Observation

A few days ago I made my first observation of West End Market. I went there around three o'clock in the afternoon. As I opened the doors of the front entrance the first thing that caught my eye was the emptiness. There were probably a total of eight people in the front eating area. When you first walk into west end to the front and to the left of you are seating areas with brownish tables that have radios in the middle of some of them so that as you eat you can listen to and enjoy the basketball or football games that the have playing on the two giant flat screen TV's they have on the back wall of the seating area. The walls are cover with athletic pictures of past athletes, teams, and retired jerseys. As you walk in the front doors if you look to the right you will see a station to order food. At this cooking area you can order things like juicy burgers and fries, crispy chicken fingers, or even a cheesy quesadilla. Another interesting thing the have at this station are circular beepers that vibrate and light up when your food is ready. Another thing at I struck my eye and seemed to continue the trend of a sports theme in this seating area was that all of the workers were wearing shirts with black and white vertical stripes on then to give the appearance that they were referees. This was just one out of the multiple eating areas and cooking stations that I have observed at West End, and hopefully by changing the time of day of my observations will help me to get a better understanding of everything that goes on during a day at the West End Dining Hall.

Lay of The Land

The lay of the land example (click on reading from 2/17) from this weeks reading was a very helpful example of what we should be thinking about writing for our second essay for this class. The descriptive details of the bowling alley helped me too really imagine exactly what it was like and it made me feel like I was there. The details went as far as describing what the women behind the counter was wearing and even how many lanes were in the bowling alley. This essay really did and exceptional job of describing describe every inch of the site, from the age and gender of the people playing,the food they served at the counter to who walked in and out of the bowling throughout the night. After reading this essay I was able to get a very good understanding of what direction I need to head in when I begin to write essay 2.

Practice Fieldwork

For my twenty min observation I choose War Memorial Gym. As I stepped foot into the gym the first thing I noticed was that is was defiantly and older gym and had been around for years. War Memorial is a huge building filled with classrooms and a pool just to name a few, but the particular area of the gym I choose to explore was the cardio room. In order to enter into the workout area they have to swipe your hokiepassport and then you can proceed. As I walked into the cardio room I could see it was filled with ellipticals and treadmills and bikes all of them were different styles. The also had about six televisions that were turned on so that as people exercised they could watch ESPN or the news. When I went to the gym almost every machine was being used not just by college students but by older adults as well. As I explored the medium sized room I noticed they had lots of magazines for people to read while they worked out. They also had a few signs posted around the gym area saying, Please be courteous to others and only occupy a machine for 40 minutes and please clean off your machines after your workout. Overall observing the gym was a very interesting experience and from just being there for 20 minutes I was able notice a lot of small details that normally when I workout there I would not notice.