I spy with my UW eye

The UW is to people-watchers what a sci-fi convention is to Trekkies. Reading, smiling, frowning, talking and just getting through the traffic of bodies, the diverse student body is better than any reality TV show.

The way people navigate through campus illuminates how they go through life. Do they negotiate turns well? Do they communicate their intentions effectively? Are they alone or with company? Are they rushed, or do they stop and smell the cherry blossoms?

Eye contact is the key to a stroller's true nature. I have devised a three-tiered filing system according to where a walker's eyes wander. There is the gazer, the goner and the galvanizer.

The gazer is likely to be looking anywhere but forward. His eyes somersault around in their sockets at their own will, and are usually quick and sporadic in their change of subjects.

The goner's eyes swim in vacant oblivion. She floats through campus like a sleepwalker on NyQuil and has the unnerving ability to look right through you. Lastly, there's the galvanizer, who makes rapid-fire eye contact with every person in his visual field in a compulsive attempt to avoid missing anyone he knows.

Accident-prone people may not find the densely populated campus such a treat. But what would campus be without our uncoordinated classmates? Certainly a trip, whether a misstep or a full-out face plant, is one of the funniest spectacles on the campus.

The way trippers cope is revealing of their personality. First, there's the jog-start, in which the tripper acts like the forward momentum from his trip was really just the beginning of deliberate double-timing to get to class sooner.

Then there's the denial strategy. The denier, post-trip, scoffs at the street in incredulity. I used to try to play it off, but now I usually just laugh at myself. And if friends are with me, they save me, as the laugh looks less weird when executed in the presence of companions.

Whether you're sitting on the steps, or out in the middle of the stream of students, it's a treacherous road, but the walk is worth it.