Annie K Williams

Annie K Williams

Prof. Kristen Gallagher

Eng 198

I decided to sit facing the main entrance to give myself a better view of everyone who enters. In front of me there are several tables already occupied. The first one I noticed is occupied by a male student between 19 and 22 years old. He’s wearing a black coat, underneath a grey hooded sweatshirt, blue denim jeans and black Keds. He is eating a cold cut sandwich a bag of Doritos and drinking a bottle of Aquafina water. He is speaking to a much older heavier Caucasian man and from the bits I gathered of their conversation and the Anatomy and Psychology textbook on the table, I think it’s his professor. The heavier man is explaining to him that the cardiovascular system is very complex and performs three major functions that without which we as people will not be able to survive. While the older man has barely touched his food the student is busy eating his sandwich and glances up every now and then to ask the professor a brisk question. “What will happen to us if we can’t produce enough blood cells?” he ask the professor. The professor turns the pages of the textbook and goes on to explain the development of diseases such as leukemia and anemia. The student continues to eat his lunch heartedly, his left leg is twitching and his responses are minimal just like his questions. He seems to be more occupied with eating and observing his surrounding then actually listening.

There is another student sitting alone in one of the tables directed towards my right. He is eating a bagel with cream cheese and there are individual packages of grape jelly scattered on his small table. He has not taken off his coat nor his backpack. He’s constantly looking at his cell phone, and after about the 10th time he gets up to throw away his trash. He walks towards the hand sanitizer on the wall in front of him, which out of all the people who have entered only eight people have used, cleans his hands not satisfied goes for a bit more and returns to his seat, his leg is twitching. He looks up every time someone enters the cafeteria. A young lady, African-American walks up to him and he looks up expectantly as if he was waiting for someone, anyone to come up and talk to him. She smiles at him and asks if she could take the empty seat opposite him, his face droops a bit at the realization that she was not there to make conversation but he accepts and even offers if he could take the chair to where she is sitting, she declines and he watches as she picks up the metal chair and walks back to where her friend is waiting for her.