Watching someone eat.

At first I felt pretty awkward as I watched someone eating from across the room. As he ate for about the first few minutes he didn't have much to say, however, once he got some food down his eating became slower and slower as he was more concerned with the conversation around him. He took really big bites and also was talking with large amounts of food in his mouth. At first he was really hunched over his plate really concentrating on his food but as time went on he would slowly sink back into his chair not really interested in his food anymore. He also seemed to chew really fast as he was about to say something.

Eatin' Folk

I managed to sneak some stares at three people who were eating, two of whom were in conversation and one that was listening and eating. Eating is a more violent act when it is done between sentences, and it is done almost subconsciously. The people I watched were not focused at all on their eating, and the more engaged listener seemed far more engaged with her friends than she was with her bowl of soup. The one girl I was watching was eating more properly than the other two, and that is more of what I would associate with eating alone, careful and more aware of herself.

Eating in Convo

Today i observed 3 guys eating at a round table during lunch today.  They seemed to be close friends from the way they interacted.  They talked while they were eating and didn't seem to have any manners while eating.  I felt this was very typically of college boys. 

Observing Someone Eating

I observed a blonde guy sitting at a table across from me eating today at lunch (around 1pm or so). He was eating chicken for lunch with chocolate milk. He ate with his fingers and did not use any silverware. He was sitting at the table with 3 other people, one being another guy and the other two being girls. With the way he was interacting, it seemed that these people were his close friends. He seemed very talkative with the table and seemed to talk more than eat. Out of all the people at the table, he talked the most. He would take a few bites, chew, swallow, and then start joking (or what I assumed to be joking, since there was much laughing) around with the people at the table again. He sat a bit hunched over his plate but did not ever have his elbows on the table. He was also smiling for most of the time I observed them.

Eating

Eating dinner at convo

I watch a group of four girls eating dinner. The first thing i noticed was one of the girls would put her fork down after every bite. Also another girl would wipe her face after every bite. And the last girl kind of shoved her food into her mouth. I did notice that all the girls talked a lot while eating. It seemed as though one girl would talk as the others were eating and once she was done another would strike up a conversation while the others ate. So it seemed to switch roles so that it gave them time to eat as well. I also noticed that all the girls did lean over their plates while they ate. So i noticed a lot of different things within the five minutes of watching them eat.

View eating at convo

This assignment was completed during my lunch today. Over to my left about 11 o'clock angle, there were three ladies having their lunch together. Throughout most of the time the ladies ate quietly using very little movement while eating. 2 out of 3 of the ladies were sitting with their legs cross while the other young lady sat on her left leg throughout lunch. they were sitting straight up in their chairs, all using their right hand to feed themselves, so their left side of the body had very little or no action while they ate. Conversation did not pick up their pace as far as body language is concerned. As the young ladies continued to enjoy each other’s company and fine meal, one could sense they are a close knit group of friends, simply by enjoying each other’s presence, they had over five minutes of complete comfortable silence. Once they started to talk to each other had their own turn to talk, they never talk over each other, it seemed as if they were actively listening to one another.

Watching someone eat

I secretly watched a girl eat lunch in Convo the other day. She had a salad and a pulled pork sandwich. Overall she seemed to have pretty good manners. She took small bites and chewed with her mouth closed. She was sitting with another girl and they were occasionally talking, but they both seemed too tired to carry on much of a conversation. As this girl ate, she leaned over her plate so she did not get any food on her. Also, she licked her lips pretty often, which I found pretty disgusting in all honesty. The way that she was eating her food, she seemed like she was not even that hungry. She played with her salad using her fork to mix it around, but did not really even eat it. She was a very slow eater. One thing that I noticed through watching this girl eat, as well as scoping out others enjoying lunch, that we did not do in class when imagining we were eating was open our mouths big enough. I do not think that we would have actually been able to fit the food in our mouths without getting it all over our faces.

watching people eat food

I watched a person eating this morning in convo. I was pretty far away, but I think she was eating hash browns or something and then a banana. The girl was sitting by herself and staring off into space. She chewed beautifully with her mouth closed most of the time. I noticed that when we were in class we mostly grabbed our imaginary forks like neanderthals while most people hold a fork like they would a pen. (this girl did at least). She drank her milk lazily and made it look so easy, maybe this was because she did not have to imagine the weight of the glass. She looked up as she chewed but down when she went for another bite. It got weird when we made eye contact, so thats where it ended. creeptastic

watching people eat

I watched two people eat breakfast this morning. It was very early in the morning( around 7) and most people were not very animated at this time of day. There is much more eating than talking going on. The two people that I observed have been eating breakfast at the same time as me, at the same table, almost every day for three years now. I am pretty sure they are a couple. They don't speak a lot, but they don't seem to mind. They read the paper rather than watch the tv like most people are doing. They eat slowly, without making a lot of extra movements. The guy slouches over his plate a little, but the girl's posture is basically upright.

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.