Mental Maps

Being an undergraduate student at the University of Oregon, twenty one years of age, and a male who was raised in a semi-rural area has impacted my mental map of Eugene immensely. As shown in my attached mental map, I have a personalized and less than diversified image of Eugene. Locations that relate to my needs (food), pleasure (golf, beer, weight-lifting, basketball…etc.), income (Eugene Country Club, Isler CPA), and self-development (Lillis, Knight Library) are all highlighted in my map because I am exposed to them regularly. I have to admit I am not your stereotypical Eugene resident. By this I mean I am not a white-haired dude who drives a Volkswagen van (stereotypical hippie), dislike rain, not a vegetarian, music is not significant to my life, and I would rather play basketball for cardiovascular exercise versus run. Not participating in these stereotypical acts, which may be true for a portion of the population, limits my perspective of Eugene because many locations and places of Eugene are developed to attract the stereotypical Eugene resident.

Growing up in a semi-rural part of town has contributed to me not adoring downtown Eugene. My first apartment that I lived at in Eugene was on 13th and Olive, close to the heart of downtown, and I ended up cutting my lease short because I did not like the downtown atmosphere. As we all know there is a dense population of homeless people in downtown Eugene and I have to say even as a man I do not feel comfortable around some homeless people. In the town and surrounding suburban cities I grew up in there was little to no homeless people. From my memory, I could only remember one homeless person in my hometown of Redland, OR and I am not a hundred percent he was even homeless. I remember this older gentlemen because I frequently saw him walking down the main road toward or away from the only small market in the town called the Redland Store (creative I know). During this man’s walk to and from the store he rarely could make it without stopping and urinating carelessly off of the main road. This was part of the reason I thought he was homeless, aside the fact that his attire was that of a stereotypical homeless person. For all I know though, he could have been a homeowner near the store and liked to make daily walks to the market and expose himself to the community.

Now back to Eugene, my little contact with homeless people prior to Eugene swayed me to be uncomfortable around them. I try to be very alert while walking by homeless people because some of them are unpredictable (like anyone else). We have all walked by a homeless person mumbling gibberish and it only confirms that we have no idea as what is going on in some of their heads. Not to talk down on homeless people too much, I realize some homeless people do not have a choice and I sympathize with them for that. Another experience in downtown Eugene was one night last year when I drove a friend home who lived downtown. While driving her home we passed a downtown bar that was flooding with people inside and out. At the time there were people in the street and a decent amount of traffic so we were passing the bar at a slow rate. Outside the bar we witnessed a sophisticated young adult and a homeless young adult having an argument regarding who knows what, but the argument transitioned into a fight right in front of my vehicle in which the homeless man struck the party goer. The man was stunned by the blow to the face and courageously did not fight back. In essence, my limited exposure and experience of a small slice of homeless people has played a significant role of me not willingly experiencing downtown Eugene.

Moving away from the homeless, typically when I am away from home and school, I venture out to eat & drink, explore nature, and tend to my basic needs. I am not a fan of shopping. If someone came to me and asked about shopping for clothes, especially local clothing stores, I would have a small amount of insight for them. Close to everything I buy, I like to research goods prior to buying them and I like to get the best deal possible. Therefore, a considerable amount of my shopping, outside of basic needs shopping, is done online. When it comes to my desire to explore it tends to be places on the outskirts of Eugene, such as Triangle Lake, Dexter Reservoir, Mount Pisgah, Spencer’s Butte, and various wineries or as I like to call them my “boyfriend duties.” I do like to explore the local breweries (girlfriend duties) in Eugene though. For this summer I actually made a summer bucket list of places I want to see and visit in Eugene and it includes Oakshire Brewery and Ninkasi Brewery.

Now that I have shared my mental map of Eugene I am going to compare mine with my girlfriends. This may be a surprise, but our mental maps have strong similarities as if we have the same exploring patterns. Both of us drew the University of Oregon, The Patterson, Safeway, downtown Eugene, Little Big Burger, Laurel Wood Golf Course, Willamette River, and something related to Autzen Stadium. These similarities are mostly due to the fact that we are with one another more than any other person we know. We eat, drink, shop, and do leisure activities together on a regular basis since we moved to Eugene. The only major differences I noticed on the two maps were that her mental map included parts of Eugene east of Campus. I believe this is the case because she at one time lived over there and is delighted with Dutch Bros Coffee. The last thing I would like to point out, which I find interesting, is that both of us in our mental maps of Eugene centralized our home as if it is the city center.