1. 3:00pm

Nothing but silence meets me as soon as I walk into LTSC 308.

The distinct gentle yet outputting sound of air is buzzing near the back of the room.

The subtle sounds of a door creaking can be heard as a backpack falls to the ground at the table next to mine.

It’s quiet and the atmosphere is serene, only to be interrupted by the loud utterance of a male that sits uncomfortably silent.

As the words trickle out of his mouth, they fall to the floor, almost like the room swallowed them up whole as if to say “no more of that.”

No one opens their mouth to answer him let alone lifts their heads to meet his gaze.

The murmur of other voices is muted by the windowless covered whiteboard filled walls.

By the pushing up of his glasses we begin and the room no longer feels so forbidden.

2. Heat

Waking up in a pool of my sweat is never fun. I feel like I become a puddle of my former self. I unstick myself from what’s left of the sheets barely draped over my body. What once was a cocoon quickly turned into suffocation by cotton overnight. The dry air in the room leaves my lips as brittle as burned wheat swaying in the sunshine. Never have I longed for the cool refreshing breeze of a fan more. Tossing and turning offers little comfort to avoiding the stickiness of the heat in this room. In action sleeping on a bed too small for my body truly requires an intricate choreographed dance. Legs sticking out, socks on and off, lying flat on my stomach and lying on back with nothing but the view of the upper bunk’s mattress all comes to mind. As the sun creeps in through the slots on the blinds, I groggily roll over as I am not ready to actually go about my day. The sun happily disobeys my wishes as it scrolls across the room following me like Peter Pan’s mischievous shadow. This is a cat and mouse game I would very much like to be excluded from however, c’est la vie the day waits for no one.