This is an observation I made a while ago:
As most students who has ever taken class in Chem194 or walked by the building when lecture lets out, are aware of, it can be pretty hectic and crowded in that particular circle. Pedestrians, bikers, buses, skateboarders, and everyone or anyone trying to make their way from one class to another seem to travel around or through this circle. After an embarrassing accident that I had during my freshman year in which I fell off my bike after colliding into another bike, I’ve always tried to avoid the Chem 194 circle, but whenever I do cross that path, in particular when the lecture in Chem 194 lets out, I stop and observe the traffic flow. It always amazes me that not once did anyone else manage to collide with another person whether they are biking or walking, during the many occasions which I did observe it; everyone seem to always make it through perfectly fine. The hoards of students from the Chemistry building that holds up to four hundred students pouring out and those students rushing on foot, some on bikes to their next class, the dozens of other students trying to get to the silo for lunch and the bus passing and bikers trying to speed their way to class all the while talking on their cell phone and no one, not a single person collides into another. What is more amazing is that there is no stop light to direct the traffic and only a few ever stops while biking around the circle, everyone just continuously bikes or walk for the most part, yet I have yet to observe any collision. I guess my point is, everyone who passes this circle is always in a rush and the circle gets so jammed up sometimes that it seems as if here is the point of Diasporas of those travelers. Although it is but for a few seconds, people who passes the circle comes together and work together to get through safely and then spreads out to their own destination. Whether it is the students from the Chem building or other students making their way to another class, some how everyone comes together for a few short seconds, meet at one point in the circle and moves on, and everything just flows.
1 comment:
I like this portrait of the Chem 194 Circle; a picture of this space would help your reader visualize this site of everyday diaspora. Or, another idea would be give some detailed descriptions of specific people biking/walking/skateboarding through: show your reader through words exactly what you see. You have some grammatical mistakes, such as in the first sentence, where "...is aware of..." should be "ARE aware of" because "most students" is a plural phrase. Also, the comma that precedes that phrase is unnecessary. And pedestrians are by definition on foot ('ped'), so you can delete the "on foot" part. Finally, here is a suggestion for you: for your third post of the week, you could return to this spot and really try to capture as much material detail as you can, and document it, so that one of your posts (this one) would be a sort of overview of the 'flow', and another post (your later one) would 'zoom in', as it were, and paint a vivid picture of a few minutes sitting in that space. You have done a nice job drawing your reader's attention to a mundane yet dynamic point of dispersal.
Post a Comment