Before
8:00am: The practice room, which is inside the music room. Despite the
implications of the name, the room is not soundproof. However, before
school there is usually no one else around with the exception of the
occasional music teacher drifting through to or from the adjacent office.
There used to be a comfortable chair inside the practice room. It was old
and musty, but somehow when one sits in it they tend to find those aspects
desirable. Endearing, perhaps. Other accommodations include empty
cabinets, and a female Ethernet jack left over from when the room was an
office.
First
period (8:00 – 8:45am): The
hallways. Any other time in the day, the halls would be contaminated with
students making expeditionary trips to the restrooms and water fountains,
if only to relieve themselves of the accumulating tensions associated with
remaining static and quiet in a classroom. This early in the day, however,
students seem to be more docile and content to be still. Even the study
hall (in the multi-purpose room, linking the two halls) is hushed, the
students lowering their voices unconsciously. Or perhaps the study hall
overseer happens to be one of those teachers who insists on a talkless
study hall. I wouldn’t know. Either way, the hallways are quiet for now.
Second
Period (8:59-9:44am): The stage.
The music room, now filled with the sixth grade band, is no longer quiet,
and subsequently neither is any adjacent room. The stage, however,
although in proximity to the music room, is surprisingly quiet. It is
dark, with all types of equipment scattered about behind the thin black
curtains. Football helmets, the forsaken frames of work-out contraptions,
socks, and the rough, wooden frames of past and current theater production
sets, courtesy of the Zion HS drama machine. There is still plenty of room
at the back of the stage, though, where you won’t be noticed by the
passersby in the gymnasium.
Third
period is not quiet. Third period is never quiet.
Lunch
Time (12:15-12:45pm): The
restroom is very quiet towards the end of lunch, surprisingly. It is only
in the last five minutes or so, and for the next several minutes after the
bell rings, that the indigenous bathroom inhabitants begin to make their
rounds.
Sixth
Period (12:47-1:33pm): The
walkway, outside, between the stairs, below the catwalk. For some reason
the traffic around the upstairs classrooms is relatively low at this time.
The people that do come this way are almost inevitably headed towards the
stairs at either end of the walkway. This means that the space in between
receives very little use. It is a bit of a shame, because other than the
mud cleat-prints leading into the locker rooms, this area is rather
pleasant. It is relatively clean, has fresh air, and affords the pleasant
view of a grassy hill. And of course, it is quiet.
Seventh
period (1:36-2:22): Back to the
music room. If it is spring, then the humidity will have accumulated in
the room by now, bringing with it a stale sweat odor that sets itself
deeply in the thin blue carpet between the Mayfly corpses. This is because
the room has been used as a locker room. For this reason, we recommend a
scent masking device (such as a vanillaroma scented tree) in the upper
panels of the practice room, near the vent. It is also tends to get very
cold, be it summer or winter. To work around this, it is recommended that
one curls up on the practice-room recliner with a good Mexican blanket.
Finally, if all else fails, one can take hermetic refuge by crawling into
one of the empty cabinets, which affords just enough room to assume a comfortable
fetal position.