Watching People Eat

On a side note, it is pretty strange watching a group of individuals eat.... Anyway, there are a few things that I noticed. For one, the people at the start of dinner eat rather quickly and seem to slouch to eat. There is very little proper manners taking place at the table. Another thing that was rather interesting is how often people move around their plates while eating their meal. They may spin the same plate three or four times just to get to a different food type. I would assume that they don't want to spill food or maybe they just are lazy and don't want to have to reach across their plate to get the other side dishes.

I also just wanted to show why the Yankees and Boston should always win:

1. NY Yankees	207,108,489
2. NY Mets	137,391,376
3. Detroit	137,290,196
4. Boston	133,220,112
5. Chicago Sox	121,189,332

15. Cleveland 78,970,066
30. Florida 22,650,000

Go Marlins

Watching Someone Eat

For this assignment I watched two girls eating lunch in convo. The girls were at a big booth and they sat directly across from each other. For the most part the girls had bored looks on their faces. They would pick up their silverware, take a bite of food, and put the silverware down. This repeated several times. They did this all with the look of boredom all over their faces. The girls did not look at each other, they observed as people entered convo and walked past them. They both looked like they were daydreaming. The girls' body language was very relaxed, one girl even had her leg folded under her and on the seat. They did not sit up straight, but were slightly hunched over their food. Towards the end of my observation, the girls started to make conversation and they wiped the bored looks off their faces and began to interact with one another. They only began to talk after they were done eating their food.

Watching Someone Eat

I watched a guy in convo while he ate his lunch. He was eating a very cheesy piece of pizza. He would go to take a bite and have to use his other hand in order to tear the cheese from the rest of the slice of pizza. He was a eating a ton of food! He had at least two pieces of pizza and two tuna melts. I could not see what else was on his plate. He also had a cup of chocolate milk and a cup of of red Powerade to drink. He sat at the table for a few minutes by himself, but then he was joined by two friends. When he was eating his pizza, he kept switching the slice between his two hands. He would take a few bites holding it in his right hand and then he switched to holding the pizza in his left hand. The three guys had minimal conversation but seemed happy to see each other and be eating with one another. He kept his mouth closed and chewed awhile before taking another bite. He never put his pizza or sandwiches down between bites. After most bites, he would lick his lips. He rested both of his arms on the table. He kept leaning back to talk to the guys at another table. The funniest part of watching him was when he found something in his drink. He solely focused on fishing out the object from his drink. Once finally removing the object he took a drink and moved onto eating his tuna melts.

Seeing and Listening

I decided to do the seeing part of this assignment in convo. I noticed some pretty funny things that I would have most likely missed had I not been paying close attention. For example, I saw one girl eating by herself and I noticed that instead of just lounging or relaxing because she was by herself she was sitting up very straight and being very careful with her food and just being extremely proper. Then before she left, I watched her take an entire sandwich and wrap it up in a cloth napkin and place it in a Tupperware container so she could take it with her. It was really funny to watch and I would have completely missed it had I not been doing this assignment. I chose not to do the listening part while I was in convo because all I kept hearing was the radio and I would start singing along to the music and not notice any other sounds that were going on. So, I went to the Clayton lobby and noticed lots of different sounds. It's funny because I'm in that lobby every day and haven't really paid attention to al of the different sounds there are. For example, I heard birds chirping outside as well as cars driving past and I could here random conversations from the people walking by. I could hear the air coming from the vents and there was almost a constant beeping coming from the elevator. It's honestly like that thing never stops, there is always someone getting on or off it, and then there's always the voice of the asy that speaks in the elevator. I must have heard "floor one, main lobby" about a dozen times. Overall, I liked this assignment, I think it's pretty cool to take a second to look around and notice all the little things that you don't usually pay any attention to. It's pretty intersting and I thought very entertaining.

Watching & Listening

The people-watching and listening assignments were mainly useful to me as a way to notice more deeply the things that are always going on around me. I watched people walk around in convo for a while, and it is nothing that I wouldn't see any other day in my periphery or just among my friends, but when you actually look closely at someone, you notice subtleties like gait, gestures, and how they look when they speak to people. I saw an awkwardly-walking boy take his tray back flanked by two short friends, and looked at their expressions (blank) and I watched the other people at my table for a while (I must have looked wierd); some sat quietly but calmly (different than acting class) and some talked, animated, barely noticing that they were eating food at the same time.
I listened by my window facing the quad during a quiet time of the day, hearing people walking outside, the wind after I turned my fan off, and sounds of televisions and people in the hallway, both of which sound much different than if you are in the same room. It was interesting to me how much sensory information is ignored so easily when I am not paying attention.