Nine o’clock strikes. The bell rings and once again innocent freshmen must face a terrifying jungle known as the CHS hallways.

Walking through the halls and trying to get to class can be a frightening experience for people who don’t know how to deal with it.

Before this story continues, freshmen must understand that these guidelines are for their own good. No one wants to be the incoming freshman who falls in the hallway or rolls down the stairs.

Hallway traffic has always been irritating. According to junior Vibha Gunjal, some people will purposely take up the whole hallway, or even just stop walking altogether.

“[Students should] plan how they get to class better,” Gunjal said. “If they can use a less busy hallway to get to class, they should.”

According to junior Hayden Saunders, the hallways could be compared to roads.

“The most annoying part of hallway traffic is probably [the students] who walk on the wrong side [of the hallway],” Saunders said. “[Students] have to stay in the right lane or else this throws the whole hallway traffic out of whack.”

The congestion in the halls is so exasperating for some because it could be avoided in most cases.

“Whenever I’m trying to get to class on time, there’s always a huge clump of people just standing around, especially in the middle hallways,” junior Alexa Wert said. “It is very unnecessary, this slowness.”

Usually people push and pull to get through the hallways, but in all honesty, if people learned to be a bit kinder and apologized when random people get trampled, the hallways would not be a mess. The freshmen would not be a problem for sophomores, the sophomores for the juniors and the juniors for the seniors and we would all be happy in the hallways.

“I try to avoid the middle hallways by taking the longer way around because there are less people,” Wert said. “I feel like I get to class faster, since there are less people in my way, so I can keep moving.”

Overcrowding is considered one of biggest nuisances in the halls.

“Bulldog hallway on the second floor is so congested,” junior Jacob Townsend said. “It’s like a battle zone out there. People have to resort to pushing and shoving to get through.”

The hallway traffic worries some because it delays students from getting to where they need to be.

“It makes me late to class and my teachers get mad at me,” junior Hannah Cooper said. “The social studies hallway is the most crowded by far.”

Hallways tend to not be that violent, but pushing or banging into other students can be considered a common occurrence for some. Maybe it’s time the SGA invested in some protective pads for students?

“Every day because I’m tall, a freshman will run into my shoulder,” senior Brendan Richard said. “The worst time was [when] the kid that fell all the way down.”

Embarrassing things will always happen to students in the halls. Sorry freshmen, it’s unavoidable and happens to the best of us.

“One time I was walking in the hallway, I tripped over nothing and fell into ten people,” junior Hannah Pitman said.

Incoming students, if something embarrassing ever happens in the hallway, stand up proudly and pretend like it never happened. Although the mishap will probably get noticed around school, standing up from a fall with dignity can earn tons of respect points. It takes more courage to stand up from a fall in the middle of the hallway, than to walk around school with a big head. Have a great first day!