Week 3-Posting 3

I have interviewed possible informants for my first subculture assignment.  I interviewed a girl who was running on a treadmill and a guy who played on the football team who was lifting free weights.  The girl on the treadmill was very patient and understanding to the fact that I was doing research for a paper in English 104.  I asked her how she feels after running and some other questions pertaining to that and she answered by saying that running helps her by alleviating the stress and anxiety from a normal day of school.  They weight lifter on the other hand was somewhat more in a hurry to get the interview done and through.  I asked him how many times he lifts on a normal week and why he does it.  He gave me straight forward answers like "4" and "because it feels good."  The most interesting and last informant that I interviewed was a gentleman I had noticed before I left the fitness room.  He was doing bench press which is a lift where you are lying down on an elevated bench-like seat and you push the weights up and down from the sternum to the air.  I noticed that when he racked the weights, or stopped lifting, he sat up with a disgusted and despaired look on his face after a few slight cuss words escaping his mouth.  I asked him why he was stressed or angry at what he just did.  He was surprisingly calm.  He said that one year ago exactly, he was in a car accident and broke his back.  He explained that the weight that he used to be able to lift has dropped by triple the amount and that made him upset.  The gentleman told me that after accidents like that happen, everything changes, but the fitness room is what can bring him back to normal.  I observed many things while I was in the fitness room such as the smell of sweat and antiperspirant, the sounds of music from the top 30 charts and clanking of weights, the feel of the wet and soggy towels that the weight lifters use after using equipment to sterilize it for the next user.  I have not yet attempted some academic research.  I do believe there is a difference between academic and non academic research  because you can either read books, journals, or magazines from somebody else's published research, or you can take you own observations into perspective and use that as non academic such as interviews, personal experience, or surveys.