Bidding Farewell To Warmth

Hello again, langauge lab on the third floor of Wesleyan. Your pale walls and white boards, your pale cabinets and pale computer benches, all are so familiar to me. The French people are not yet in here dancing, and the end-of-semester rush to get in all one's hours have not yet started, yet the added atmosphere is not necessary.

Yes, I remember you. I remember you all too well. I have spent 90 hours of my life in your heartless, Antarctic depths, with the very breath of Boreas himself emanating from the vents on the ceiling.

I remember walking out into 90-degree weather and bending my fingers uncertainly, for they had gone numb with cold.

I remember hours of listening to songs from the 70's and 80's because it is so hard to find a German station that actually plays German music.

I remember the awkward keyboards and the institutional lightning.

I remember the cheerful laughter of free students out in the halls, taunting me.

I remember memorizing all the posters for Spanish festivals, since there was nothing else in the room to look at.

I remember how you tossed 500 of my minutes into the Void last semester, consigning them to the oblivion of Melkor, 'He Who Arises in Might', known to the Noldor and all of the posterity of Arda Marred as Morgoth. I remember how I had to spend an extra 500 minutes above and beyond the call of duty in the lab due to your negligence.

I remember how your computers refused to let me do my homework while I listened to corny 80's German songs.

I remember the pale blinds over the windows, allowing no blessed sunshine in.

I remember the squishy, squeaky chairs, and how I could not move in them without causing an uproar.

But, mostly, I remember the cold. I remember your frigid wastelands with the same dread that a cold-blooded reptile would hail an early frost. I will never forgot the wintry air blasting in my face from the vents, the way it would circulate around the benches and freeze my toes through two layers of socks.

I will never forget, and I will never forgive.

Hello again, language lab.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse