An Interview From an Interesting Angle

On one of my recent interviews, I talked to an interesting person who seemed to feel differently about Common's Market than I had expected, and a different view point then even my other interviewees had. This person seemed to think that the location was not a community, and does not enjoy coming there too much at all. I will post the interview as I find the perspective of it intriguing, as it comes from a person disproving what it is I came to research, the element of community at my site. Let me know what you all gather from this:

Gender: Male
Age: 18
Race: White
School Year: Freshman
Hometown: Franklin, Wisconsin
Do you come from a large Family? Family of four, an older sister also goes to UK
Are you a first generation college student? No, both parents and grandparents attended college at UK as week.
What dorm do you live in? Kirwain Tower

How did you come to discover the commons market? I sighted it while I was moving in on the first day.
What Compelled you to come to the commons market to begin with? Hunger, it was the closest thing to my dorm, so I had to try in eventually.
How often do you come here? Used to go a lot, now very rarely, maybe once every two weeks.
Why the shift in your visiting tendencies? I really don't like the food here that much, the staff seems cold and uninviting to me.
Where do you go instead? I usually go to Ovids or K-lair instead now.
What about these places do you like better? I like the controlled portions they provide, I tend to over eat in the buffet setting. These locations are also cleaner, and smaller.
Why do you like a smaller size better? I feel as though the commons market is too big, these other places set up a more intimate environment to eat in, I just feel more comfortable there.
How long do you stay per visit? Usually about a half hour to fourty-five minutes.
Do you typically sit in the same area? Yes, in the middle section
Do you feel comfortable in this environment? not really, I don't like the food.
Then why come at all? Usually I come while I am in a hurry, its really just a matter of convienience.
Do you usually come alone or in a group? I come with a group, sometimes alone.
Describe the difference in experiences when you are alone versus in a group? When I am with friends, I tend to stay longer since there is conversation. When I am alone, there is no one to talk to, and I only stay long enough to finish my food and then leave.
What is your favorite meal to get? I like the pizza sections garlic bread, also the milk they have here is local and really good. This is one of the things that keeps me coming back.
What is your favorite element of this place? I like the TVs, they provide a level of background entertainment.

What do you see people doing here? Eating and communicating with each other.
What sets this place apart from other areas on campus? The physcial size, this building is a lot bigger than other places to eat, even the student center cafeteria. I prefer a smaller setting.
Do you feel a sense of community here? No, everyone just sticks to their own groups and do not reach out to others.
Do you feel like you are a part of this community? No, everyone seems to keep to themselves, there is not a unified community.
Has an individual ever approached and talked to you? no
Have you ever approached an individual? Yes, I have struck up small talk.
Has this led to any further interaction? No, I have never been in contact with this person again.

More Observations of The Commons Market

One aspect of the Common's Market I was interested in studying was behavior of groups versus individuals. I have already speculated the different seating patterns I have noticed, large groups sit at centrally located areas at large tables, and individuals find small tables out of the way near walls and corners. Perhaps this is a basic assumption, but acting as an anthropologist I will point it out anyway: I do not ever observe an individual sitting at a large table, more than 4 chairs, and do not ever see a large group sitting around each other at separate small tables. It appears as though perhaps it is socially unacceptable for one person to take up too much space, as perhaps they would be offensive to a group of people trying to sit together and unable to find a table. Another observation I have noted about differing behaviors is that people in groups tend to eat at a comfortable, steady pace, and take lots of time to talk and laugh. Individuals seem to eat more hurriedly as to be able to get up and go as soon as they are finished. Some individuals appear nervous, as they will constantly look around, watch TV, look at their phone, look at their watch, read the paper, and repeat. It almost seems as though they have to engage in some sort of external activity other than eating so that they will feel more comfortable about being alone, as if they feel like they are being judged. I find these differing observations interesting and will perhaps try to inquire first hand why people act they way they do in an interview situation.

UK project, Interview Test Drive

I decided to head down to my site the other day and try out the first draft I comprised of my interview questions. I will include an entire interview for my blog right now as the questions are still probably a work in progress and not up to top level yet, but I will share some of the things I learned.

The subject I chose to interview was a freshman male living in the Blanding Tower dorm. I originally suspected that most of the traffic would come from Blanding and Kirwain, but it is too early to yet say. He originally discovered the Common's Market during a visit to campus prior to admissions. Sure enough, he ended up living next to it and now eats at it regularly(2-3 times per week) due to its attractive close proximity. He told me he usually goes with a group of friends, and they stay about a half hour. I asked him if they always sat in the same area, and he confirmed that yes, they usually all sit in the mid section. This fact also goes along with one of my guesses about the environment, that groups sit in the middle and individuals on the edges. He told me that he felt comfortable in the environment because everyone was there for the same reason, to eat. This aspect helps him and others to feel comfortable and accepted in terms of the entire community. They also have several TVs playing music videos, he told me this created an ambient background mood and helped him and his friends to relax. I asked him what sort of observations he made about other people, his observations are similar to my own. The primary activity of other people is eating and conversing. I asked him if he had ever been approached by a stranger, or ever approached a stranger himself, in which he replied, "No I have not ever gone up to an individual I did not know, it is not something I am afraid to do, but do not feel the need to meet other people here as I am already with my friends. Maybe if I came to eat here by myself then I would try to talk to people I didn't know." I found this statement interesting, perhaps if more people just took the initiative to meet new people, the sentiment would spread and cosmopolitanism would easily emerge.

My Uk Community Site

For the UK project, I have chosen to study the Common's Market, the dining area on south campus between Blanding and Kirwain Towers. This area is full of life during the evenings, as many students come to eat food and converse with one another. From my current observations, I have noticed the area is set up in a few regions. One enters the main entry, descends the stairs, and pays to enter the food district. This is another interesting aspect of the location, no entry is permitted without pay. After this barrier is crossed, there are a variety of centrally located buffets with various food changing each day. Apart from this food section is the seating, subdivided by walls or implied walls into 6 seating areas. The largest is aligned with the food region, the others splitting off of this by walls next to it. It seems that large groups and small groups of people congregate in the main area, whereas individuals will move along to the corners of the building outside of the main seating area. I speculate that this is to isolate themselves in a way and not draw attention to their loneness. People who are in groups constantly converse to keep themselves occupied, whereas loners will do other things. They will look at their phone, listen to music, or watch tv. The Commons Market as a whole seems to have a civil neutrality-- in the food area people exercise civil actions to wait there turn and allow other people to get what they want, even strangers. There is not an intimidating atmosphere with pushing or shoving. Outside of this neutral zone, people subdivide into small groups, more intimate zones and sit at different tables in different regions. These people are then effectively split off from the rest of the community in an intimate setting, until they move back into the neutral area again. These are the observations I've thus far regarding social interactions, hopefully many more interesting ones are yet to come.

Open Ended Blog I, My Role in The Community

So I was searching for blogs of my classmates in order to write this one, but did not see that anyone had done it yet, so I guess I will be the first. This next series of blogs appear to be very open ended, which is fun as it leaves room for exploration, but could also be challenging due to the lack of guidelines. To start off for the day, I don't think I will talk much of my site for the UK project, but more of the way I fit in to the UK culture in general.

As a student here at UK, I obviously spend much of my time going to class, and then working on the assignments and homework for those classes. This seems very basic, and is probably assumed to be true by most people, it is simply the nature of a student. However, the college experience is much more than simply continuing studies from an academic stand point. Social interactions and engagements will inevtiably shift in a new direction during college from what they were in highschool and previous years. The fact that we now all come from different backgrounds and are living together in close proximity is a new and exciting trend. Instead of going to school and interacting with friends and then going home and being alone with family like in primary school, social interactions are continuos in college. Key differences and reasons for this change is that now not everybody's schedule lines up identically, and when we return to our dwellings, we do so together. It is unavoidable to encounter peers outside of class and around residence halls and common areas when not planned, and the way these engagements move on from there are unique. These interactions shape our new social personalities and change the way we communicate with each other. Also moving into a community with many more people than we were used to before, there are now a seemingly limitless number of strangers around us. My highschool had over 2,000 kids in it, I saw faces of different people everyday I did not know, and did not know the names of my 500 peers in my graduating class. However, here at UK, this feeling is even larger. The number of strangers I encounter daily is highly increased, and most of these people I will never get the chance to interact with. This is the thought that blows my mind, attempting be a cosmopolitan, one should interact with strangers, however, it is impossible to meet all strangers. Because of this, I have to speculate what would happen if I met one person versus another? Say I approach person A, I ask them what they are doing, I do not know them. Say they are not interested in my company, and tell me they are busy and walk away. During this time person B is walking around us in the background and pass by in the few moments of my interaction with person A. I have to wonder what would have happened had I engaged with person B versus person A? A whole new series of events could have transpired on a parallel timeline. Perhaps me and person B would have hit it off, and made a great friendship. Because I missed the oppurtunity to meet this person, I can now never know what would have happened. With the large pool of strangers at UK, it is impossible to tell which people to interact with, I guess I should take it upon myself to engage with as many as possible, and then to get lucky. I feel as thought the true spirit of cosmopolitanism is interacting with others, and seeing what happens from there.

Mystery of the Atwood Cover

What are your first impressions of this novel? No peaking at Spark Notes! By looking at the cover and nothing elase, what do you think Atwood's novel is about?

This is a somewhat difficult question to answer since I have read a portion of the book thus far, however, I will answer the question acting ignorant to the story and not pretend to make inferences from what I have already confirmed to be fact from the text. It appears in the cover that two women(based on their body shape) wearing a similar uniform have just made an exchange of something, or have just conversed about something, or had some sort of interaction. The woman in the lower corner appears to already be walking away from the first woman, who seems to be more immobile as if to be looking for something in the shadows. They are surrounded by this large brick structure, indicating possibly some sort of entrapment. The first woman is holding an empty basket, I wonder what is supposed to go inside?

Handmaid's Tales I

"This is a book about what happens when certain casually held attitudes about women are taken to their logical conclusions. For example, I explore a number of conservative opinions still held by many--such as a woman's place is in the home. And also certain feminist pronouncements--women prefer the company of other women, for example. Take these beliefs to their logical ends and see what happens."

From what I've read of this text so far, this statement seems to hold very true. The setting of the book is an obscure society in which women seem to be held hostage. The women have very few rights and are treated more as property than individuals. They live in a society dominated by men, serving to the "commander". To further de-individualize the women they are assigned different solid colors to wear to represent their "roles" in society. This is to say that an individual is only thought of as that role, such as a handmaid, and will never amount to anything else. This type of society sounds terrible. I have never really thought of taking these stereotypes to a logical level, or to implement them fully in society. Women have these sort of preconceived roles from history, but modern society is trying to break away them. It is not reassuring to read this text which has effectively stripped everything we are working to break away from in modern day. The course title, between shadow and light would fit well for this book. I interpret this to mean the shadow is the ideals or stereotypes we view women as following, and the light is the actual implementation of their roles in society. I think in the real world, the shadow is dying down, and the light is allowing women more and more equality. In this book however, the shadow is strong, it is ALL women can be, and the light takes these values to the extreme.