Lessons from a senior in PE 10

By Editor-in-Chief Alice (Wanru) Zhao

Between being graded on my (admittedly mediocre) mile time, hearing the inevitable super senior jokes from all of my friends, and exposing my general lack of athleticism to dozens of sophomores, there was a lot that I dreaded when I chose PE 10 on my senior year course registration last year. But most of all, I was terrified of the loneliness that I was sure would await me when the bell rang at 1:21 p.m. five days a week. I wasn’t friends with any underclassmen or other seniors who were required to take the class, so by the time the first day of school rolled around, I had already resigned myself to 52 minutes of daily isolation, kept company solely by the knowledge that I only had to make it through one semester of the class. Yet five weeks of school, three timed miles, and countless volleyball games later, I’ve found PE 10 to be surprisingly more bearable and fun (on occasion) than I initially expected it to be.

Being a senior in PE isn’t the only time I’ve disproved my own expectations. Last year, I was similarly terrified of taking AP Calculus BC; I’d always thought of myself as someone who was terrible at anything and everything related to math, and I had heard dozens of horror stories about what the class would do to my GPA. But by June, I had emerged from junior year not only having scraped by in the class but with a new friend group, forged in the flames of hours spent frantically memorizing integration shortcuts and error bound formulas. This summer, I seriously considered quitting my youth orchestra — which, when considering transportation and rehearsal time, takes up 4.5 hours every Friday for the entirety of the school year. But when the first season started at the beginning of this month, I realized that I’d underestimated how much I missed the weekly rehearsals: feeling the thrill of finally perfecting an arpeggio after an hours worth of practice, learning to play my friends’ violins during break, and listening to the sounds of our instruments blending into the now-familiar melodies of classical symphonies, overtures, and concertos.

Throughout high school, I’ve always been quick to make assumptions about myself — and my ability (or lack thereof) to set a volleyball, solve calculus problems, or play the flute. But as I prove these assumptions wrong time and time again, I’ve realized that my own expectations have been the reason why I was initially miserable at the thought of attending orchestra, PE, and calculus, not any actual dissatisfaction with these activities and classes. The idea of “stepping outside your comfort zone” had always been familiar to me, but I’d only ever thought about it in extremes, such as skydiving or braving jumpscare-heavy horror movies with friends — and never anything as mundane as academic life. I definitely hadn’t thought about it as confronting my recurring nightmare of obtaining a double-digit mile time (and subsequently failing PE) through experiencing the strange exhilaration that comes with finishing the final lap around the track every week, red-faced and ready to collapse.

Does this mean that I’ve stopped feeling embarrassed whenever someone walks through the PE quad during fifth period and sees the words “Mission San Jose Physical Education” emblazoned across my shirt? Definitely not. But as my high school journey comes to a close and I begin my college applications, I find myself thinking about challenging my own expectations more often than not. Starting the process that I’ve spent 17 years both anticipating and dreading has not only allowed me to reflect on how much I’ve grown since my freshman year but has also left me wondering about how I will continue to grow in my college environment. But regardless of what kind of person I will become in the next five years, one thing will stay the same: my conviction to reconsider the preconceived notions I hold about myself — one mile, derivation, and harmony at a time.