McCandless Project Reflection

For my McCandless project, I decided to sit at a completely different table at lunch; a table which consisted of approximately 5 men who appeared to be juniors or seniors. I just walked up and sat with all of them, looked at each and every one of them in the eyes, and just started to eat my lunch. These young men just shout. One of them, whom I believed to be the “leader” of their fold, asked me “What the **** do you want, freshman?” I kept calm and just looked him straight in the eyes for about a minute, and went back to eating; to which they all busted into a lengthy episode of laughter and went on with what seemed their normal lunch routine (I’d go into what they said and did but that is both too long and too vulgar for this report). After this, the upperclassmen kind of just ignored my presence, but I feel they noticed I was paying the utmost attention to their conversations. I felt like sort of a smart Aleck at the time, but in hindsight, I felt it was normal to be just sitting, shaking my head, taking notes, and grinning. I also felt largely afraid, for I thought they were going to get angry and either a.) Cause a scene or b.) Beat me up. Fortunately for me, they did not. I felt no surprise at my reactions at the time because I knew that so long as my “subjects” weren’t angry, I was in no danger and in complete control of the situation. This is an instance where I was indeed free not to conform to social norms. However, this is but an instance, for there is always something holding someone to what is considered “normal”. It is impossible to be truly free and abnormal, but to be considered such or to live in an instance where this freedom is demonstrated is a whole different chapter in the same story.