Starting up again
I figure I should begin writing in a journal somewhere again. I need essay ideas.
The Definitive Book of Body Language - Pease
People Watching in NYC
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/travel/15weekend.html
People Watching defined
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=people%20watching
The two hours I spend on the Metro every weekday are less boring because of people-watching. I would read but I fall asleep. Things I need to finish or start include Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, the latest Harry Potter, State of Fear by Michael Crichton, The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman, and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. And various magazines. Trying to comprehend Jorge Luis Borges might also be nice.
Various observations.
An Asian guy in a business suit reading a comic. Does he just need a break from work or is that his nature? Well, his suit is some dark shade of green. Who wears that?
A black woman in her twenties is talking really loud but I still can't understand her. She's loud because she's not sitting next to the guy she's talking to. As she yells across the aisle, a white woman a few seats away look on with a disgusted face. I wonder what she's thinking. The man the white woman is with looks rich, based on his haircut and the way he dresses. She's in a nice dress. Might they think they're too good for the metro? Did you know Michael Bloomberg rides the subway? My lab chief bikes to work. But all the institute directors parked outside Building 31 have a nice BMW/Mercedes/Lexus. One has a Prius. Wasn't Al Gore's son arrested for narcotics possession after he was stopped for speeding in his Prius? The man this woman is talking to looks pretty shady. He's wearing a baggy long-sleeved shirt. Outside, it's 95F. Both are drinking slurpees. The guy seems more concentrated on sucking every last drop of slurpee from his cup than listening. Even though his eyes are glued to the woman, I could kind of tell. The Metro worker walking by doesn't bother them even though food and drink are prohibited. Maybe he's too busy, maybe he doesn't care. I've always wanted to walk between cars while the train is moving. I did that on the New York subway once, but we were instructed to. It's not as fun when you have permission.
Two tall white men are wearing short-sleeved collared dress shirts with the formal pants and shoes. Upon closer inspection of the reading material they're holding and their name tags, I conclude that they're Mormons. I see them on the Metro again a few days later. I wonder, do they go around proselytizing every day? I've never understood deeply religious people. Watching them isn't going to be enough to comprehend how these people develop their convictions.
One time I got in a train and nobody in the car was black. I noticed immediately because it was out of the ordinary. Most of the people in one of the cars I rode in the morning was black. I wonder, how do the demographics of the Metro riders change with location? Well, the mostly white car was in the afternoon, going into the Virginia suburbs. The mostly black car was going from Metro center to NW DC and the suburbs of Maryland in the morning.
The NYTimes article poses the questions, "Are the smilers really happy or did they just hear a great joke? Are the sad and drained-looking faces permanently sad and drained, or just having a bad day? And the tantalizing unanswerable question: what are you missing in the other cars of the train?"
I don't see many smiling people. Some people walk around half asleep. I am one of those people on some days. I've missed my stop because I slept through it. I've almost gotten off at the wrong stop because I awoke, disoriented, while people were getting off at a stop that looked like my stop if you don't see the signs. I observed one black teenager with dreadlocks sleeping with headphones blaring a rhythmic beat that I could hear over the roar of the train from eight feet away. I had trouble telling whether this person was male or female. She was wearing baggy clothes and the long hair did not necessarily mean female. She got off at the Medical Center stop. Maybe she was also an intern. I didn't slow down to investigate.
What am I missing in the other cars? One day I entered one car because it was not as crowded as the others in the same train. I soon found out it was because the air conditioning wasn't working. The temperature must've been in the high 80sF. I quickly ran out before the doors closed. How can these people sit in that stagnant, oppressive atmosphere, if only for a bit more personal space? The car I ended up joining was crowded to the seams. I could barely move my arm to scratch my head without hitting someone. Someone trying to cram into the car remarked, "Oh at least it's not 85 degrees here." The train: "Please stand clear of the doors. *melodic beeping*" Doors close and open. "Please stand clear of the doors." *beeping* Announcer, in aggravated tone, "Customers, customers, please stand CLEAR of the door. Do NOT lean on the doors or this train will go out of service!!" After a minute of that, everyone is staring at the people standing near the doors, wondering if they are, in fact, leaning against the door. The people at one door look around to the people at the other doors, accusing others with their stares. Everybody, accusing.
In another crowded train on another day, the man standing next to me was breathing rather obviously. By that I mean it seemed like he was taking deliberate, deep breaths as one would if trying to stop hyperventilating. He was talking, but to nobody. With every lurch of the train, people shift in their positions, perhaps bumping someone else, and quickly move back. "Thank you," he would say several times. When it finally got to his stop, he announced, "Okay. I'm just trying to count to ten. Just one at a time. *breathes deeply*" As he left, two middle aged women exchanged glances. I wonder what they're thinking. I've exchanged glances with middle aged women during weird situations too, but I never really understood what the glance was meant to signify. "Oh, look. This person is weird." or "Oh, aren't you glad we're not that weird?" or maybe -"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" - "No. Why are you looking at me like that?"
Riding the Metro on a weekend is vastly different from riding during rush hour on weekdays. The weekend riders are mostly tourists. They stand on the left side of the escalators -- "escaleftors" as a sign on some metro trains calls them. There's also "escalumps" -- people that stop suddenly at the end of an escalator and become a speed bump. They're not in a hurry to get down the escalator to see if the train that just arrived is the one they're trying to catch. They don't know that they would have to wait fifteen more minutes if they missed this one. They seem more calm because they're not in a rush. At the same time, they can seem anxious because some worry that if they don't stand up two minutes before the train stops then they won't be able to push through the people standing up to get off the train in time. Some tourists, I presume from other urban areas, have remarked how Metro trains are clean. I don't remember how New York subways are. I can only imagine that people are nicer here than in China. In Beijing, the government established the 11th of every month as a promotional day for queuing up. That is, citizens are told to line up to get on buses instead of shoving and cutting. Everything is done in preparation for the Olympic Games.
One time I got on the train and sat down next to a young girl. The girl was sitting on the outside seat. So I scooted by and sat down in the window seat and continued reading my book. A few seconds later, a woman behind me is offering another woman her seat. The second woman replies, "thank you. He was going to step all over her." I stop reading. Another woman has replaced the little girl. Then I hear the mother saying to her daughter, "he was rude." She said it in a way someone anti-gay would matter-of-factly explain to a child what two men are doing holding hands, "those men are going to hell. Yep!" Then I realized what was going on. What did I do? In my rush to find a seat did I rudely step in front of this girl's mother and made it look like I was going to trample the girl? I wanted to apologize but then thought, oh fuck it, I don't like her tone. What difference does it make. She doesn't know me. I tried to continue reading but I couldn't. I wanted to say something but for each second I delayed, it was more difficult to turn around and look at them. I wonder what the woman sitting next to me thought. Why was I feeling suddenly so self-conscious? The subway is supposed to confer anonymity. I always take off my NIH ID when I get on the metro. Some people don't, or forget. Have you ever noticed that people are meaner on the Internet than in person? They're less inhibited. What they say and do aren't affixed to their physical, permanent self. The subway is like a chatroom but with more nonverbal communication. Then that woman sitting next to me got off at my stop. I walked faster ahead.
It takes me a whole minute to walk up the escalator (while the escalator is running) at Medical Center. My thighs start burning when I'm almost at the top. Nona says she walks up two steps at a time for an extra workout. But you gotta push through the pain. At the top there's always the guy giving away Examiners. "Good morning. Examiner?" *shakes head* "Have a nice day." He must repeat that hundreds of times every day. I wonder how much money he makes, whether anyone says 'thank you' or 'good morning to you!' in return. There are kids selling Washington Times for ten cents. There's one old Chinese guy giving away the Epoch Times. Most people that take copies are white. They don't realize it's conservative Falun Gong propaganda. The kids and the Chinese guy never say anything. The Examiner guy seems like a hard worker in comparison. The kids wear signs around their neck. The Chinese guy looks fatigued. He resembles my maternal grandmother. He just stands there and holds out the paper. His tactic is to stand in a place on the sidewalk where the path gets slightly narrower, so it's harder to avoid him.
The cleaning staff at NIH are all one ethnicity. All the parking staff are one ethnicity. My mentor said they way they coordinated seemed almost "tribal." I'm trying to work on my ability to distinguish between African immigrants and African Americans descended from slaves just by looking at them.
It's now Monday and I need sleep.
The Definitive Book of Body Language - Pease
People Watching in NYC
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/travel/15weekend.html
People Watching defined
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=people%20watching
The two hours I spend on the Metro every weekday are less boring because of people-watching. I would read but I fall asleep. Things I need to finish or start include Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, the latest Harry Potter, State of Fear by Michael Crichton, The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman, and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. And various magazines. Trying to comprehend Jorge Luis Borges might also be nice.
Various observations.
An Asian guy in a business suit reading a comic. Does he just need a break from work or is that his nature? Well, his suit is some dark shade of green. Who wears that?
A black woman in her twenties is talking really loud but I still can't understand her. She's loud because she's not sitting next to the guy she's talking to. As she yells across the aisle, a white woman a few seats away look on with a disgusted face. I wonder what she's thinking. The man the white woman is with looks rich, based on his haircut and the way he dresses. She's in a nice dress. Might they think they're too good for the metro? Did you know Michael Bloomberg rides the subway? My lab chief bikes to work. But all the institute directors parked outside Building 31 have a nice BMW/Mercedes/Lexus. One has a Prius. Wasn't Al Gore's son arrested for narcotics possession after he was stopped for speeding in his Prius? The man this woman is talking to looks pretty shady. He's wearing a baggy long-sleeved shirt. Outside, it's 95F. Both are drinking slurpees. The guy seems more concentrated on sucking every last drop of slurpee from his cup than listening. Even though his eyes are glued to the woman, I could kind of tell. The Metro worker walking by doesn't bother them even though food and drink are prohibited. Maybe he's too busy, maybe he doesn't care. I've always wanted to walk between cars while the train is moving. I did that on the New York subway once, but we were instructed to. It's not as fun when you have permission.
Two tall white men are wearing short-sleeved collared dress shirts with the formal pants and shoes. Upon closer inspection of the reading material they're holding and their name tags, I conclude that they're Mormons. I see them on the Metro again a few days later. I wonder, do they go around proselytizing every day? I've never understood deeply religious people. Watching them isn't going to be enough to comprehend how these people develop their convictions.
One time I got in a train and nobody in the car was black. I noticed immediately because it was out of the ordinary. Most of the people in one of the cars I rode in the morning was black. I wonder, how do the demographics of the Metro riders change with location? Well, the mostly white car was in the afternoon, going into the Virginia suburbs. The mostly black car was going from Metro center to NW DC and the suburbs of Maryland in the morning.
The NYTimes article poses the questions, "Are the smilers really happy or did they just hear a great joke? Are the sad and drained-looking faces permanently sad and drained, or just having a bad day? And the tantalizing unanswerable question: what are you missing in the other cars of the train?"
I don't see many smiling people. Some people walk around half asleep. I am one of those people on some days. I've missed my stop because I slept through it. I've almost gotten off at the wrong stop because I awoke, disoriented, while people were getting off at a stop that looked like my stop if you don't see the signs. I observed one black teenager with dreadlocks sleeping with headphones blaring a rhythmic beat that I could hear over the roar of the train from eight feet away. I had trouble telling whether this person was male or female. She was wearing baggy clothes and the long hair did not necessarily mean female. She got off at the Medical Center stop. Maybe she was also an intern. I didn't slow down to investigate.
What am I missing in the other cars? One day I entered one car because it was not as crowded as the others in the same train. I soon found out it was because the air conditioning wasn't working. The temperature must've been in the high 80sF. I quickly ran out before the doors closed. How can these people sit in that stagnant, oppressive atmosphere, if only for a bit more personal space? The car I ended up joining was crowded to the seams. I could barely move my arm to scratch my head without hitting someone. Someone trying to cram into the car remarked, "Oh at least it's not 85 degrees here." The train: "Please stand clear of the doors. *melodic beeping*" Doors close and open. "Please stand clear of the doors." *beeping* Announcer, in aggravated tone, "Customers, customers, please stand CLEAR of the door. Do NOT lean on the doors or this train will go out of service!!" After a minute of that, everyone is staring at the people standing near the doors, wondering if they are, in fact, leaning against the door. The people at one door look around to the people at the other doors, accusing others with their stares. Everybody, accusing.
In another crowded train on another day, the man standing next to me was breathing rather obviously. By that I mean it seemed like he was taking deliberate, deep breaths as one would if trying to stop hyperventilating. He was talking, but to nobody. With every lurch of the train, people shift in their positions, perhaps bumping someone else, and quickly move back. "Thank you," he would say several times. When it finally got to his stop, he announced, "Okay. I'm just trying to count to ten. Just one at a time. *breathes deeply*" As he left, two middle aged women exchanged glances. I wonder what they're thinking. I've exchanged glances with middle aged women during weird situations too, but I never really understood what the glance was meant to signify. "Oh, look. This person is weird." or "Oh, aren't you glad we're not that weird?" or maybe -"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" - "No. Why are you looking at me like that?"
Riding the Metro on a weekend is vastly different from riding during rush hour on weekdays. The weekend riders are mostly tourists. They stand on the left side of the escalators -- "escaleftors" as a sign on some metro trains calls them. There's also "escalumps" -- people that stop suddenly at the end of an escalator and become a speed bump. They're not in a hurry to get down the escalator to see if the train that just arrived is the one they're trying to catch. They don't know that they would have to wait fifteen more minutes if they missed this one. They seem more calm because they're not in a rush. At the same time, they can seem anxious because some worry that if they don't stand up two minutes before the train stops then they won't be able to push through the people standing up to get off the train in time. Some tourists, I presume from other urban areas, have remarked how Metro trains are clean. I don't remember how New York subways are. I can only imagine that people are nicer here than in China. In Beijing, the government established the 11th of every month as a promotional day for queuing up. That is, citizens are told to line up to get on buses instead of shoving and cutting. Everything is done in preparation for the Olympic Games.
One time I got on the train and sat down next to a young girl. The girl was sitting on the outside seat. So I scooted by and sat down in the window seat and continued reading my book. A few seconds later, a woman behind me is offering another woman her seat. The second woman replies, "thank you. He was going to step all over her." I stop reading. Another woman has replaced the little girl. Then I hear the mother saying to her daughter, "he was rude." She said it in a way someone anti-gay would matter-of-factly explain to a child what two men are doing holding hands, "those men are going to hell. Yep!" Then I realized what was going on. What did I do? In my rush to find a seat did I rudely step in front of this girl's mother and made it look like I was going to trample the girl? I wanted to apologize but then thought, oh fuck it, I don't like her tone. What difference does it make. She doesn't know me. I tried to continue reading but I couldn't. I wanted to say something but for each second I delayed, it was more difficult to turn around and look at them. I wonder what the woman sitting next to me thought. Why was I feeling suddenly so self-conscious? The subway is supposed to confer anonymity. I always take off my NIH ID when I get on the metro. Some people don't, or forget. Have you ever noticed that people are meaner on the Internet than in person? They're less inhibited. What they say and do aren't affixed to their physical, permanent self. The subway is like a chatroom but with more nonverbal communication. Then that woman sitting next to me got off at my stop. I walked faster ahead.
It takes me a whole minute to walk up the escalator (while the escalator is running) at Medical Center. My thighs start burning when I'm almost at the top. Nona says she walks up two steps at a time for an extra workout. But you gotta push through the pain. At the top there's always the guy giving away Examiners. "Good morning. Examiner?" *shakes head* "Have a nice day." He must repeat that hundreds of times every day. I wonder how much money he makes, whether anyone says 'thank you' or 'good morning to you!' in return. There are kids selling Washington Times for ten cents. There's one old Chinese guy giving away the Epoch Times. Most people that take copies are white. They don't realize it's conservative Falun Gong propaganda. The kids and the Chinese guy never say anything. The Examiner guy seems like a hard worker in comparison. The kids wear signs around their neck. The Chinese guy looks fatigued. He resembles my maternal grandmother. He just stands there and holds out the paper. His tactic is to stand in a place on the sidewalk where the path gets slightly narrower, so it's harder to avoid him.
The cleaning staff at NIH are all one ethnicity. All the parking staff are one ethnicity. My mentor said they way they coordinated seemed almost "tribal." I'm trying to work on my ability to distinguish between African immigrants and African Americans descended from slaves just by looking at them.
It's now Monday and I need sleep.