Dear Salle 106,

Mon amour, bonjour! It has been too long since we’ve seen each other and I’ve missed you greatly. Although our time together could be seen as rather bothersome and torturous since I was taking classes daily from 9AM until 4PM,  I absolutely loved my time in this space. At first, waking up at 8AM in order to arrive in class on time became very tedious and extremely tiring, especially after being at Dartmouth where i could choose my class schedule. Everyday, I remember opening the door into your room and immediately being greeted with a wave of heat. No matter the weather and temperature outside, you were always so warm, almost too warm where it caused students to instantly remove their large winter coats or lulled students to sleep. However, I always found the immense warmth cozy and comforting, a nice balance between the winter cold outside. The classroom was arranged with a desk for the professor at the front of the room and three long rectangular tables forming a u-shape facing the professor.  Sitting at the long rectangle desk, I always chose the seat in the back corner, closest to the radiator and farthest from the front of the classroom (i.e. where our professor would be). Although I loved my spot it came with a price as students who need to step out of the room would need to alongside all the other students, bumping into them since we were closest to the wall. Nevertheless, your walls were a bright white with a whiteboard at the front of the classroom and the high bright fluorescent lights gave the room a rather pure feeling. Your design was very simple and surprisingly peaceful despite the bright and kind of blinding lights, lingering above the students. Nonetheless, I look back to you, that room, in a sweet and nostalgic remembrance, thinking of those very lights as your eyes looking down on all of us. While its been nice being back at Dartmouth, I’ve missed the simplicity you had and the sense of peace and comfort that developed over the many days and hours I spent with you. Here at Dartmouth, all of our class do not take place in the same room so it is as if you cannot fully develop a relationship with the spaces in which we have classes; students walk in, participate in class, and then run out for their next activity. However, with you, yes I would spend time in the classroom environment, but you were also a social space as we would often go out to get lunch and then return to you to talk and enjoy each other’s company. Our days together reminded me of my time in elementary school where I had class all day and did everything in one classroom. Then, I would call that particular room my own as we decorated the walls with things particular to us and our group. Behind my seat, was a large sheet of paper decorated by Dartmouth students before; they drew the outline of the human body but instead of human features, the body was decorated with staples of Lyon that were significant to them. In this way, you felt like a unified parent of Dartmouth students a part of this program, participating for generations and always excited to welcome more to the family. I miss that welcoming and inviting feeling that you possessed and wish that other classrooms at Dartmouth carried the same significance as you.

This exercise was surprisingly quite fun and interesting, especially because I chose a relatively basic/simple location. I wanted to talk about our daily classroom because the journal entry felt as if it were an homage to the mundane or the routine. We often neglect or diminish the value of the daily aspects of our lives but I find that the routine portions of our lives can have unforeseen worth.