My Learning Environment: A Short Composition

My Learning Environment: A Short Composition
By: Rose Nesbitt

My learning environment is my office, down the hall by three steps from my bedroom. The walls are white and the floor is covered in white carpet. Pushed against one wall is a small, dark brown cabinet that holds all of my supplies, above it hands a poster of the world.
On another wall there is a make-shift book shelf made of bricks and boards that holds my collection of novels. Above the book shelf is a poster of the wicked queen from snow white, between her long-fingered hands she holds a bubbling goblet full of pink liquid. She stares out at the room with a coldly aloof gaze… my version of a motivational poster.
Opposite of the wicked queen is where my desk is. It’s a corner desk. On one side I have my home laptop, filled with stories, pictures, games, and downloads that I got off the internet or that were sent to me by friends. A few books keep my ‘home laptop’ company.
The other arm of the desk is my school laptop which is joined by pictures of friends and family. Above my school laptop is a poster of the green Absinth Fairy, rising from a smoky skull and smirking knowingly down at me, next to her is my Born of the Night calendar. At the moment the picture is that of a green fairy queen, gazing thoughtfully through a misty swamp, in one delicate hand she clutches a narrow wand, crowned with a pointed emerald the size of her fist.
Masks are a commonality throughout the room, smiling or glaring down at me with coldly knowing or sweetly blank eyes.
I chose this location to do my school work because it is where the laptop fits best and because it is where I am used to doing all my work. It’s my office; my little den of creativity.
I am able to focus best in this room because there is a flat surface to put my laptop and because here I can influence the entire room with my will. There is nothing in here that I did not carefully select to make the walls, floor and even ceiling my very own.
The one distraction in this learning environment is my home laptop. That is where I constantly have other programs open so I’ll never be completely inundated with my schoolwork.
To make my learning space more effective I could keep my home laptop closed… but I find the option to swing around and do something else other than my school work very helpful; I never feel the hopeless oppression of a brick and mortar school because, if I so choose, I can turn my chair slightly and talk to some of my friends over instant messaging.