Welcome to Only in Columbia

Welcome to my first blog, Only in Columbia! This has been in the works for a few months now and I have finally taken the steps to make it happen after some encouragement from a few friends. I would like to credit L. Leighton for the title of this blog. From time to time, I will have friends living in other cities (NYC, Charlotte, Charleston, Greenville) post observations of the random things they see in their towns.

First, some background about myself. I consider myself a fairly observant person. I can spend hours watching people walk by the window at a coffee shop or watching people hang out in a bar. My ability to be content with sitting still and observing social behavior has a lot to do with my experiences as a sociology major in undergrad. For example, I once spent an entire semester at a local park observing people walking their dogs on Sunday afternoons and seeing what social interactions occured from it. You would be surprised at the number of conversations that were sparked from someone walking their dog. I also spent another semester observing doctors and nurses in a local hospital and their interactions with fellow staff and families of patients. I will also never forget my first taste of qualitative research my sophomore year of college: traveling to the Little Five Points area of Atlanta every Saturday and observing the behavior of street vendors. I met some very interesting characters that I will never forget.

I really don't know what it is but I sometimes see the most random, amusing things around Columbia or those things end up happening to me. My first instinct after processing the event is to pick up my phone, share my news, and laugh about it with someone else. Of course, it's never the same as witnessing it first hand but it's somewhat close. So I began to think, why not start a blog where I can record the random things I see and experience and share it all at once. Brilliant!

I am not going to backtrack the random things I have seen recently but here is a quick run down that also gave inspiration to moving forward and starting this blog:

1. The family at Publix who were very concerned if the strawberries they were purchasing were organic or not which then caused a traffic jam in the produce section. Once I passed their cart, I peered in and discovered that not only were they purchasing Kashi, Amy's, and other whole grain/organic products but they also had a stack of Lunchables! Really!?

2. The student at Starbucks who left their laptop on a table unattended for an hour while he stood outside talking on the phone. I do have to admit, I had a bad habit in undergrad of leaving my personal belongings in the library while running to the DH for a meal but at a public, off campus business? Really!? Not too smart. He is lucky I am a nice person and watched his things.

3. Finally, we all know there are some random things going on in SC politics not to mention the random protests in front of the state house with large pictures of things you really don't care to see first thing in the morning (for all of you who drive down Gervais in the morning, you know what I am talking about). I am going to try to not bring politics into this blog but I can't promise anything if I see something random and off the wall.

That's all I have tonight. I hope you enjoyed my first post and stay tuned for more interesting things to come.