Participation

Week 12:

             Every week I check in, sit, and observe the student athletes of socialize hall. However, this week I thought I would change things up a bit by actually by pretending to be “one of them” by participating. Like every other week I came to my site around late afternoon and began to do some fieldwork.

            As I walked into socialize hall I decided to do my work in group room #2 where I found Blue, Baseball Cap, and Backpack inhabiting the room already. I was friends with two of the people in the room and decided to just talk to them and watch videos aloud like I had seen people doing every week. Baseball Cap was the only one that I didn't know in the room, and I could tell that he was actually trying to do work. While I would be playing videos I could see from my peripheral vision that this had made Baseball Cap annoyed, yet he never spoke up or said anything. Since I’m usually in Baseball Cap’s shoes I then decided to leave the room and let him finish up whatever he was working on without any distractions.

            After leaving group room #2 I headed for the party room to see what was going on in there tonight. There was a good amount of people in there as always, but something was very different. Majority of the people in the room were at this long table studying for a test that they all had a class together. From listening to their conversations I knew that it was some big science test and that they were all pretty nervous for it. But when I pulled out some more funny videos they all stopped in their tracks to see whatever I was watching. Even though they seem to be easily distracted, they would always go right back to studying after I had showed them a video. I assumed that everyone would be loud and full of excitement since this was our last week before Thanksgiving break, but everyone acted like it was the week before finals. Participating wasn't at all what I thought it would be so I’m glad I took the time to experience it.