learning journal 03.14: observations from an outsider

In yesterday's prep class, we discussed the idea of "defocusing" in the context of our projects, and Ashley mentioned the benefits of looking at a current situation with new eyes, looking at the broader perspective, trying to widen our gaze from the little details that we tend to focus on every day, pretending that we are going into a situation for the first time instead of seeing it as a routine, etc. This was an interesting thought to me because my seventeen-year-old sister is visiting me this week and attended class with me yesterday. After the discussion about defocusing, I handed Hailey (my sister) a piece of paper and told her to write down everything she observed from class. Although she focused a lot on physical description instead of behavior, there were quite a few telling bits of information that I'd like to think about:

• "boy next to me doesn't have shoes on." I have, in fact, noticed this several times. Yesterday he was barefoot but had shoes under his desk, so he apparently slipped them off when he sat down. Sometimes he shows up with no shoes at all, and I wonder if he is distantly related to hobbits. It would have to be a distant relation, though, because he is very tall. I'm not sure if there is a "mandatory shoes" rule in the BYU honor code, but the girl next to me says that there is a shoes rule at BYU Hawaii. This doesn't surprise me. 
• "every few seconds the girl in front of me runs her hand through her hair." also, "girls touch their hair a TON." also, "all the girls (minus one) that have their hair in ponytails use a black hair tie." I often wonder about BYU girls and hair. I have short hair, and I don't find myself touching my hair a lot, but perhaps I touch it more than I realize. I think this is probably true of every girl. Running a hand through their hair seems habitual for most girls, as if they are always subconsciously thinking about their appearance. It seems like even college-aged girls haven't gotten past the teenage obsession with looks, even though their obsession has become second nature, habitual, from years of practice. Middle-aged and older women seem much less conscious of their hair, even subconsciously they don't seem to worry about it as much. One could argue that most women past college age are married, and marriage tends to make one less worried about looks. Yes, this is a sweeping generalization, but I think it still contains a grain of truth. Well, come to think of it, my married sisters are still concerned about their hair. Concerned is the wrong word, though--very aware, yes. Also, I know my mom is definitely aware of her hair. So it's likely that the old "marriage makes one less concerned with physical appearance" is complete bogus. Maybe, though "less" concerned and "not" concerned is an important distinction to make--college girls definitely seem more concerned, and it does seem to fade with age whether or not marriage has anything to do with it. Concerned might have been the wrong word in talking about my older sisters and my mom, but I would use the term more frequently with college-aged girls. 
• Moving on. "a lot of people bit their nails." also, "most people are doing something other than listening to the interview [about polygamy]." Biting nails is often a sign of boredom, which is why I group it with the "not paying attention" observation, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that nail biting is much more complicated than a simple act of boredom. I have bitten my nails for much of my life, and have stopped and started again several times, and it usually doesn't have anything to do with being bored in general as much as lack of occupation with my hands. Sometimes, when my hands aren't occupied with something else, I'll find myself biting my nails almost subconsciously, although I am much more conscious about it than I used to be--like during a movie, for example. When I bite my nails during a movie it is a cross between inoccupation and nerves (depending on the intensity of the film). So it may have had more to do with hand inoccupation than anything else. Although I'm not ruling boredom out. The "not paying attention during the interview" observation was also, on first thought, a sign of boredom. But then my thoughts go back to nail biting, because a lot of times when I listen to things on the radio or watch something on TV, I feel like I have to be doing something else while I'm listening. I don't know if this means I listen less (which it may), but nevertheless sometimes we pick up habits or quirks that we repeat whenever we're unoccupied, or listening, or paying attention in some way though it doesn't seem like it. Especially with the internet so readily available, a lot of times we have a split attention span, and we can typically pay attention to two things at once, albeit not giving either action as much attention as we would by focusing solely on one thing. It's probably a generational thing, so in this class when we don't have laptops, we resort to doodling or looking through other papers or talking to our neighbors in an attempt to fill a void that is created by not having a laptop to distract us. We like to be distracted, so we will find a way. I don't want to say, though, that we are all bad listeners or that we don't learn anything in class. I will come to the defense of my generation in this respect because I think we learn in different ways, but it doesn't mean that we learn less or learn more slowly. It's just different from what came before us. 

As you can tell, I'm terrible at true participant observation--even reading another person's observation--because I constantly and immediately move to analysis instead of dwelling only on observation. I am this kind of person, though, admittedly so. My brain can go wild thinking about such small details. I think that's why I am a writer, or at least am trying to be. My field study project is not a matter of merely observing others around me, but drawing conclusions and finding connections and analyzing and writing all of that down, trying to make sense of the world around me. So it's probably good that I'm not doing a traditional field study because I always jump to conclusions in a big way.