De Certeau and walking activities

Not until yesterday afternoons's walking activity in class did I seriously think about my connection to the campus, as well as buildings, sites, and everything that is on campus. Usually I am walking or taking a train to campus with a certain route and a certain destination, I know every street and every building with my eyes closed, and I even know how long each traffic light exactly is so I can take the shortcut to wherever I am heading for. But on the other hand, it is exactly the same reason I always walk numbly with a total blank in my head and ignore the environment that I am surrounded by(except for occasionally realization of oncoming pedestrians/vehicles).

I rarely have a chance like on Tuesday that I could go outside during class time and get down to think of something that really has to do with myself but not those technical•‰ problems. When I was wandering on the road beside Nicholson, I always hesitated and thought of which way we should go. It remind me that last time I remember walking on campus like this was the summer when I first came to the university: me and three other friends who also came here for the first time, we started out from Centennial Hall after dinner when sun is about to go down and wandering toward west, upon seeing TCF bank stadium, we couldn't help compliment how brilliant the stadium was and how amazingly beautiful the sky was. Now stadium is the building I can see everyday on my way from home to school but I never had that feeling again.

Like De Certeau mentioned in the article, that " our society is characterized by a cancerous growth of vision, measuring everything by its ability to show or to be shown and transmuting communication into a visual journey". Though it is to explain and describe reading, it also applies to the situation like walking. Every day we walk on the road subemerging in our own small world but pay no attention to surroundings, no wonder we have the same vision of walking journey in the eyes everday and become unconscious about it especially we are in a time where we get bombed by countless fresh pictures from social media every day.