Micro-ethnography Report: Observation of The Pool Area

For my ethnography, I wanted to stay where I felt most comfortable to do my observations and that was outside the apartment where I live by the pool area. I decided to do my observations for 3 hours on the 28th of September 2018 at 6-9pm. This research took place at the Apex West Midtown Apartment where I was an observer and took notes of my surroundings and the people around me.

Walking towards the pool area, the first thing I notices was how nicely set up the area is. To enter the pool area, I noticed a black gate guarding the area and you would have to pull the lock upwards to open it. There were many blue and red lounge chairs and couches lined up in many sizes. Some lounge chairs had a red umbrella over them with a little table at the side of it. The pool was kind of big in size and looked like it was shaped in the letter “G” with a bar in the middle of it. And at both sides behind the gate, there are apartment buildings towering over it.

Upon sitting to finally observe the individuals around me at around 6:05pm, I noticed that there was a girl that looks to be about the age of 11, wearing a pink swimming trunks and a black shirt in the pool doing back flips and the occasionally stopping to float on her back. I assume that her mother is the lady that is looking over a balcony in one of the apartments watching over her while she is in the pool because the little girl keeps looking up every time she does a trick in the water, smiling. There’s a man on one of the pool lounge chairs with a woman that looks like their tanning. The lady is sipping a martini in one hand and texting with the other. She stops halfway of texting to show the man that is sitting next to her something by pointing at the bar then continues to text again. I looked over at the bar to see what exactly she was trying to show him but could not pinpoint it.

By 7, the little girl walks out of the pool, looks around, grabs a towel, then starts to dry herself off. She looked around once more then walked towards the edge of the pool and stands by there for a while. She then suddenly holds her nose and dives in. At 7:12pm, she came out, grabbed her towel then walked towards to stairwell and goes up. At 7:40pm, the man and the woman did the same as well and by the time, the sun had already set, and the pool light came on. At about 8:03pm a group of individuals came running towards the pool and splashed in one by one. A man went behind the bar to plug his phone into the speakers then after came on “Nice for what” by Drake. There were two men and two women in the pool just throwing a ball around. At 8:20pm they were still in the pool just frolicking around, having fun. One of the men that was behind the bar came up and asked me to join them, but I kindly declined his offer. I told him that I was too tired and was just relaxing, enjoying the atmosphere. At 8:55pm, the music stopped and they all got out, dried themselves off, put their clothes on and headed out the gate. After this, I noticed how quiet the place was. Breeze was slightly blowing. This was evident by the little waves formed in the pool.

From what I have observed, I found that the downstairs pool area is quite active on weekends in the late evenings rather than on weekdays where I would sometimes pass the area minding my business and realize it to be very still, quiet and hardly anyone would be occupying it, hence why I had decided to conduct my observations at this time. From my assumptions, I assume it to be quite active on weekends due to the fact that it’s a kick back to relieve all of your stress from the work week and to free your mind for the time being.