Any ideas?

Well, this happens throughout each year and occurred in high-school, boredom. I read the books pretty fast not sure if it'd be called speed-reading or not, never accurately timed myself. I did some rough timing and in about a minute, I read several pages, at least 3-4 pages in text (no diagrams or anything). I know what the pages said, I can generally recite what was said on what page and such. I go back, underline just so I can point out to myself what is important in the book and later, make a few quick notes coupled with the lecture notes.

But the problem is, after that, I'm bored because there's so much time for something else. I read ahead in the books. For example, on vacation (about a week), I read close to 750-800 pages in textbooks and random other books, did at least 20 sudoku puzzles (about 60% hard, 40% medium ones) and about 2 crossword puzzles (I'm pretty bad at them).

I re-read some past textbooks, such as approx. 1200 pages in human anatomy and approx. 1100 pages in medical pharmacology and that takes some time (I tend to skip large sections).

The problem remains though, I'm bored. I try to ask if I can read my friends' books during break when they're not using them just so I can read something else. It's interesting to read the books, it's fun but then there's so much time left (we haven't gotten very far in the courses because classes started not too long ago so my friends cant give very detailed answers).

I'm taking 10 courses (2 semesters), a job, going to karate twice a week for about 2-2.5 hours, playing with my dog, reading other stuff, etc... . But I'm bored and my parents nag me to study, which I do.

The problem is, I read, watch, talk to, well anything and anybody and when it comes to test times or quizzes or exams or papers, I have to shove all that extra stuff out of my head, get back to the course stuff and the courses are interesting. Writing the research papers I find to be fun and exciting but there's only that one and we cant start early because the professors have to give a list of specific topics.

Also, I'm pretty good at memorizing, thinking what things may be possible for something (i.e. diagnoses), however, when it comes to using skills that are needed in crosswords, I'm hopeless. I can get a few words here and there but the rest, such obscure clues about some silly thing I cant get, however, I can understand, recite and read about human anatomy and physiology, animal behavior, neuroscience, sociology, psychology, mathematics, etc... . It's just so unusual and somewhat irritating because I know a good amount and yet, silly crosswords just stump me unless it's the name of someone or something like that.

My father can speed through crosswords pretty fast, a lot faster than I can and less so for sudokus, which I'm a lot better on. Any ideas on how I can conquer something so simple as a crossword? I'm feeling foolish for not being able to yet I can understand, memorize and figure out problems and information for things exponentially harder.

EDIT: I'm going to be going to some random seminars that my university hosts so hopefully I can get ideas from those, look up information from what they discuss and be less bored, however, I have to wait a week for them to start. After starting, the week after there's some random break then they resume. It's irritating....

As for any ideas about being less bored cant help there because I usually am as well. For the cross words maybe start with really easy ones made for like 10 year olds and work your way up to the harder ones? Good luck with everything you have going on!

Hun you sound like a peefectionist like me, and we all end bored. Try something that challenge you and keep working on it. I think the seminar will help you..hope you get the ideas you need to make you less bore.

tc Genn

To become less bored, try creating projects of your own rather than just reading other people's work. Do something that you are passionate about. Redesign the landscape of your entire back yard. Write a novel. Train your horse to hunt with the foxes. Or whatever. Do something generative instead of passive.

sometimes what makes life meaningful is meaningful connections with others.