Writer's Block: Passing the time
Nov. 15th, 2010 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasa[Error: unknown template qotd]
Sleep (if I can find a comfortable position, which is at least easier in a car than on a plane) or veg out listening to music while watching the scenery. Unfortunately I've never been able to read due to motion-sickness; otherwise I'd do that.
Generally I prefer vegging out in my own world to playing big games or singing songs in a group, especially in a large group like on a school bus trip. There are only a few exceptions:
When I was a kid I used to like playing the Alphabet Game (find the letters on signs, in order) with my family, but only once or twice through before it got old. (The Alphabet Game was the perfect game for the trip home from my grandparents'; in fact, we did it so often we knew exactly where to look for each letter so we could find them all before we pulled into our driveway). Now in Japan I sometimes try to get people to play the Hiragana Game instead :-P
For roadtrips with my improv troupe in college, we would sometimes do a Bat, which is a long-form improv performed in the dark by voice and sound effect alone. It's cool because you can play two characters in the same scene easily just by changing your voice-- and, well, you can do it in the car.
On a couple roadtrips with friends I've also played party games that don't require moving, like Never Have I Ever.
And while I don't enjoy singing traditional road trip songs (like "The Wheels on the Bus," "Found a Peanut" "99 Bottles of Beer" or-- heaven forbid-- "A Song That Gets On Everybody's Nerves" or "The Song That Never Ends"--lol, I shouldn't teach elementary school, should I?), I do enjoy singing along to musicals in the car. If the road trip goes on for several hours, why not sing an entire musical straight through? Assign everybody a role, and go for it.
And man, now I miss road trips. I've still taken some long journeys by car here, such as when I went to Hiroshima for Sake Fest, Hikari for the beach party, and even just Yamaguchi for prefectural meetings, but the drive has never been more than a couple of hours. Most of my really long journeys have been by train or plane, so no singing or loud game-playing, and I've been solitary at that. Ahh well. At least I enjoy sitting quietly and listening to music (:
Sleep (if I can find a comfortable position, which is at least easier in a car than on a plane) or veg out listening to music while watching the scenery. Unfortunately I've never been able to read due to motion-sickness; otherwise I'd do that.
Generally I prefer vegging out in my own world to playing big games or singing songs in a group, especially in a large group like on a school bus trip. There are only a few exceptions:
When I was a kid I used to like playing the Alphabet Game (find the letters on signs, in order) with my family, but only once or twice through before it got old. (The Alphabet Game was the perfect game for the trip home from my grandparents'; in fact, we did it so often we knew exactly where to look for each letter so we could find them all before we pulled into our driveway). Now in Japan I sometimes try to get people to play the Hiragana Game instead :-P
For roadtrips with my improv troupe in college, we would sometimes do a Bat, which is a long-form improv performed in the dark by voice and sound effect alone. It's cool because you can play two characters in the same scene easily just by changing your voice-- and, well, you can do it in the car.
On a couple roadtrips with friends I've also played party games that don't require moving, like Never Have I Ever.
And while I don't enjoy singing traditional road trip songs (like "The Wheels on the Bus," "Found a Peanut" "99 Bottles of Beer" or-- heaven forbid-- "A Song That Gets On Everybody's Nerves" or "The Song That Never Ends"--lol, I shouldn't teach elementary school, should I?), I do enjoy singing along to musicals in the car. If the road trip goes on for several hours, why not sing an entire musical straight through? Assign everybody a role, and go for it.
And man, now I miss road trips. I've still taken some long journeys by car here, such as when I went to Hiroshima for Sake Fest, Hikari for the beach party, and even just Yamaguchi for prefectural meetings, but the drive has never been more than a couple of hours. Most of my really long journeys have been by train or plane, so no singing or loud game-playing, and I've been solitary at that. Ahh well. At least I enjoy sitting quietly and listening to music (:
