Well, it depends. The first description is an example of translational motion while the second is an example of oscillatory motion. Translational motion is the first kind of motion that we will study. In the previous example of going from home to work to home to work I am moving, but in the end I haven't gone anywhere. Oscillatory motion is interesting in that it often takes a fixed amount of time for an oscillation to occur.
Periodic motion is important in the study of sound, light, and other waves.
Large chunks of physics are devoted to this repetitive motion. Doing the same thing over and over and going nowhere is pretty important, which brings us to our next type of motion. Rotational motion occurs when an object spins. Every twenty-four hours it makes one complete rotation about its axis. The sun does the same thing, but in about twenty-four days.