headphones
Overheard in Red Square on Friday:
"Looks like if you want to attend this school, you gotta bring your iPod."
That sentence was uttered by a father as he, his wife, and his daughter climbed the top stair to Red Square, right across from Suzzallo Library. As I overheard this, ironically (is it?) I had my headphones on. Then I proceeded to look around at all the people in my local vicinity, and out of the 10 people I saw, 8 had headphones on. Six were the white iPod kind.
Who knows why so many people wear headphones around campus? I could think of a couple of reasons. One, it renders you invisible to activists. If you're walking around campus, you're basically immune from any Lyndon LaRouche campaign committees trying to convince you that Dick Cheney is the next incarnation of the devil, after Saddam Hussein and Donald Rumsfeld, of course. If the Mormon guys in suits want to hand you a copy of their book, they're gonna have to penetrate the audio wall that is your headphones.
The second reason, and probably the more important one, is entertainment. It's simply unacceptable to listen to some chatty girl on her cell phone (who looks like she's talking to herself thanks to Bluetooth... I only make fun of it because I have a Bluetooth headset myself) or two guys arguing about the answer to their biology homework. I personally would rather listen to music that I like and that makes me feel better over bits and pieces of conversations.
But the downside of all that is, most people don't talk to you when you've got your headphones on. You could run into someone you knew from high school, but the extent of your conversation would be a "Hey!" and a wave. And the "Hey!" would be really loud coming from you, because people always talk louder when they have headphones on. And then you'd go on your way. As opposed to running into someone without headphones, where you would make a bit of conversation and maybe set up a coffee date to catch up.
I have to say that lately I have been more of the "keep my headphones on all the time when not in class" people. It's practical in the computer lab, when you're not supposed to talk really loud, but what disappoints me is when I wear them while walking on campus in between classes. Do I really need that three minutes of entertainment as I walk a whole 300 feet from Bagley to Mary Gates? Is it worth shutting down potential conversations to hear a song I've heard a billion times?
Maybe. I've never not gotten a date because I've had my headphones on, and I figure that if I run into someone I know, it's respectful to take the headphones off. Seems pretty easy.
I'm going to say that particular father thought it was bad when he saw all those headphones. Maybe if he had thought of all the reasons why we were wearing them, he would have thought otherwise. Who knows if his daughter makes it to UW next year, but if she does, I'll bet she'll get her iPod and headphones all queued up for a walk through Red Square. It's what us college students do.
In other news, found on Facebook: the "I will go slightly out of my way to step on that crunchy-looking leaf" group. It's so true. We all do it.
"Looks like if you want to attend this school, you gotta bring your iPod."
That sentence was uttered by a father as he, his wife, and his daughter climbed the top stair to Red Square, right across from Suzzallo Library. As I overheard this, ironically (is it?) I had my headphones on. Then I proceeded to look around at all the people in my local vicinity, and out of the 10 people I saw, 8 had headphones on. Six were the white iPod kind.
Who knows why so many people wear headphones around campus? I could think of a couple of reasons. One, it renders you invisible to activists. If you're walking around campus, you're basically immune from any Lyndon LaRouche campaign committees trying to convince you that Dick Cheney is the next incarnation of the devil, after Saddam Hussein and Donald Rumsfeld, of course. If the Mormon guys in suits want to hand you a copy of their book, they're gonna have to penetrate the audio wall that is your headphones.
The second reason, and probably the more important one, is entertainment. It's simply unacceptable to listen to some chatty girl on her cell phone (who looks like she's talking to herself thanks to Bluetooth... I only make fun of it because I have a Bluetooth headset myself) or two guys arguing about the answer to their biology homework. I personally would rather listen to music that I like and that makes me feel better over bits and pieces of conversations.
But the downside of all that is, most people don't talk to you when you've got your headphones on. You could run into someone you knew from high school, but the extent of your conversation would be a "Hey!" and a wave. And the "Hey!" would be really loud coming from you, because people always talk louder when they have headphones on. And then you'd go on your way. As opposed to running into someone without headphones, where you would make a bit of conversation and maybe set up a coffee date to catch up.
I have to say that lately I have been more of the "keep my headphones on all the time when not in class" people. It's practical in the computer lab, when you're not supposed to talk really loud, but what disappoints me is when I wear them while walking on campus in between classes. Do I really need that three minutes of entertainment as I walk a whole 300 feet from Bagley to Mary Gates? Is it worth shutting down potential conversations to hear a song I've heard a billion times?
Maybe. I've never not gotten a date because I've had my headphones on, and I figure that if I run into someone I know, it's respectful to take the headphones off. Seems pretty easy.
I'm going to say that particular father thought it was bad when he saw all those headphones. Maybe if he had thought of all the reasons why we were wearing them, he would have thought otherwise. Who knows if his daughter makes it to UW next year, but if she does, I'll bet she'll get her iPod and headphones all queued up for a walk through Red Square. It's what us college students do.
In other news, found on Facebook: the "I will go slightly out of my way to step on that crunchy-looking leaf" group. It's so true. We all do it.