Simple Solutions to Boredom at the U

"Whadduya wanna do?"

"I dunno man..."

Sound familiar? Of course it does. This happened all the time back home and you can bet your bottom dollar that it'll happen to you when you get to college - even in a place as allegedly cool and unrelenting as Miami.

To some extent boredom is necessary. It gives the mind a chance to wander and maybe explore some previously untraveled avenues of thought. In fact you should be grateful for boredom every now and then; it's a luxury of modern living. A long time ago you would have been too busy trying to stay alive to ever be bored. A great many brilliant things have been sprung from the seeds of boredom, like the skateboard, CSPAN, and the international space station. Neiztche even went as far as to say that, "To ward off boredom at any cost is vulgar."

Alright fine, points taken. But why does boredom have to be so... BORING?! And how do I get rid of it?!

The first things you could do is wrap yourself up in enough responsibility that you never have time to be bored. That's one option but in my opinion it's a bad one. If you don't have time to stare helplessly into a Facebook profile for at least 15 minutes every couple of days or so, then you may as well ask yourself why you go on living. You're life as a college student shouldn't be akin to that of a worker bee, droning on and on until you finally kick the bucket under the sole of some unforgiving shoe. Assure yourself some free time so you don't go mad but if that free time leaves you asking the question "What the hell should I do for the next half hour?" give some of these ideas a try.

1. Go for a walk. Yeah, that's right. Walk. Maybe it sounds more boring than the aforementioned Facebook scenario, but suck it up and kick the pavement. Leave your dorm and just start walking. I've found more "secret" study places and hang out spots on this campus by just getting bored and walking around than any other way. Keep an open eye and don't deny your urge to walk straight across the quad even though it looks like treading on the grass will earn you death-stares from the landscaping staff. And try to get off campus! The area around UM seems a little too bland with its cookie cutter industry and the rather tasteless jaunt along US-1, but if you walk long enough in one direction you might find yourself at the coolest little park you never would of found if you hadn't gotten up, said "Screw it" and walked off in an arbitrary direction.

2. Get something to read and go some place you like (i.e. sunny patch of grass, physics quadrangle, lake). Read whatever you brought there. You'll feel all nostalgically college and maybe learn something in the meantime. Reading is fun kids!
2a. Try the Miami Hurricane, the college paper. It's more like a tabloid than a real piece of news media, but it's worth picking up from time to time.

3. Go to the pools. Yeah, we got two. One inside, one out. You can't lose either way.

4. People watch. Park yourself in front of the Towers or maybe at the Rat and just watch people. Hilarious, ridiculous, gorgeous, pathetic, juiced-up, fashionable and sometimes crazy people will walk by. And they will never lack variety.

5. Climb a tree.

6. Go to the UC. I don't know... if you're really desperate there are always people yelling and trying to get you to do things when you walk through the UC. Maybe you'll find something you like.

7. Knock on adjacent dorm rooms. Most of the kids on your floor will be just as bored as you. Maybe you could round up a whole gang of bored kids, stand in a circle and put your fists together to see if you can summon Captain Planet. "When your powers combine..."

8. Bury your boredom in the delicious flavors of Jamba Juice. There's one on campus. Awesome.

9. Play a prank. You didn't hear it from me, but if you're not stealing one from each pair of your roommate's shoes or sticking all his underwear in the fridge then you have no business being enrolled.

10. Do your homework. I know. It's hardly a cure for boredom, but if you do it now you won't be prevented from doing something really fun whenever it pops up.

Obviously this isn't an all inclusive list. The more time you spend here the more ways you'll figure out how to stave off boredom. The best thing to do is never rule anything out right off the bat. Always give things a try.

*Oh, and if you want to try one surefire solution to boredom that you can start right now at home, download the StumbleUpon app for Mozilla and start Stumbling!!!!