Seeing/Listening

Seeing:

I sat on the quad for my seeing. I saw about 5 people sitting outside doing homework/reading/etc. Mostly they just sat their quietly turning pages and writing. It was between classes, so there were many people walking about and rushing to get to their classes. Most people were carrying a bag or book of some type. I noticed that several people were walking in pairs. There were also numerous "hand holders" (aka couples...). Everything seemed a bit frantic and it was interesting to watch everyone rushing. It's hard to notice these things when you are a part of the chaos.

Listening:

I did my listening in my room at home this weekend. I sat for about 5 minutes and just listened. The first thing I heard was the sound of the fan in my room because it is quite loud. In my back yard, there is a big pond with a quite large fountain so the trickling of the water was the next thing I heard. It was nighttime, so I heard crickets chirping. I could also hear my next door neighbors talking, meaning they were probably sitting outside. We are near train tracks where I live and the next noise I heard was a train passing through which is quite interesting to me. In the summertime, I never notice the trains because I have adapted to them after living at home all summer. Then I go to Ashland where you rarely hear trains and whenever I come home, I notice trains and planes like crazy. Again, it's funny the things you notice when you actually stop to listen.

Seeing and Listening

I chose to sit and see for five minutes while I was at work. I work at equipment check-out at the Rec Center. There were so many different things to watch while sitting at the desk. I watched a guy in a Kalahari shirt playing pool by himself. It was actually really funny watching him. Everytime he would hit a bad shot he would look at his hands as if that's why he was not doing good. He was taking his pool game very seriously! There was also an older man who was lifting weights. I enjoyed watching him, too. He was making really funny faces as he tried to lift too much weight. In the gym there was a health class. They were busy doing an icebreaker game when I began watching them. The students were having to jump over cones and almost all of them looked like they would have rather been doing anything else other than jumping over cones. The last group I watched were two girls. They checked out basketballs, but decided to sit in the chairs, instead. They talked and seemed very relaxed while sitting in the chairs. My attention moved to a girl walking down the stairs who walked over to the two girls as soon as she realized she knew them. She sat down and the two girls focused their attention on her. At the end of my observation, the two girls finally decided to go play basketball while the other girl walked to the fitness center. I spend many hours at equipment check-out and have never watched the people as closely as I did today. It was really interesting to see how people interact with each other as well as how they act when they are by themselves.


I decided to sit and listen during the church service I was attending. The predominant noise I was listening to was the preacher preaching. Although this is the main noise everyone was hearing, there were so many other noises going on during service. A little one-year-old girl was sitting behind me today. She kept making many different noises such as crying, cooing, and saying "ma ma" numerous times. Due to the many noises she decided to make, I also heard her dad get up to take her out of the room. My brother-in-law decided to rub my sister's back while I was listening to everything around me, which also made a noise. Many people around the sanctuary were shuffling around which was actually a very noticeable noise. People kept changing the position in which they were sitting. People around me were also whispering to each other for a brief moment. A man coughed and then cleared his throat while the sermon was going on. A little child was also sniffling for the majority of the five minutes when I just sat and listened. At the end of my listening session, much of the congregation broke out in laughter due to a comment from the pastor. I never imaged I would have heard so many noises while sitting in church. I find it interesting that although all those noises go on weekly, the noise I focus on is the pastor's voice. The other noises were usually nothing that would cause a distraction. After doing this exercise, however, I began to focus on all the other noises and basically forgot that the pastor was still preaching. Even though the main noise everyone hears in church is the pastor preaching, if people sit and listen, they would be amazed at all the other noises that they hear.