I realized not too long ago that our school isn't the biggest place in the world. We have one major hallway, where practically every class is. But that's not the only thing I've recently noticed. I also noticed the strange things that happen between people in the hallway. It all starts with people you know. You're walking down, probably on the way to your class, and you see one of your good friends. Maybe it's one of the guys who live just upstairs from you, and you hang out all the time. So it's really nothing that crazy. But nonetheless, you see this "dude" walking in the hallway, so you stop, you say hi, you ask what they're doing later tonight. You know the drill. It's really not that awkward, it's something you do practically every day. But that's only the beginning. Just minutes later, you're walking through the hallway, and you see one of those people you've only met one time. You know who they are, but you don't even remember their name. You both make eye contact, so you have no choice but to say, "Hey, what's up." It's one of those things that you just do by impulse, and you don't even know why. "Hey, what's up?" It's practically second nature by now. Then you just walk away. And that's it. Those people have become the ones you know just because you see them in the hallway, and you say hi. They are nothing more than hallway friends. You would never hang out with them, or call them up late at night. The lifespan of this kind of friends is uncertain. Nobody knows the actual time that you can stop saying hi, but you know that date is inevitably coming. You will walk through the hallway, see the person you once said "Hey, what's up" to, and just plain ignore them, and it won't matter. The next hallway incident that bothers me is when you see someone at the absolute other end of the hallway. It always happens exactly the same way. The person you know is as far as possible, yet there is no one else in the hallway. And that's when you make eye contact. When this happens to me, I immediately begin to panic. I worry about when the proper time to say something is. There are several options. You can quickly turn into the first room you see, and pretend that's where you were going. But that doesn't always work. You can wait until the two of you are finally right next to each other to finally say hi. But that comes with a very long awkward silent walk. The third, and final option is to act like a total fool, and just start yelling things to this person all the way at the other end of the hallway. "HEY MARTIN, HOW ARE YOU DOING? I'M GOOD, HOW'S YOUR DAD, DOES HE STILL HAVE THAT DISEASE?" That's how I do it. I start right away, and just keep on talking until it's weird. Now as awkward as that is, it's not the worst thing that can happen. Saying hi to your friends isn't so bad, and neither is saying hi to people you only "kind of" know. Have you ever accidentally said hi to someone you thought you knew, but it turned out to be a total stranger? What exactly do you do in that situation? You can't just say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone I 'kind of' knew." That would be incredibly uncomfortable. You have to just play along, and pretend you knew exactly who that person is, then just briskly walk away. But greeting people in the hallway isn't the only thing about the hallway that bothers me. Have you ever walked through the hallway, and a total stranger is directly in front of you. You both walk practically straight into each other. Then you pause, and attempt to walk around each other. But for some reason, the exact same thing always happens. Both of you go left, and bump into each other again. Then you both go right, and bump into each other again. Then you try to go left again, and you guessed it, straight into the stranger again. Why does this happen? Why is it, that no matter what, I always go the same direction as the other person? This is without a doubt, the most annoying aspect of walking through the hallway, and it seems to happen a lot more than it should. Well, with all the complaining I've done today, you might be asking yourself, "Hey, does this crazy guy have any solutions to all these problems?" And my answer to that is, not really. The only solution I've come up with is pretending to be on my cell phone so that people think I can't say hi. It works amazingly well. It's been working for me for years. That, and just not going to class in general. If you skip class, you don't have to walk through the hallways, and you don't have to see anyone. It's the best of both worlds!