For this walking assignment I decided to walk around the Reid Park Zoo. I wanted to choose a place that would have plenty of walking and plenty of people in which to be surrounded in. For the cocooned section of my walk I employed sunglasses, an ipod and occasionally turned to my phone to send text about my zoo experiences with one of my friends.
My observations of this experience of cocooning myself from my environment were these:
- People didn't take much notice of me, often not even looking at me.
- When the shuffled music of my ipod began to play a song which I had a strong memory connection to would cause my mind to wander away from anything I was observing at the time. Instead I began to think about past experiences and my mind would become occupied with those thoughts.
-While wearing sunglasses I was much more likely to watch other people without a feeling of being intrusive.
For the engaged section of my walk I removed my sunglasses and put away my electronics and walked through the entire zoo by myself.
My observations follow:
- The zoo is a much louder place than I remember it being. There were kids yelling, peacocks and other birds making noise, an occasional speaker playing music to enhance the mood of certain parts of the park, as well as the occasional audio tour being played from speakers.
-Being able to hear the conversations around me pointed out things that I had not previously seen, such as animals which I had not been able to locate were being pointed out by others within my hearing range. -People were much more likely to acknowledge my presence and apologize if they almost ran into me or blocked my line of vision. Forcing myself to make the occasional comment about where animals were located in their enclosures to others who did not seem able to locate them got me smiles and polite exchanges. However, the lack of sunglasses made me much more apprehensive to look people in the eye.
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