In Profile 1, Ballenger is interviewing and learning the life of David Mills and the

lobstermen. He realizes that he's more focused on getting information rather than actually
listening to the stories and experiences of David Mills and the lobstermen.
Ballenger realizes in his experiences with the lobstermen that he's hearing and not
actually listening. There's a clear difference between hearing and listening to a person's
experiences. Hearing is not observing the information that someone is giving you. Listening
requires a person to interpret the information given to them. Ballenger realizes that he's focused
on finding information for his profile instead of listening to the lobstermen's stories themselves.
In "The Curious Writer", Bruce Ballenger evolves into a listener when he realizes he "had
stopped really listening to this quiet man, who happened to be a lobsterman." (118) He noticed
that he wasn't taking advantage of the opportunity to listen to the lobstermen's stories which can
be related back to college. In classes, you don't really observe the information taught to you
without listening first. You can hear the information, but that doesn't mean you understand and
learn from the information taught to you.