Me among the limbs

You just got out of third period and after five seconds the halls are congested. Your swift pace has slowed to a crawl and you’re plastered against an unknown person who didn’t apply enough deodorant this morning. To make matters worse, a food-demanding beast has taken residence in your stomach. Just when you see an opening among the limbs, a group of friends deems this is a good place to catch up on recent developments during the last period; now you’ll be late to lunch. It is a mere 10 second countdown until you blow your lid.

Feel alone in your annoyance? Don’t worry; in a recent survey of West High students, 68 percent understand your aggravation.

West High is the fifth largest high school in Iowa with over 2,000 students, according to a survey done by Niche; with that many people, pet peeves are bound to arise. A few pet peeves have greater dominance than others, the sheer size of the student body being one of them; passing time then becomes a problem with such congestion.

“How are you supposed to get from one side of the school to orchestra and not die?” Samalya Thenuwara ’18. 

With only five minutes to get to classes, she brings up a valid point; if people drag their feet in the halls, then they are contributing to the time pressure. Still others find it acceptable to create a blockage in the middle of the hallway. You’re on a warpath to the lunchroom, getting stuck behind people who were clearly not taught the socially acceptable way to walk.You ask yourself: how can they be so oblivious? Clearly they should know better than to get between you and food. Elise Femino ’18 echoes this sentiment, “I was just walking and these freshmen were blocking the hall; I couldn’t get past, so I told them to please move. The girl just rolled her eyes.” Femino stressed the importance of respecting our classmates. “Regardless of whether we have a bad day or find a certain person insufferable, it’s good to realize that there are other people in orbit around us and that they, too, have places to go.” The final student grievance is that of people not respecting other’s opinions. Although it’s fine to be strongly opinionated, students must tread carefully when expressing such opinions and not try to ‘convert’ someone to their own beliefs. An anonymous source said, “Our school happens to be traditionally liberal and I [am] more on the conservative side. Several times over the past few months, I’ve been in discussions with some [liberal-minded] people and they’d ask me specifically what I believed about something. Then they’d lecture me about why I was wrong. Or not lecture I guess, but try to convince me to share their belief. It was just devaluing my opinion by making it seem inconsequential,” she said. “You believe what you believe and I’ll believe what I believe and it’ll all be cool. I’ll respect your opinion, but don’t try to change mine.”