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.

Seeing/ Listen

SEEING-
I am doing my observations from my dorm room window last wednesday night. I live in Kem on the side that faces the bridge so I can see and hear everything almost everything that goes on. It is about 9:30 and it is raining, but there are still people walking by. Some people walk alone while others walk in groups. Girls seem to walk in lines or clumps while several groups of guys walked by in a V formation rather like migrating birds. Girls are much more likely than guys to carry an umbrella. If a guy is walking with an umbrella it is usually because he is walking with a girl. I can tell when the two people under the umbrella are a couple because they seeem to not mind being so close together. But I can also tell when the people under the umbrella are not a couple because even though they are both forced to stand in the same tiny dry space they are still staying as far away from each other as possible
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LISTENING-
I am doing my listening assignment in my car on the way out of the town of Ashland. I have my windows down, so I can hear thigns inside my car as well as outside. At first I only notice the things I expected to notice. I can hear car tires on the road, radios playing a variety of music and the occasional car horn. But the more I listen the more I start to hear other things. In my own car, I notice that every time I touch somthing it makes a noise, like the clicking sound the air conditioning button makes when I turn it on. Other people's cars make noise as they drive along. I think it is just the sound of the engine running, but it was intresting to notice that no two cars sounded exactly the same. What there was surprisingly little of was talking. Even if there were two people in a car they were usually not talking to each other. People walking on the sidewalk were much more likely to be carrying on a conversation that those who were rideing in cars.
-briana

Sitting and Seeing/Listening

Seeing: I went to watch C.L. Lindsay, a male speaker with a lot of knowledge and experience dealing with college students and the internet, at a campus event on Tuesday. This was about an hour long speech so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to sit and observe people in the audience. Yes, I listened to the speaker, but for part of the time I simply watched audience members watching this speaker. By doing this I noticed that most of the people make very subtle movements. People sit back in their chairs, nod their heads in agreement, and basically stare at C.L. Lindsay as if they were starring at the television. Then, when something is funny, some people laugh, some clap and laugh, and others just smile and nod their heads. Also, when listening and watching C.L. Lindsay, people tend to occasionally yawn, talk to the person next to them, and fidget around. The fidgeting that I saw included shaking one's foot, changing the way one was sitting, checking the time, and crossing and uncrossing one's leg. By only watching people in the audience I could tell what type of pictures were being shown - disturbing or funny - and I could tell if information being given was serious facts or more fun examples. It is amazing how much simply watching someone can tell you about what that person is actually watching/seeing.

Listening: I sat and listened for about ten minutes while in my dorm room. I heard various sounds throughout that time, but there is something about those sounds that are calming. They were not distracting or annoying. They were actually comforting. I was able to hear myself think and felt secure knowing that other people were around. I heard the fans blowing around cool air, my roommate writing down notes, the creaking of the fan as it rotated, and my roommate's phone go off. Occasionally, I would also hear someone walk down the hallway, a car door shut, or someone moving furniture around. I never realized how many different sounds occur at a single moment or within only a few minutes. After doing this activity I noticed that no matter where I am or what I am doing, I will always be able to hear some sort of sound - even if extremely subtle. And if I were to explain all the sounds that I heard during these ten minutes of purely listening without telling anyone I was in a dorm room, I believe that people could fairly easily depict where I was. It is amazing what our senses can pick up.

Seeing, and listening.

I have noticed that when you really sit and stare at someone you notice really little intricate things that they do that you never picked up on before. I was watching a friend play video games and he kept on doing this weird thing with his tongue, I think maybe it was what he did when he was trying to concentrate. When listening I noticed the same thing that you just pick up on more things if you try to just listen and not focus on anything else. When you slow down and try to take everything in you pick up on a lot more things that maybe you just never noticed before..

seeing and listening

On tuesday I observed my friend eating and thought of it as kind of a scene. this was kind of weird at first because it both made me feel like a creeper and feel self-conscious of what I look like when I eat. I noticed that when my friend was eating, he didn't pay much attention to anything anyone else was saying. his hands were mainly on the table and he looked up every once in a while to make eye contact with other people who were also eating with us.
When I listened to things today I was sitting and listening to my friend try to explain to the new girls how to play rugby. I heard the sound of movement of grass, the boys team practicing behind us, girls scratching (the grass is itchy) and the rustle of clothing. I also noticed the sound of our captain turning the pages of her clipboard booklet which was a very official sound that said "I know what I'm talking about". Other small things that I noticed were the snappy sound that the clovers made as i plucked them. These observations taught me how to notice small details and listen to the subtle things that I would need to think about if I were acting something out. I would have to think about the little actions and sounds that would be at a specific place and time. the end

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Fabio