By Ethan Walshe
Managing Editor

You know what really grinds my gears? When I’m trying to use my four minutes in between classes to get to my next class or quickly chat with a friend of mine, and all of my progress is halted, usually by one of, or a combination of, these three main offenders: the slow-walkers, the space-takers and the couples.

The slow-walkers have a very self-explanatory name bestowed upon them by me. These are the people who take all the time in the world to walk from A to B. I don’t like to think of myself as a particularly fast walker and that I’m just faster than everyone else and it’s really my fault, but rather that I walk places with purpose. These slow-walking people frequently make negotiating the halls between classes a challenge, even causing delays to some students who have to go from one end of the school to the other to make the bell, which I do more than once a day. I would like to respectfully request that these students quicken their pace, and think of the other students who have a longer distance to travel in the same amount of time.

The second group I have defined, the space-takers, are those students who travel the halls three of four abreast, making passing a virtual impossibility. Whether they are having a quick group discussion between classes or are just very chummy is unbeknownst to me, but this is a common occurrence at Westford Academy. This again goes with my theme of making travel in the halls between classes difficult. Should someone (me for example) need to pass this large group (who are more likely than not also slow-walkers given their group size) in order to get to class on time, an awkward movement through them followed by two or three awkward utterances of “excuse me” becomes very necessary.

The third group are the couples. I have absolutely nothing against them as people. So you have a special someone in your life, fantastic, high-five, but when these individuals feel the need to stop in the middle of the hall during my commute and hold up hallway traffic with quick make out sessions and prolonged good-byes (Really? You are most likely going to see each other again in 51 minutes anyway) that we begin to have a problem. If you haven’t picked up on this by now, I really don’t like being held up in the halls, and these frequent offenders are possibly the most irksome of the lot. I would like to politely ask that you move yourselves to the farthest side of the hallway by the lockers so as not to hold up traffic further.

As I’ve outlined, there are the three main groups that make transversing the hallways a nuisance. It would be fantastic if these students could alter their usual patterns of travel accordingly to make those four minutes between classes easier for everybody.