I always look forward to my weekends at Hopkins because they’re two days I have all to myself. No classes, no office hours, and if I’m lucky, no studying for exams. Here are some of my favorite things to do on the weekends:
sleep in
This is an easy number one. Although most people don’t consider sleeping a hobby, I do. After a long week of waking up early or staying up late, there’s no better feeling than getting to sleep as late as you want and taking unlimited naps throughout the day (I think my record is three). A crazy day of sleep isn’t a regular way to spend my time, but every now and then a full day spent relaxing in bed, doing a face mask, and watching movies can feel like the most fun thing ever.
play games
Online games are a great way to keep in touch with my family and the people I’m missing back home. My family likes to play the online version of the popular board game Catan, but I’m trying to get them hooked on Dress to Impress (a game on Roblox). I’d say the average age of people on Roblox is probably around eight years old, but that doesn’t mean they have bad taste when it comes to games. My entire American Sign Language class started laughing one day when I told them I spent my weekend playing Roblox, and I can’t blame them because even I was laughing when I finger-spelled “R-O-B-L-O-X.” But all I’ll say to that is don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it! I already got my sister hooked, and I’m currently in the process of converting my mom from Catan to Dress to Impress.
club basketball
Since I travel with the Women’s Club Basketball team, we have all our games on the weekends. Sometimes we play on campus, and other times we travel to different colleges. The trips can be long, so we definitely get a lot of bonding time in when we carpool. On the way back from some of our games, we’ll stop and eat together. It’s a nice way to relax from school and explore beyond Baltimore. I’ve liked getting to see some other colleges—even if it’s just their gyms!
shoot at the rec center
When we don’t have weekend games, I like to shoot baskets at the rec while I listen to music. Since it’s the weekend, I’m usually not on a time crunch and I can stay as long as I want to. It’s easy to spend a couple of hours there, and even easier to stay for longer if people start playing pick-up games. I can’t think of a better combo than shooting baskets then coming back to my apartment to take a marathon-long nap—my two favorite hobbies in action!
work
For some people, working weekends sounds awful, but it was exactly what I was looking for. I didn’t think I would be able to find a job that worked with my schedule since I’m taking so many credits this semester. Luckily, SMILE, our school job search platform, has a ton of options, and I was constantly monitoring it in search of the perfect job. Working on the weekends has been an easy way to make money while still taking a lot of classes. I mainly monitor the events going on in one of the buildings on campus and help set up and clean up events. If student organizations have trouble getting into a room, they call me to unlock it. I was fortunate to find a job that gives me time to study while I work.
call my family
Sometimes when my weekdays get busy, I don’t have as much time as I’d like to call my family. Weekends are the perfect time to catch up with everyone and talk about what we’re doing and planning on doing. Phone calls with my family can last a really long time, so sometimes I like to pair them with chores like cleaning my room, taking out the trash, or doing laundry. It always makes me feel like I’m there with everyone, so this is sort of my version of going home on the weekends. My mom even puts the phone by our dog, Waffles, so I can say hi to him—no one’s left out on our calls!
get wrapped up in something random
Somehow, I always seem to find myself getting wrapped up in something random. For example, I’ll discover a new show, then decide I need to watch the entire series in one day. Recently, that show has been “Dance Moms.” There’s about a billion seasons of it, so it’s been my go-to for a while now.
My family also likes to joke that I’m an “iPad kid,” and I guess they’re kind of right because while I watch “Dance Moms,” I’ll play on a color-by-number app. I’m not proud to say I’ve burned through the entire charge on my iPad (multiple times) with this combo. This one’s dangerous because if I ever have schoolwork I need to get done, it’s forgotten the moment I open Hulu and load up the coloring app.
Maybe my worst (and most random) one of all would be trying to get one specific Happy Meal toy from McDonald’s. A couple of months back, McDonald’s collaborated with Crocs and released little plastic Mcdonald’s Crocs. There was one in particular that I really wanted. Since I had so much free time on the weekends, I would walk over and ask if they had it. Somehow, I ended up accumulating a bunch of Crocs that weren’t even the one I wanted. I even downloaded the app to order Happy Meals specifically for this one toy. Honestly, it ended up becoming more about the chase than the final product. I got so consumed by this that when the Baltimore McDonald’s told me the promotion had ended, I called the location by my house in Texas to ask if they were still doing it. They actually were, so I sent my sister on a mission to get my Croc, but she ended up getting a different one. Although I never got my red smiley face Croc, the hunt was really fun.
There are so many different things to do over the weekend here and still so many more I want to try. Everyone I know likes to do something unique. One of my friends goes to the Hopkins campus in DC every Saturday just for fun. I’m hoping to tag along at some point and update you guys on how my trip went. So, stay tuned!
