My academic journey at the Dansalan College Foundation is a colorful one. But I believe, that I was destined to be who I am now and what I have achieved so far, with the guidance, grace and mercy of the Almighty.
When my parents enrolled me at the Pre-School department of the Dansalan College Foundation, I made an impression on my teachers on my first month of attending school that they informed my mom that I was a fast learner and one of the potential achievers of our batch. My parents were so happy with the information and they bought all sorts of goodies that a child of my age would want. I was five years old then, when I entered my formal schooling at the pre-school department.
My recollection of my pre-school experience was not quite bright. I only have some sort of flashback memories whenever my father would play the videos of my pre-school days. Yeah, I have lots of them. Those videos, I mean. My parents made it a point that whenever we, together with my brothers and sister have school activities or programs, they would always be around to video the event and with lots of pictures too, thanks to the invention of the Sony video and cyber camera. My father would always say that those videos and pictures he took would come in handy someday. And it just did. When I graduated in my senor kinder, during my celebration, all my videos and pictures were played via a power point projector. All my guests were amazed on my achievements and all of our activities including our rendition of the playlet, Rapunzel.
My experiences in the elementary department was quite different from my pre-school days. All of our academic curriculum went a notch higher. The subjects were difficult and were quite complicated. But I endured and challenged myself to be always on top. That was my goal. We were always reminded by our parents to always aim for the top. So that our study habits would be focused on aiming high grades. But actually, the rationale behind aiming for the top grade would be to be able to stay focused on studying our subjects. Aiming for the top grade have its benefits, for if you don’t get the top grade, you would definitely land in the second top grade. Our eldest brother, are now reaping the benefits of focused study habits. He survived the Institute of Science Education-Science Training Center High School of the Mindanao State University, Main Campus. He passed the scholarship entrance examination of the Mindanao State University and landed into the realm of Academic Scholars. And due to their rigid academic training in the science high school, he passed all of his college subjects with flying colors, particularly the subjects that many college students hate, math and chemistry. They are his favorite subjects and Physics too. Hope to follow on his footsteps.
Due to that training we have with our parents I was also able to have my own achievements. I am a consistent With High Honor pupil since grade 1. I am now in the grade 6 level and hope to maintain my With High Honor status or better. I am a math Olympiad of our school having won many Math Olympics competition.
One of them is the MetroBank-Math Teachers Association of the Philippines (MTAP) Math Challenge competition held annually. The other one is the Mindanao State University- College of Science and Mathematics, Math and Science Wizard Supremacy quiz Bowl. Our school is the defending champion for two consecutive years and we are going to defend our Championship title this year for the Grand Slam title.
In order to improve on my confidence, My father adviced me to join the Pupil Government Organization when I was in my 4th grade which is the equivalent to the Student Body Organization in High School and College. I won as a 4th 4th Grade Representative. In my 5th grade, I was elected as the PGO Vice-President and now on my 6th grade I was fortunate enough to have been elected as the PGO President. Only one of my party mates did not make it during the election.
I was also fortunate enough to be a member of our school paper, The Collegian as its Senior Columnist. Started as a contributing writer when I was in my 4th grade. Became its Associate Editor in my 5th grade and now a Senior Columnist. My membership in the collegian did have an impact on my writing skills.
Last August 2014 we started to attend scholarship and entrance examination to various high schools in Iligan City for the 7th grade. I was so happy to have qualified as a scholar to the Philippine Science High School Scholarship Qualification Examination. Out of the 23,606 grade 6 pupils who took the exam nationwide, only 1,303 qualified as scholars for the prestigious Philippine Science High School. In Marawi City, my hometown, only six (6) pupils qualified. In our school the Dansalan College Foundation, I was the only passer of our batch. I was humbled by the result of the examination, but was thankful to the Almighty for the guidance and to my parents who trained us well to remain focused on our goals.
I am glad that my parents were able to capture all those moments which would form part of our colorful memories of our school. The opportunity to watch our past activities in school would always have that funny feeling watching ourselves awkwardly. There would be times during weekends and holidays that our parents would buy our favorite flavor ice cream and lots of chips and would engage us to a whole day marathon watching all our videos starting from the eldest down to our youngest sibling. We had so much fun time together as a family, laughing at our bloopers and funny moments caught on cam.
Those were the most memorable journey, moments for me, bonding together as one strong family through our life’s moments caught on camera. Hope my high school journey would maintain my focus on my goal to become a successful Medical Doctor someday someone that will be of help to all.
Thank you for taking the time reading my blog. May the Almighty bless us all.
Comments