The cafeteria is one of the main hubs for students to gather. Throughout the day, students, teachers, parents, siblings, and a huge variety of people travel through the cafeteria with their own tasks at mind. With its abundance of space, the possibility of activities that can take place in the cafeteria are endless; however, even though the it may not seem like that, the cafeteria is not used to its fullest potential. With all the clutter in the far left corner and the unusual display of trophies, much more is possible for our cafeteria.

By now most students are well aware of the corner of the cafeteria which looks like the croissant version of Pandora’s box exploded in the corner. And topping off France’s defense, The Great Wall of Neglection. It wasn’t until closer inspection that I realized that the sad-looking cabinets that line the wall were actually supposed to be display cases. Some of these stands are barely able to do as their name implies. The only items remaining in these stands built to display athletic and academic achievement are broken glass, a piece of toast(age unknown), little to no previous items once displayed(from 1986), and jackets long forgotten by their previous owners.

Out of all the uniquely odd objects compiled into that corner, the object that stand out the most is the grand mountain of boxed something. Not the leaning tower of cardboard, no, the giant stack of boxes containing items unknown. Why the printer paper is there the world may never know. But one thing is certain, NASH, as a whole, has plenty of whatever is stored in those boxes.

Moving away from the leaning tower of mystery, we now focus on the display room of trophies. Well, there’s not much to say. It’s  just a room…full of trophies…just kinda chilling on the floor. The room itself provides onlookers with a great game of “Name That Trophy.” The backstories of most of these trophies remain a mystery since most of the trophies are too cluttered or far away for people to view the engravings featured on the trophies. While they are left to remain on the ground, few find residence in the stationary trophy cases positioned around the cafeteria. Some, however, are properly displayed in nicely decorated trophy cases. The only problem, it is behind the deplorable trophy cases and blocked by the leaning tower of mystery. Life lesson-you win some you lose some.

While the trophies in the “display room” have remained on the floor, some have received damage due to their placement. Some have completely lost the figures representing the sport the trophy represents. Others show signs of being dropped or compressed in some shape or form. This causes many of the trophies to lack the former glory that they once possessed. Now the trophy room is just a storage room with transparent walls and a lot of trophies.

While not as major as the trophies, the plaques lining the wall have also been confronted with issues. Some of these plaques have fallen off their mounts, left to rest on the shells of the display cases. Others cannot even be seen by onlookers as they have been placed in France’s paper empire. For the most part, however, these remain highly intact and presentable.

With the current situation of this section of the cafeteria, there are multiple ways to help to reduce the clutter facing the cafeteria. First starting with the trophy room and cases. By scraping the old glass cases and installing cases fit for holding the weight of the trophies, the school could lessen the clutter of the current trophy arrangement by redistributing the trophies to these different cases across the cafeteria.

By removing the unnecessary clutter from the cafeteria, the school can expand the practicality of the cafeteria for all parties involved. This will not only enhance the available space in the cafeteria but would also allow for a more flowing design, instead of the walls of terror currently present.

With time and effort, the cafeteria could get a refresh that features display cases that don’t contain content from 2001.