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I'm in this speech class, well it is labeled as a speech class but it is really more of an in depth look at how communication really works.

And I'm hooked.

I love this class. I have long been a bit of a 'fly on the wall', one of those people who observe others and how surroundings affect the way they speak. The more I can learn about human nature the better, it is something I adore doing and likely always will.

You may be asking yourself why I named this Standing in Elevators. The answer is simple, communcation almost completely ceases within the confinement of an elevator. For some reason when we step into that little box with all those strange people, we stop communicating as much as possible. While communication cannot stop completely, it comes damn close in that confined space. This was the topic of almost an hour of conversation in my class, and I thought to myself that the next time I found myself on an elevator I would make the effort to verbally communicate with my fellow passengers.

So, I walked into the hospital to visit my grandmother(She's just had a triple bypass, doing fine) and stepped into the elevator along with three or four other people. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't find it in myself to talk to someone in an elevator located in a hospital. I was going to visit my grandmother, who has been very out of sorts for a couple days now, and I would assume they all have similar concerns. Some emergency in their life that they are trying to cope with, to fix, they all have some one to support and the last thing they need is to undergo annoying small talk with someone in an elevator.

And I think I know why we stop talking in the elevator. It is a forced pause in our lives. A short moment to gather our thoughts, whether those thoughts be of a loved one or of work or of some other matter. We don't talk because we are too busy thinking. Of course, that may just be me.

Perhaps of course, I'm giving elevators too much credit.