School is here

A new school year has started! For some, this is bad news, but not for me. I guess it really depends on how your last school year went. If it was great, then you’d probably be looking forward to another year. However, sometimes we come across a school year that just wasn’t good enough. Let me share with you some of the items that worked for me last year and who knows, it might work for you too. After all, who wouldn’t want to have a great, memorable and a fun school year, right?

My last school year was above all, if not the best, one of the best I’ve had so far. It was my first year in high school so it was quite a challenge trying to get used to a brand new school and more so, to the high school environment. Luckily, many of my friends from junior high moved to the same high school, so I didn’t have that much of a problem making new friends because there were lots of familiar faces. But with that being said, one of the first things I thought of when I arrived at my new school was the friends that I would be making. Having a great school year also reflects on the friends you’ve made. You’d want to make friends who will inspire you, push you to your limits, and encourage you to succeed. You wouldn’t want to make friends who will discourage you or basically become a bad influence in your life. All of us have the power to choose our friends. I realized how lucky I am to be surrounded with supportive and loving friends and I’m very proud that I’ve chosen the right ones. Choosing the right friends is a very important aspect of a great school year.

Another thing that helped me a bunch was the extra-curricular activities I joined. Ask yourself “What things am I interested in?” and start from there. For me, I’m very interested in the performing arts, and so I joined the vocal jazz program at my school. This allowed me to not only widen my knowledge in music and appreciate it even more, but it also allowed me to make more friends who have the same interests as me. I was very active with the performances and practices, and it was pretty much a break from all the homework and stress from academics. Schools offer a wide variety of programs and courses that you can check out and find out for yourself if any interest you. I found that joining extra curricular activities helped me become a lot more comfortable with my school and at the same time made my school year much more fun!

All along, I’ve been talking about fun, fun, fun. But school is a place for learning above all. Imagine, every time we go to each of our classes, it opens our minds to the world around us. Although I was really busy with my friends and my extra curricular activities, I made a commitment to myself to make time for my academics. It’s the main reason why we attend a school. It is important to remind ourselves to persevere and work hard especially with academics because in the end, we won’t regret it. Make many goals for yourself. Make sure that you make them realistic and yet ambitious. Remember, you have the opportunity to learn as much as you can now that you’re in school than you’ll ever have in the future. There are many kids in different parts of the world who really want to go to school and learn what we’re learning, but they can’t because they have to pay. We’re very lucky to have the option of going to public schools for free education. We are pretty much being handed success, it’s just up to us to accept it.

This year I plan to get more involved with school activities, focus on my academics and to make even more friends. Let us all remind ourselves that school is cool! I hope that we can make this school year if not the best, another one of the best school years in our lives. Good luck and all the best to everyone!

Yvanne Dandan is a Grade 11 student at Daniel McIntyre Collegiate Institute