What Do You Do When You Have Nothing To Do?
Here’s a situation we all dread. You’re sitting in an airport, or in a waiting room. Your phone battery is almost dead, and there is no working outlet. What do you do? HOW DO YOU COPE?
Whenever I’m travelling I try to have a magazine or book as a backup, or in case I just don’t feel like a screen.
What about you, Deadsplinterwaiters? Do you carry a deck of cards for solitaire or gin rummy? Are you the kind of person who can strike up a conversation with anyone? Do you carry a sketchbook? Do you crochet or have a stack of Sudokus?
Or maybe you’re able to just sit there alone with your thoughts for an hour, possibly quietly plotting terrible revenge on your enemies. Or let’s just say meditate? Definitely, please, don’t be that person who just sits there and hums.
If you’re forced to get by with just the bare minimum for a few hours, cut off from the world, what’s your go to when you can’t go anywhere?
Uhm, I have my tablet with tons of comics loaded on it. Now if both my tablet and my phone are dead, I’m fucked. I haven’t carried an actual book in years. I used to take one everywhere when I traveled, but now I’ve got some on my phone. I’m also known to download streaming series onto one or both devices to view when I’m offline.
What I do carry? Extra batteries and charging cables. I invested in a heavy-duty battery 4-5 years ago. It holds enough to charge my phone like 6 times. It will charge up my laptop twice.
That’s not really in the spirit of the exercise, but that’s how I roll. If forced, I’d probably hit one of the airport shops and buy a book.
I’m similar to you, @Bryanlsplinter!
I *always* have a few ways of charging my device along, because it’s my only accurate timepiece (I kill watches too easily), *and* it’s my alarm clock, as well as being the reading & entertainment device…
I can’t *honestly* think of a place that I’d be, without either having pre-planned a battery back-up, *or* where I would actually be allowed to stay inside, if somehow *ALL* electric receptacles weren’t working…
Because if the power doesn’t *work,* businesses tend to “shoo” the potential (thief-y!) customers outside and lock the doors, until they can sell items via their POS systems again… and if the power isn’t working, *lights* don’t work… and if the lights *do* work, there will always be some way to charge back up… so then we’re in a circular argument…
Although, *for the sake of the thought-experiment,* while the phone is *charging* (however slowly that may be!), as someone who grew up in the era of “Reading the backs of the soap & conditioner bottles, in the bathroom” if nothing else was around?
There’s *ALWAYS* something you can find, to read… you just have to look around!
In your experience with little kids, are they able to do quiet non-electronic self distraction reasonably well? Or do they need someone keeping them in check?
Honestly? That one is incredibly dependent on *multiple* factors–and, aside from my kids who have Down Syndrome (whose baseline have *all* so far tended to be simply “curious & BUSY little friends” 😉💖), it is incredibly dependent on the “Nurture”/ Home Environment & modeling aspect, rather than an ADHD/ ASD/ Developmental factor, imo.
Because I’ve had kids who *DO NOT STOP MOVING if you take them to the gym/ playground, but then who you can TELL come from “a family of readers,” where as SOON as you take out a bin of books, they are DONE with any & all other things–they grab a book (or a *bunch*!🤣), go get cozy somewhere, and they’ll *hyperfocus* on those books for longer than they can attend to ANYTHING else!😉😆💖
And I currently have a bunch of little guys at the elementary school who *don’t* yet have evaluations/ diagnoses, but who I’ve seen a VERY different view of, now that I’m around ’em for 8 hours, rather than 1.5, who i *literally* just talked to my boss about a couple days ago, suggesting that we reach out to their parents *and* School Year teachers, to get ’em Evaled for ADHD, because they CAN NOT ATTEND to “boring” situations or sit still AT ALL during quiet & non-structured time–*BUT* who i ALSO see *tons* of ability to hyperfocus, when they’re drawing or doing creative/”artsy” things they *like* (like can sit there doing THAT stuff for 45 minutes to an HOUR, easy!
Adding in;
The reason I spoke with my boss, is because *as* someone who went undiagnosed for *literal* decades, with my ADHD, and who heard “Why CAN’T you just….?!?” & “You have *so much potential but……” I know the emotional & psychological damage hearing that over & over DOES to your self-esteem.
AND I know how often kids will either “step up” or *down* to the expectations a teacher has–and how, in a Gen-ed classroom–where the teacher has 25-30-ish kids to deal with, the undiagnosed/un-evaluated kids WILL become “thorns” that Gen-ed teacher has to “deal with”…
And too often, if the child *doesn’t* have the “protection” of a Label from Special Education, REQUIRING that the student’s needs BE accommodated, the child will be labeled “a troublemaker,” and repeatedly sent *OUT* of the room, for being “a distraction” or “a disruption”.🙃
But if my boss speaks to the Gen-ed teacher, the child DOES typically get flagged for a check with the district Evaluation team, and *then* there’s a chance they’ll end up falling under the umbrella of protection, from the SPED department, and then the kid’s needs MUST be met in the “Least Restrictive Environment” (LRE), which–for kids like these ones IS a Gen-ed classroom😉💖
By suggesting a referral, *WE* are NOT diagnosing, it’s more about noticing that *something* isn’t adding up, in the behavior that child exhibits, and what one would *expect* from a “Typically Developing”/generic child of that age.
Yes, my background in SPED would mean that, someday when I (finally!😉) get that teaching license, I *could* do evals!
But in *GENERAL* in Early Childhood, *anyone* who goes through a degree program gets taught “what to look for,” if a child may need to be evaluated for a higher level of support than *our own* training can offer. *THIS* is why we look out, and “refer on” to folks skilled in Evaluation, beyond us.
We’re ALL taught to “refer on,” so that kids *don’t* “fall through the cracks,” and so that they DO get proper supports, should they need them💖
I always go to the library before flights & grab a few books. I also have a months worth of music loaded on my phone & in airplane mode the battery doesn’t drain very quick playing music. I have my noise cancelling headphones so I can just avoid hearing anything going on that might piss me off. Airport bars can be interesting for meeting other travelers on long layovers but expensive. My wife decided to get in an abortion conversation in NC which I feared may not go well but surprisingly, everyone but the person she schooled was very appreciative.
I’ve never gone to an airport bar. The cost is part of it, and the timing never seems to work — drinking at 11 am doesn’t work for me. But there’s also the issue I’m worried boarding will suddenly be moved up two hours and I won’t have time to pee before getting on the plane.
American fucked us & changed our flight to have an 8 hour layover in NC. They have 3 different breweries I had never had so we had to check them all out. Worth the extra cost that wasn’t crazy & helped make me sleep on last 5+ hour leg. Some airport bars are not crazy expensive but some are. Also, I worked for an airline for 11 years, we never left more than 10 minutes early. Moving up 2 hours will never happen. Flight crews don’t even get paid until doors are closed so they would never show up that early.
I’ve had planes though that were announced as delayed for like three hours only to have that changed to just one hour. As in they found a copilot or something. Crazy to watch people scrambling back.
I always carry an extra battery to charge my phone and Kindle. But for long waits I carry a book. It’s a habit I got into years ago and usually have one or two stashed in my car in case of emergencies.
I usually have a physical book and a notepad in my backpack.
As long as I have something to concentrate on I won’t go crazy.
At work if I am stuck watching a machine I usually jot down thoughts, ideas and or book ideas or plot points on an old piece of paper. Sometimes it is just my budget, the odd stock purchases or how am I going to pay off a thing I bought or afford it. I am notorious at work for doing this.
I rarely put myself in a low battery situation. A habit that becomes more necessary due to owning an electric car.
Kindle, phone, tablet. Charging devices.
I enjoy people watching and sometimes I strike up a conversation with a stranger. I always travel with a small notebook and pen so that I can doodle, write down ideas and keep track of my travel budget (especially when there’s a change of currency). If I’m travelling without my kids, I’ll bring a real book too.
I have memories of how exhausting it was to travel with little kids, and we only took one long flight. That was before tablets, though, and we had to make do with books, coloring books, and toys.
My daughters grew up flying at least 3x per year & were always troopers other than 1 flight we got fogged in & circled Seattle for an hour before being rerouted to Portland. My eldest lost it & said “I want to go home” & cried. I almost did too! I was so pissed that Alaska flew a plane that couldn’t land in fog in November & we had to fly to Portland to get one that could! At least that was the excuse! Fucking morons, November is our foggiest month.
I’m one of those odd people with no internal monologue generally.
So yeah I can read my kindle or talk to a stranger.
Or I just sit there like a bump on a log and let time pass. I might also be dissociating, honestly I’m not sure. I had some shit happen throughout childhood (as did many people, not saying I’m special or even had it particularly bad compared to what many have lived through) so given some massive gaps in memories, sometimes I wonder if I’ve just dissociated a lot of it.
I think I’ve mentioned before that I have the ability to “switch off” commercials and other intrusions, to the point that I don’t remember seeing or hearing them, even seconds after they played.
I think it’s from years of being forced to go to church several times a week, and listening to idiotic and repetitive sermons. Once you’ve heard a sermon 20 times, there’s no point in listening any more. I would completely zone out and never hear a single word.
And no, they don’t change much. Sermons are one of the most rigid and highly plagiarized … works? I don’t even know what to call them … there is.
im perfectly happy to wander about and people watch….maybe grab a couple drinks on my way around the airport
schiphol still has some horrible smoking areas…which are not much fun to be in…but do mean i could be stuck there for days and be a fairly happy camper
getting trapped the wrong side of customs somewhere like dublin which is strictly no smoking limits my safe to wait to….maybe 6-8 hours….not coz ill be bored by then…but coz i use guiness to help ignore the cravings….comes a point that becomes a problem