My First Semester as a Secondary One Student

My first semester as a secondary one student has been a fun, fruitful and rewarding experience. Although the journey was relatively tough compared to my primary school, I still managed to pull through, with results that were, in fact, not bad. Even more rewarding was the lessons I have learnt during this 6 month period.

A new school, new friends and a whole new life awaited me the moment I arrived at the gate. However, the orientation buddies and group mates were warm and friendly. I soon got to understand the Hwa Chong spirit, a spirit of warmth and camaraderie. This helped me in adapting to secondary school life.

Even thought we were ordered to cheer our hearts out on many occasions, I do not regard this as a chore or a responsibility, but instead as a sign of my utmost respect and loyalty to the school. These times spent cheering were a valuable lesson to me. It taught the importance of loyalty and repayment.

Another incident was when I was reprimanded for not bowing to a teacher. That teacher demanded that we bow to any teacher we meet. At first, I sneered and thought that forcing someone to show respect was quite ridiculous as the respect was not real respect but fear instead. However, now I know that everyone should be respected, especially our elders (teachers) because they have contributed to us something in one way or another.

In the beginning of the year, I was not really on good terms with a person in my CCA. Every time he hurled an insult at me, I was infuriated and really felt like punching him right there and then. But I knew that violence would only bring about more violence, thus starting the vicious cycle. Retaliation was not an answer. Instead, I ignored him and even helped him to solve his problems. Slowly, what used to be an easily agitated me turned into a patient and calm person. He soon became my best of friends, and we are on our way to winning another competition.

Hwa Chong has many interesting and fresh things to do. Firstly, the campus is exceptionally big! Usually, we take 8 minutes to walk from the classroom to the art studio, and this has caused the whole class to be reprimanded countless times. However, I appreciate the campus as it is scenic and spacious, unlike my primary school. The fact that the school has a whole block of science labs and a whole block of computer labs never fails to amaze me. What’s more, there is a full size track and field readily available, with many gymnasiums.

My grades have been quite good this two terms, but not you would call brilliant. However, I did show a slight improvement in my grades; form 1.83 to 1.50! I want to work harder in the next few months to make sure I improve some more.