It is a Monday afternoon and I am sitting at the front desk in my office. The buzz of the computer in front of me is constant, if I focus on it to long it annoys me and makes me anxious. The click of my fingers on the keyboard keys is loud and obnoxious. I much prefer the sound made by the keyboard on my laptop. As people enter and exit the office the clicking of heals can be heard as the flooring changes from carpet to tile. I can hear talking in the offices at varying volumes. Some conversations are work related and others are more personal. Water runs in the kitchen and there is a sound of glass dishes being put in the sink. Keys jingle as someone walks. Ice crashes into its container as someone clears out the trays. The copier in the printer is going off. I hear the swish of pants as someone walks in front of me and shoes scuff on the carpet. At the moment there are no strong smells other than the faint smell of ink on paper coming from the copier and notes I have written to myself. I can look out the window and see cars driving on I-5 and the wind moving the leaves on the trees. I can see lake Washington and the water is moving slowly. There are a lot of lights in my office and I am just not noticing how bright it is. There are pictures of boats on the wall and a fake tree sitting by the window. The desk is cluttered with sticky notes, pens and paper clips. All furniture and doors are made of a light brown wood and all the fixtures are a light silver. Besides my bright orange water bottle and purple backpack, color is lacking.
The most surprising part of this activity was the sounds; after working in the office for months I have become accustomed to most of them and learned to drown them out. I even consider our office to be a pretty quiet place, but I have now realized that at any given time it can actually be quite loud if you listen hard enough. I also never realized most of the decorations that were present or the lack of color in the office and now that I have I find it a bit depressing. I can get into a monotonous routine, which causes me to be very desensitized to what is happening around me. I hope that when I am in Berlin and experiencing a new place I will be able to use all my senses to really capture all that is happening around me.
The most surprising part of this activity was the sounds; after working in the office for months I have become accustomed to most of them and learned to drown them out. I even consider our office to be a pretty quiet place, but I have now realized that at any given time it can actually be quite loud if you listen hard enough. I also never realized most of the decorations that were present or the lack of color in the office and now that I have I find it a bit depressing. I can get into a monotonous routine, which causes me to be very desensitized to what is happening around me. I hope that when I am in Berlin and experiencing a new place I will be able to use all my senses to really capture all that is happening around me.