When I came to Stevenson, I was already trying to improve myself. I set the goal of breaking out of my introverted and shy self and becoming someone. I could be more confident in at the start of my high school journey. I took classes that interested me even if nobody I knew was taking them. 

My first year’s electives were marketing and debate, and I think those classes truly helped me on my journey. Marketing forced me to talk with everybody at my table about projects or asking for help on an assignment, which I was scared of at first, especially when it came to the older students. 

In debate, I was forced to become comfortable with performing or presenting in front of a class. Debate was something I knew I was good at already at the time, and I was excited to exercise that ability, which made it easier to stand in front of the class and speak.  

In my junior year, it was more of the same. I took newspaper and weight training, both of which were social classes. They forced me to overcome my fear of socializing with people I was not familiar with or did not know at all. That year, it was my core classes that encouraged the most personal growth. My math and English classes specifically allowed me to realize that I was putting too much care into worrying about how others perceived me and agonizing over every small thing I did. I might have been exposed to these things early in high school with all these classes, but it has taken until the second semester of this year to really shed any worry when it comes to these things.  

I still remember one time I was in the bathroom washing my hands and this random guy asked me to tell him something interesting about myself, and the best I could come up with was I had recently gotten a lava lamp. Not something interesting about myself or what I have done, but something completely unrelated to me.  

This year has been the best year of my life; from the friends I have made to what I have learned about myself. Now, I can walk into school without a care about if every strand of hair looks perfect or overanalyze every social interaction to see if the other person might think I am weird. I can just enjoy the time I have left here and look forward to the rest of my life.