Trekking through the hallways of any high school can often be a uniquely harrowing experience, and at Arcata High, it’s no different. On any given day during a regular passing period or break, an ugly amalgamation of disorder, clamor, and chaos can be seen as the student masses jumble together in a manic fashion. Everyone has a specific destination in mind and will reach it one way or another.
Some people have a mind for common courtesy, sticking to one side (the right side) of the hallway and keeping with the crowd. Many, however, enjoy walking (or standing) in the middle of the hallway, often in groups, taking up all available walking space as if in a heedless daze. This can often cause congestion and create a physical barrier that prevents people from getting where they need to go.
“I knock into those people sometimes, they’re like bowling pins. They should absolutely move,” senior Jack Biondo said.
Like a highway, people travel at many different speeds. This is yet another contributing factor to the disorder of the hallways. Some individuals have expressed a specific distaste for incredibly slow walkers.
“Just go to where you’re trying to go, or just get out of the way,” senior Brycen Collison said.
When “Will.i.am” and “Brittney Spears,” said to “scream and shout, and let it all out,” I think the Arcata High student body took it literally because at the busiest of times, the hallways can be the noisiest of places.
Another occurrence that leads to mass disturbance is the act of walking on the wrong side of the hallway (the left side). In this great country called the United States of America, it is socially accepted that; like motor vehicles on a road, you are to walk on the right side of the walkway. This, however, in many cases, isn’t how things go in the Arcata High hallways.
“We need to deport them all to England, because in England they drive on the wrong side of the road, and they would fit in better over there,” Biondo said.
A commonly overlooked aspect of the hallway design and campus as a whole is the lack of overhead coverage between classrooms, specifically when walking to and from the gym or across the quad. This is problematic on rainy days. The outside portions of the 100s and 200s classrooms aren’t safe from the elements either, because with enough wind the rain can and does fly in from the side, effectively defeating the purpose of the overhead cover.
One could say that these grievances represent minute headaches of the normal high school experience, but the way I see it these conditions are below the bare minimum of what is expected, and striving for just a little bit of improvement never hurt anyone.
So next time you’re marching down the middle of a crowded hallway, or yelling at your friends like a lunatic for all to hear, consider your surroundings and how appalled you would be if you could see yourself from someone else’s point of view.
