Wednesday, May 14, 2008

If I had the extra time/ Dream College

Was thinking today about how, if I had the extra time, I would love to invest time in a couple of subjects. I would enjoy reading/studying some various eras in history, particularly Russian and Asian (Japanese, Chinese, etc) history. For some reason, everytime I'm at the bookstore (which, by the way, I'm about to visit with Henry on my day off...), I find myself wanting to read some biography of an emperor or dictator. Not that I'm aspiring to mimic one of these typically ruthless men, I'm just curious to know the origins and backgrounds of these countries. I do read into these things, but it's usually when I'm on vacation. Even then, I only get through about 1/3 of the book. It's the effort that counts, right?

I also am currently interested, again, in Economics. In high school, I became intensely fascinated with finances after playing the Stock Market Game in 10th grade Econ class. It was awesome. Not that we "won" big on Wall Street on anything, but the whole process and gigantic mechanism of "the Market" blew me away. Recently, I invested a fairly small amount of money in some ETF's using ING's ShareBuilder website. It's fun to check on the ticker symbols throughout the day to see how it's performing. Somehow, I see myself checking out the Financial magazines and books at the bookstore this time around.

Anyway, what are some of your favorite hobbies and/or areas of interest? Something you'd love to do more of, if time allowed?