Kevin Barbour
Anthropology 200
Professor Timmer
November 5, 2010
TITLE GO HERE LOL
	For our ethnographic field project, Sean McDonald and I researched and observed the groups of people who choose to eat outside of The Commons dining hall. All of our research was conducted directly in the eating area outside of The Commons. The research question for this project was “What similarities, if any, exist among the groups of people who eat their meals outdoors at the dining hall?”. To obtain an answer to this question we conducted numerous sessions of observing people eating outdoors, asking them their opinions on the subject, and each performing an interview of one person who eats outside. Through our observations we came to the conclusion that there are little to no evident similarities shared among those who choose to eat outside, but we did collect interesting data and make a few discoveries about why these people choose to eat outside as opposed to in the dining hall itself.
	To gather information for this project we each conducted three sessions of observation. During my first observation I sat at a table outside and ate my lunch while writing down what I observed of the other people eating outside. During the other two sessions I did the same procedure, but I also discussed with a few people their reasoning for eating outside and why they prefer it to eating indoors. We each also conducted a semi-formal interview with one person who we found eating outside to gain an insider’s perspective on eating outdoors. My interview provided a good insider’s perspective on the situation and gave some insight as to why people choose to eat outside and do not enjoy eating in the dining halls.
	During my first observation session very helpful information was gathered. At around 1:15PM on September 07 I got my lunch from the dining hall and went outside with my notebook to conduct observations. Upon going outside I saw that three tables were occupied and I sat at one of the empty ones. One of the tables consisted of three girls eating, one consisted of two girls and three boys, and the other had four boys and one girl. The weather was quite warm and nice, so everyone was dressed for warm weather. All three tables were mostly just conversing and eating their lunches. After about ten minutes of observing them, I noticed a woman, who I believe worked in the dining hall step outside to smoke a cigarette. Shortly after two more guys came outside with their lunches and sat at a table to eat. The table with three girls returned inside with their dishes, and one of them left an empty cup on the table. I continued to observe the remaining tables, and the two guys who had just sat down were eating their lunch and working on school work, each had a textbook and notebook out. From what I gathered from this session of observations, there was no noticeable similarity shared among the people eating outside. The only reason I gathered in my first observation session for people coming outside the dining hall was to smoke a cigarette and the rest seemed to just enjoy the nice weather and eating outside.
	The second session of observation was much more helpful in obtaining relevant data to the study. During the second session there was a much larger crowd of people outside and inside the dining hall. The dining hall was completely packed and there were very few seats, and outside nearly every seat was taken so I stood by the door and observed people, occasionally questioning someone who walked by. The majority of the people said that they were eating outside because they could not find an empty seat inside, but some said that they were eating outside because they enjoyed the nice weather. Three girls were sitting at a table talking about how they disliked the food at the dining hall that day. Another table had two guys playing a card game and eating their lunch. During the course of the observation I noticed a table with three girls at it, one of them smoking, and the other two eating their lunch. I asked one of them if she would mind being interviewed for an anthropology project and she agreed. During the interview I learned that her and her two friends usually eat outside when they can find a table. She said that eating inside the dining hall is usually too crowded and loud, and they enjoy the fresh air and weather outside. She also said that one of her friends enjoys smoking when they eat outside. Unfortunately this was as far as my research was able to go due to the tables outside the dining hall being taken down for the winter.
	This research was relevant in learning some things about the Christopher Newport community and the students. It gave a very interesting insight into the students enjoyment of the dining halls, and why they enjoy to eat outside, as well as giving some negatives about the dining halls and peoples’ dislikes about the food and atmosphere inside. While it did not provide a very good response to the research question, it did show that the people who eat outside tend to be just average CNU students who enjoy the outdoors more than being cramped inside of a loud crowded dining hall.
	The research process was a very good introduction into how field work is done, and gave me a great perspective on what anthropologists do in their line of work. I enjoyed getting to observe the actions and personalities of the people studied in the project. Unfortunately, I do not believe this project idea was a very good choice for observation as it did not provide a look at a
specific group of people, but merely a look at average CNU students in the community. Despite this, I feel that it was a successful project and helped me to gain important skills for observing a group of people and documenting my research.