Danielle Vergara 1E1

I am Danielle Legaspi Vergara from Juying Secondary School and I graduated from Boon Lay Garden Primary School.

I found Juying as one of my choices as there was a wide variety of CCAs. From Show Choir to NCCDC and to badminton, there was a lot of choices to choose from. I really love to dance and therefore, I decided to join Hip Hop.

It was very frightening at first as there were so many new faces, but all the seniors and teachers were very welcoming towards all the secondary one students. The seniors tried to get to know us and that really made it easier for me to adjust to the new environment. There were a lot of things I was confused about and did not know of but the seniors guided us and helped us every step of the way. As time passed, I felt that they were really were a family that I wanted to be a part of. The physical trainings in Hip Hop were very exhausting and with each workout I really wanted to give up. However, watching the seniors inspired me a lot and made me realise how important it was to put in hard work and to be disciplined for every goal you want to accomplish.

Juying also has fun programmes such as PASSION which stands for People, Arts, Science, Sports, ICT, Outreach and Nature. For this programme, you can choose what you like and what I like about this programme is that it is not like a normal lesson in the classroom. For me, I joined the Waste module where we learned about food waste and tried to come up with solutions for the problems about food waste in school through the interviews we conducted with students, teachers, vendors and the staff. It was a great experience as I got to learn new things about what I was interested about and made new friends while at it.

Lastly, I would like to talk about the Secondary 1 Orientation week and camp. It was the first time I was able to get to talk with my classmates. At first, I was shy around them and they were all like strangers to me. After the camp, I felt close and was extremely excited to have even more experiences with them. There were many fun games and activities that helped to bond us. The most memorable thing about the camp for me was the campfire. The preparations for my class had been a total mess and we all had varying opinions and after a lot of voting, we decided to do a skit. We all were rushing to complete a script and practice it. Nevertheless, we all really enjoyed the process. During the campfire, we all laughed and danced together. There had been a lot of heartfelt speeches from the seniors and I am grateful that I had them as our orientation group leaders.

These are some of the reasons why I enjoy going to Juying and I am sure you will too.