-16 with varying levels of English speaking ability, so some concepts and ideas are lost in the translation from Chinese to English. The conversations have been slightly edited for the sake of understanding and continuity. 

Subject of Conversation: Hobbies

Ryan: So Charlotte, tell me about your hobbies.

Charlotte: I like to watch TV

Ryan: That is your only hobby? TV?

Charlotte: Yes, that is all.

Ryan: Oh...well what is your favorite TV show

Charlotte: I like... *motions two fingers towards her neck* ...Diaries.

Ryan: Vampire Diaries?

Charlotte: Yes, Vampire Diaries.

Alice: What is your favorite show?

Ryan: Me? I don't really watch a lot of TV.

Alice: What do you do?

Ryan: I like to read a lot. Actually, I don't even own a TV.

Alice: (with an incredulous look on her face) Are you poor?


Subject of Conversation: The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Cake Festival

Ryan: OK, Charlotte, what is your favorite holiday?

Charlotte: I like Mid-Autumn Festival.

Ryan: Tell me about the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Jack: We eat moon cakes.

Ryan: What's a moon cake?

Sherlock: Like a...small pie.

Ryan: OK, why do you celebrate Mid-Autumn festival; or, why do you do it?

Jack: We have Mid-Autumn festival because the moon give birth to the girl.

Ryan: Wait, what?

Jack: The girl, Chang'e, lives in the moon...with her rabbit.

Ryan: So why does she live in the moon?

Harriet: One day, the girl was sad so she ate a...pill.

Charlotte: --then she flew to the moon.

Ryan: So this girl flew to the moon because she ate a pill...and she lives with her rabbit?

Jack: Yes.

Harriet: One day, bad people were trying to steal the...pill.

Charlotte: And her husband wanted to live with her in the moon.

Harriet: Then they could be together forever.

Ryan: People tried to take the pill?

Harriet: Yes, and the husband did not want them to take.

Jack: So the woman ate the pill.

Harriet: And flew to the moon.

Charlotte: Now we eat moon cakes.


Subject of conversation: Hobbies

Ryan: Reya, tell me your hobbies.

Viola with a sad face. Get it? Get it? Ehhhhehe.
Puns people, puns.

Reya: (after a long awkward pause)...I don't have hobbies, I only have things I do every day.

Ryan: OK then, tell me what you do every day.

Reya: I have a piano. It lives in my room. I like to read Shakespeare.

Ryan: Very good, what else do you like to do?

Reya: I play the viola. I play the viola...with a sad face.

Ryan: OK, so you play the viola...what do you guys think of that (motioning to the rest of the class)

(The rest of the class sits in silence with scared/confused looks on their face)

Ryan: --So, Harriet! Tell me about your hobbies.