When I first came to Ames High, I was a bright-eyed optimistic P.E. All-Star. I used P.E. as an escape from my mundane life. Now, after 3.5 years, P.E. has taken that person that I was, put him in a straitjacket, and beat him with bamboo shoots. P.E. does serve a need in the average students life. It shows valuable life skills such as calculating your BMI (which is seriously a good thing), knowing that every sport is a life sport, and most importantly, how to run in a circle. However, is it really necessary to have such silly rules and regulations for the class? So I don’t have a plain t-shirt, teachers should be happy I am even wearing clothes to class today. This brings me to my most important point. Why do we play games that we hate? Sure, we do play Ultimate Frisbee and basketball from time to time. But those times are overshadowed by the time that I would rather watch my friends whither away from an incurable disease than play another game of Speedball. The chum bucket of P.E. activities though is the wretched beast that is Hooverball. Take a medicine ball, a volleyball net, a class full of normal apathetic students, and there you got a scat filled burrito of P.E. games: Hooverball. Every time I hear that Hooverball is the game of the day, I wish that I would get some sort of horrible parasitic disease that made it impossible for me to walk again. Normally, that would depress someone, but if another result of that disease were my never having to play Hooverball again, I would inject the parasites into myself. P.E. does not have to be the hell that it seems to be for most students. I propose a re-examination of the curriculum, as any result would be a positive result. What the P.E department needs is to not take itself so seriously. I remember a while ago I had a teacher tell me this is not recess, but physical EDUCATION. Maybe doing things students actually are known to enjoy and understand that it could just be another class that needs to not add stress to a students life. That to me is what makes P.E. so unbearable. I am a student with other things to worry about, not whether or not I break a sweat climbing the poorly designed and slightly dangerous bouldering wall. Learning about the origins of Stupidball–excuse me, I mean Hooverball–should be the least of my worries. Plus, some days I don’t like to break a sweat. Some days I prefer to learn when I am clean and not self-conscious of my stinky feet. Thank God that only a semester of P.E. remains. After that I will never have to run the pacer, play Hooverball, or stretch for half the class period ever again. To tell the honest truth, I would rather have my fingernails ripped from my body and replaced with hot shards of broken glass than to have to take another P.E. class again. I just feel sorry for you young underclassmen/women.