Homework #11, Experimenting On The Self

I can admit to putting up a shield, and listening to my ipod when I am outside. There are plenty of days where I get talked ti by strangers, where people cat call to me, or hiss at me from cars to try and get my attention. I'm not sure why old men think they are going to attract me that way, yet I usually use my ipod to tune out those annoyances. Every morning, I am hesitant to leave the house until I have my ipod in my pocket. I'm usually not in the mood to talk to anyone in the morning right after I have left my house, so I listen to my ipod. I remember one day a couple weeks ago I was tearing through my house trying to look for my ipod. Even though I was about to be late, I wouldn't leave without it.

At first, I started experimenting even before it was an assignment. I cannot remember when I started, but as soon as I got to 14th street on the train, I would take off my ipod, and put it away so that I would be able to hear people when I walked the rest of the block to school. I realized then that I felt better being able to hear the noises around me instead of hoping one of my friends wouldn't come up behind me and try to surprise me.

Taking that experiment a little further, at the end of last week I started going to and from school without listening to my ipod. In the mornings, I would try to notice things that I usually did not push myself to notice. Wednesday morning I remember being captivated by the clouds, all the way to school. I watched the clouds and saw how they were moving around the sky, and how beautiful they looked to me. Not to sound corny. I also realized monday through wednesday that I could hear the birds chirping, and I decided to listen to the birds instead of my ipod.

I haven't been feeling great at the end of school days, so it hasn't been much of a challenge at the end of the day to go home without listening to my ipod. The main thing that I've been realizing though, is that even when I'm not listening to my ipod, the songs on my ipod still play through my head. I remember on wednesday when I went home sick, trying to stop all the songs from playing in my head, and to just think, and relax.