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.

Seeing and Listening

Seeing

For this part of the assignment i decided to watch a group play billiards at the rec center while i worked. The first thing that i noticed was in between each hit they would have a quick conversation. Also they all had a different way of hitting the ball. One of the guys would practice a couple 'hits' before he actually hit, the other guy would always use the blue chalk before every hit, and the last guy would stand there and look at the table for ever to decided what he was going to do. Lastly i noticed that only one of the guys really had any reaction to rather he missed it or not. Whereas the other two guys didn't seemed bothered rather the made it or not.

Listening

For this part of the assignment i decided to listening outside on my aunts patio while i was reading. It is amazing how many different sounds i actually heard when i took the time to stop and just listen. I could hear the radio from inside the house and my aunt vacuuming the floor. Also i could hear children at the park playing and their skateboards rolling down the sidewalk. You could also hear cars on the road and dogs barking. And lastly i heard birds also. So there was a lot of different things that i heard while sitting outside, when i actually took the time to just listen.

Seeing and Listening assignment

For the "viewing" assignment, i choose to focus on one of my classes rec 362, in this class there are 5 students. after hearing our about community project we must conduct i watched every one's body language and how responsive they were concerning the news they had just received in which the assignment will constitute a well over a 1/3 of the semester's grade. i watched one young lady sitting in the second row one student from my left kept fidgeting with several items like a calender book, paper and pen throughout the instructor's explanation of the project. there are two guys in the class, he's sitting to my 4 0'clock with all the girls in front of him, his reactions to the news of the project were subtle but with a hint of stress being expressed with the look of many questions rushing to his face. the young lady sitting next to me was in an attentive and curious posture leaning towards the instructor with what seemed to be in "how is this going to fit in my schedule type of look?!!" the last young lady was sitting two people over my left she was eye balling the instructor as what seemed to look like she was soaking every word out of the instructors mouth and storing it in her forever endless data bank in her brain, very focus on what was being explained in class concerning the project.

the "listening task" took place at the "convo" dining hall during my breakfast time. after getting my food and sitting in front of the milk and juice bar, back facing the grill, i listen to the many different TVs going on at once such as the news channel on one, sports on the others, cartoons on another set. I heard groups of spread out people talking different conversations, hearing people in the back of the kitchen preparing the food , washing dishes, i heard the young lady at the front door on the north side of the dining hall greeting people as they walk in ready to eat. i heard forks and spoons hitting the plates as people wolfed down their food, i heard one guy burr, i also heard the staff sitting at the table engaging conversations about plans for the weekend.

-Seeing-
For my seeing exercise, I sat in a chair at the rec center and watched two boys playing basketball. If I were just walking by I would not have noticed all of the body language and the actions that I noticed. At first the boys were just taking turns shooting around; they were moving slow and playing leisurely. After a couple minutes, they noticed that I was looking at them and they picked up their game and played a little one-on-one. They then began to dunk the ball and grab the rim. After they noticed someone was watching they became more active and began to show off. This was subtle, if I was not watching them specifically I would not have even noticed. I think its interesting how behavior changes when you know someone is looking at you.

-Listening-
My listening activity I choose to sit in my living room at home. I could hear many sounds here. I heard the sounds of 'That 70's Show' playing on the television along with frantic tapping on a keyboard as my dad finished up his homework for the week. The front windows were open, so I could hear cars buzzing past the house. There was a faint train whistle in the background and cherping birds outside. I was surprised by the surplus of noise I heard in a mere five minutes. It seemed to be a relaxing afternoon, but there was so much going on that I never really noticed before. This exercise made me much more aware of my surroundings.

Seeing/Listening

Seeing
For the "seeing" part of this activity, I decided to just watch people walk around campus in between classes. As Dr. Vanata said in Wellness class two years ago, our generation is hooked up to their gadgets 24/7, and he turns out to be right again... For starters, if someone is walking alone, there was a good chance that he or she would have on either an ipod or be texting/talking on the cell phone. There was only a few exceptions to that I saw and most of the time it was because that individual was smoking a cigarette. The other observation I made dealt with the speed that people walked. If there was a group of individuals walking, it was like watching an ant move in slow motion. When there was only one or two people together, it seemed that they were moving faster either to get to class or just because they only had to keep up with one other person. As a side note, a squirrel sat there and eat his lunch less than a yard from me while this all was going on and did not move at all for about five minutes. Usually they seem to be more jumpy?

Listening
For listening, I decided that I would pay attention to the noises that my room has in it when no one is talking. It is amazing how a low fan that pivots can make so much noise. Outside of the usual noise a fan makes, there is a little knob on the top that spins around and seems to make a grinding noise. And because of the fan blowing the air towards the waste basket, the plastic bag makes the ruffling noise (which I hardly ever paid any attention to). If I pay close enough attention, I can hear the room beside me through the paper thin wall here in Jacobs. They either are in love with Jerry Springer, or there just is not anything else on daytime television.

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