Day 2

Friday, February 27, 2009, between 12pm and 1pm. Weather's alright, wind is chilly. I've decided to sit in the same spot as yesterday and have my computer out to take notes so as not to appear to too obvious. The problem with this is it's difficult for me to type and observe at the same time and I feel i am missing details.

• 12:20~7 people around the flagpole. Two are smoking, from what I can see it looks like the rest are just sitting. There is on girl sitting alone on the circle, typing intently on her computer. There are two more people sitting by the tree to the right of me, one of them is smoking. I think she may be the girl who was sitting against the flagpole, reading the newspaper yesterday.

~Strange occurrence: There is a woman with a large, professional camera photographing the people around the flagpole. She is not smoking. at one point it appears interviews one of the students.

• 12:30 ~ Eleven people within the area, 3 of whom appear to be cafeteria workers. A fourth person enters this small group and they are speaking animatedly and laughing together. There is one older man with a duffel bag, it looks like he's is searching for something within it; a cigarette, perhaps?
  

~Camera woman packs and leaves.

• 12:40 ~ Nineteen people within the area, 13 are now smoking and the rest are not. Eight of these people stand or sit alone, 11 are conversing in groups of 2, 2, 2, and 5. The group of 5 has grown from the original 2 by the tree, and two of its members are definitely the Flagpole Sitter and the Bike Girl (who I had originally mistaken for a boy). It turns out the older man isn't interested in smoking, he just wants to play Frisbee.

• 12:50 ~ Twelve people are sitting on the flagpole bricks. It's beginning to get crowded and the wind is picking up. They remind me of huddling Emperor Penguins.

~The original coupld sittin gby the tree have moved towards the flagpole to talk to someone and they walk away together.
~Three people have cut through the area without smoking, one on a bike.