Observation 2

For my second observation, I observed Lenior dining hall. I was sitting by myself, making observations, eating, and studying for my Gender and Culture midterm all at once. Some of the observations I made were related to seating arrangements and general behaviors between people. What I find almost humorous is that even though we appreciate and appraise UNC for its diversity, that diversity is not reflected in how people interact with one another. For the most part, the exception of a few people, most of the people sitting at larger tables together were of the same race. It could even be suggested that people of the same race sit together as a norm of Lenior. There really is no pattern in terms of gender, but in terms of race there seems to be a pattern of people of the same race sitting together. Another behavior I noticed was that people will migrate from table and table in order to be as isolated as possible from other people. A table may be occupied by only one or two people, but the small group will refuse to ask to sit down in order to be as isolated as possible. In general, it seems that, for the most part, unless the person is somebody that the other person knows, people try to remain as isolated as possible. Except for the few chance meetings and awkward run intos, people do not seem interested in initiated conversation with people outside of their comfort zone.