Reflections on Fieldnotes and Feelings

 As I observed my group of subjects at the U outside Overlook South, I made a discovery. I witnessed not one, but two females who sat down and vaped! This shatters my previous question of "Is vaping male-exclusive," and also proves that females can and will vape, just much more rarer. The main group of vapers mostly sat around and conversed about various topics, same as usual, except including the amount of "lit parties" they would be going to and how it is now two months into the semester. Time really does fly when you are at college, engrossed in schoolwork and social activities. The amount of people passing by was increased by a slightly larger amount, seeing as it was Halloween night. I saw many costumes, and even some of my vaping group were dressed up. I asked via several informal interviews to some members as to why they vaped and I got a plethora of responses, the most common either being,”I like the many different flavors they have for juices,” to ,”I put nicotine in mine so it gives me a head buzz,” to ,”After I put nicotine in my vape I became addicted,” which poses the question of ,”Why would you want to add nicotine to your vape, even though nicotine is highly addictive?” I could understand going from a certain amount of nicotine and slowly weaning yourself off, as is the actually reasoning behind vaping, but to add nicotine and make yourself addicted to it is mindboggling! Granted, vaping is still healthier than cigarettes, but depending on if you have nicotine in your vape, you are still getting addicted to it, and will most likely continue to vape, which just defeats the purpose of why people primarily vape. Not for the social aspects, but to get off of cigarettes! As a whole, vaping is still a male-dominated activity, but it is not exclusively male, due to my witnessing of two females vaping. This just shifts my data and forces me to re-look at all my data to see any kind of pattern. I have already ascertained that everyone in the group that vapes hangs out with one another at some point and are very approachable for conversation. Potentially, they could have classes with one another. Or, could vaping have brought them all together to create a clique of vapers? People of different social and economic backgrounds, united by one common activity? This gives me another question of, ”Does vaping bring people together?” Same as with the females however, vaping appears to be a Caucasian male-dominated activity. I do see a few African-Americans sit down and vape with the rest of the group, but like the females, there are very few that will go vape. Does vaping not appeal to African-Americans? I hope to make a few more observations before I can truly pass judgement on it.
-Jorrel K.

Reflection on Gym Observations

This week’s observations were again very interesting. While trying to figure out if skinny people are actually intimidated by the big lifters, I feel as if I came to the conclusion that they are. I am yet to figure out what makes the lifters so intimidating. Is it because they pick up heavy weight and slam it on the ground? Or is it because of the way a big person appears and would present themselves?

When I first got to the gym to work out before my shift, I noticed that there were skinny people working out with lots of confidence in the free weight area.  Before I even started my workout I observed them some more, just so I wouldn't scare them away when I did workout with my heavy ass weight.  After watching them for a couple minutes I decided to start my workout and noticed that they started to become self-conscious.

Since it was just shoulder day I didn’t do any really heavy weight and I was also pretty far away from them.  I like to check myself out in the mirrors after sets every so often and they would look at me with a look of admiration. It’s flattering that there are people admiring you but can also be really weird and uncomfortable after a while of them consistently staring at you.  Once I started shoulder press which went up to decently heavy weight, they began to feel uncomfortable on being in the free weight section.  As soon as another big person showed up and started working on chest, the scrawny people left.  More and more big people started showing up and soon enough there were no more scrawny people left.

Once I was done with my work out and started my shift, I noticed that the only scrawny people who had any confidence in going to the free weight section where the ones being trained by a big person.  Soon enough I will also begin personal training myself and hopefully I will have a client that I can interview to figure out if it the big people’s look that intimidates them or is it the fact that they lift heavy weight, scream, and slam the weights.  So far from what my coworkers have told me when I asked them, they said that from what they’ve noticed it is the screaming and weight slamming that scares the scrawny people away.

-junior v