Bonfires and Booze

For this weeks blog post and field notes i decided to observe and study the activities of others at a different location from my usual place which was the gym. This week i decided to take notes at parties over the weekend, it was a change since i was sober these nights. During these nights at multiple house parties and one bonfire i was able to see a lot of different people that behaved or acted similar. Lets start off with the bonfire, there were around 50 or more people so there was plenty of people that i could watch to get notes. When i got to the location of the bonfire i was greeted by multiple people. Most were already drunk, that's college, but there were also a good amount of sober people. I noticed people were a lot more responsible here than at other places that night because everyone who was drinking either limited themselves or had a designated driver. I did notice those people who got way too drunk and tried throwing things into the fire that would have been a bad idea to do. Things like bullets or glass bottles. There were people there to stop them of course so there were no injuries at this party.

Now for the next location i went to a party at a house way out in the desert. When i got to the house there were those people there to greet me and ask if i was 21 or not, which doesn't really mean anything because under age people are still going to drink. The difference at the house from the bonfire was they did ask for ages as people walked in but the atmosphere of the place felt different. I had a bad feeling about it right from the get-go. I have been to parties out in that area before and have almost got in multiple fights, guns and knives pulled out, huge brawls between some thugs who think they can fight, and i have had a friend be hospitalized which turned out to be fatal because of a fight. I decided to stay for awhile though because there were some good friends there that i had a drink or two with. Thats when things went south, some guys were looking at me sour for no apparent reason. I decided at that point that i did not want to have problems with people because im a college student trying to have a good time. So i left. This party later on was busted by cops and i heard there were fights after i left.

The next place i went was a legit college party with people who were stressed about college and wanted to take a load of...there were A LOT of stressed college students if you know what i mean. At this party i did notice everyone was just there to party and not stir up any trouble. People were more responsible by giving their keys to sober people who were driving them home later on that night. I also saw people leaving in cabs when i got there which was a good thing because they were hammered and had no one to drive them home. This party had a lot more of activity other than boozing, there were some people smoking weed and a lot of people trying to hook up. Your typical college party. People seemed to have more fun at this party because they had a good dj with music and there were A LOT of people there just having a good time. I met up with a few friends to have a drink and an hour or two later i decided to call it a night.

From all the parties i attended i did see a few similarities and differences. The similarities were people were getting pretty drunk which was fun to see being sober those nights. People were partying just to have fun. The differences i saw were the feeling of the party, for example the party in the desert just felt uncomfortable because people were there just to cause trouble. I did not see that at the college party in the city. These were some good locations to get field notes and i was able to get more information for my blog.