UNTITLED

UNEDITED SAMPLE LITERARY ARTICLE
By Clarisse Anne Changco Dacanay
IV - Michael Faraday


“When God closes a door, he opens a window.”

Even before as a child, I’ve always believed that God has a special plan for me, that he has something for me waiting at the end of the tunnel.

When I was a child, I have always aimed to be the best. In everything I do, I put a hundred and ten percent in it because I know that in everything I do, I offer it to the Lord. Although I give my all, sometimes God just does not give everything that I want. When I was in preparatory to grade two, I experienced a sense of biased judgment. At a young age, I have experienced fraudulent decisions from my former school. I had a schoolmate who was very charming and lovely. She decided to join a contest at a nearby mall and people anticipated her to win. After she had won, a television network offered her to be an artist. Of course everyone who was given a chance to be famous and to be known would definitely accept the offer and so this is where my struggle started. Ever since she became an artist, she would always be absent during class hours and she would often come to school and attend remedial classes. And although she had these complicated activities, she was still declared to be the valedictorian of our batch. Not only was this my sole struggle but still I had another adversity to face. I had another schoolmate who was also competing to be on the honor roll. Her family was very affluent and our school was very much aware of this. I, for one, could tell that our school was very grateful for their very fortunate status. Well unfortunately for me, we were not that well-off and we didn’t have enough funds to donate to our school or to influence the teachers there. Because of this, my schoolmate was the salutatorian of our batch and I ended up being the third honorable mention. Although the gap between our places are very big, I still kept it inside of me for I know that if those two people were not on the top of the honor roll, I would have the chance to have a higher rank or so. Because my mother could not bear this injustice, she decided that she finally had enough and she transferred me to another school. This is where the goodness of God first shone on me.

In the next school that I transferred to, the tuition fee was a bit high for our family to afford. But we learned that Gary Valenciano was sponsoring some of the less fortunate students studying there who have exemplary grades. Unfortunately, he only sponsored the children of pastors. But despite this, we still tried because we knew that there was no harm in trying. When Gary saw my grades in my past school, he was amazed and he considered me for his scholarship. So I studied in a good school and didn’t have to pay for it because of my hard work. For about three years, Mr. Gary Valenciano was paying for my tuition fee. When I was in grade six, I experienced another fraudulent decision and had a dilemma to face. I had a classmate who was well-off because her father was a news reporter in one of the biggest television network companies in our country. Her mother would always come to our school and give the teachers there food and gifts. We didn’t mind this and considered this as an act of goodness. When the time for the deliberation of honor students came, this was where it all got complicated. There were rumors spreading in our school that I would become the salutatorian and my said classmate would only be the first honorable mention. When her mother heard of this rumor, she immediately went to the school and had a meeting with our teachers. They asked all our teachers if any one of them would like to increase her daughter’s grade so that she could catch up or even take my place as the salutatorian. Fortunately, only one of the teachers agreed to increase her daughter’s grade and this was our Music teacher. She changed my classmate’s grade to a hundred but my classmate still did not catch up because our grade difference was huge. I was very grateful to God because he didn’t allow my classmate to defeat me. So one of my burdens was relieved but still I had another one yet to come. We learned that Mr. Gary Valenciano would be stopping his scholarship in our school. I was very sad when I heard this news. How would I go to high school? Would my mother allow me to stay in that school? Would we have enough money to pay for my tuition fee? There were many questions in my head and these were only a few of them. My cousin encouraged me to take the entrance exams in Philippine Science High School. She told me that I might pass there and I could study there. I followed the advice of my cousin and took the exam. After learning about Science high schools, I took other Science high school exams which included Makati Science High School. Out of all the entrance exams that I took, the only exam that I didn’t pass was the exam in Philippine Science High School. I finally decided that I would study in Makati Science High School because this was more convenient for me and my mother since her office was near Makati Science.

Now as a high school student, I am very grateful to God for letting me experience those hardships when I was younger. I finally learned to be strong and face my adversities without worries for I know that God has planned this all for me. Still, in everything I do, I put all my cares in God and I trust him in everything for I know that he would not lead me to the darkness but to the light where my bright future awaits. For I know that sometimes, God does not give us what we want but what is best for us. God will always be with me and will always bless me in whatever path I may chose to take.