Horizon Camp and Myself
Qing Yin Wang
Friday, August 1st, 2008
Horizon camp is a very special place to me. When I was in grade five and I had to take an entrance exam to be able to go to a very good secondary school, I came here to study some more to prepare. Little did I know that I was going to such a wonderful place. When I first came and was assigned to group five-two, there was so much to do, and it all seemed so tiring! However, I quickly realized that I was having a lot of fun learning new things here, even such as how to make my very own website! Later I moved from group five-two to group six because there was more English, which was better suited for me. I learned a lot and I still managed to keep up pretty well. I made some very good friends there, most of whom were i n my grade six class, and we got to know each other pretty well. My favorite class was Drama, and at the 'Final Show', I presented a mini play with the rest of my grade six group. It was so much fun preparing it and practicing!
I was very sad when it was the end of camp and I had to go, but I still knew that the knowledge that I had gained and my memories and experiences would always be there with me! And when I took the entrance exam for the secondary school that I really wanted to go to, I had almost no problems at all in doing it thanks to all that I had learned in camp! In the end, I got an 'early acceptance'! The year after that, when I finally went there, the school was even better than I had imagined! And later on, when we had a very hard and tricky math competition, I realized that the questions were very similar to the ones that I had did in camp! Therefore, I did a lot better than I would have if I didn't know the tricks that wer e in the questions. Even now, I still think of how much Horizon Camp had helped me so much in just two months!
Just before the following Christmas, Horizon Camp gave me the chance to present something for one of their events along with others who also did very well in their entrance exams for secondary that year. I really enjoyed watching my friends and other peers do magic tricks, present plays they made up, sing Christmas songs, and many, many other things as well! I was so entranced! When it came to my turn, I presented a very famous Chinese poem, 'Some People', by my great-grandfather, Zang Ke Jia, both in Chinese and in the English translation. I also presented a speech in French about pet rats. I was so happy that I could present so much in front of others! It also helped me gain some self-confidence. I even won the fi rst prize of 'people's choice'! It made me very proud that I could touch the hearts of others. During Christmas, there was also a party being thrown, and I was invited to go there! I was so excited that I drew a picture and wrote a short poem dedicated to Horizon Camp as thanks to all the opportunities that I had gotten from it! My poem is:
The horizon is the home of the sun.
The sun is us,
And we are your children.
I also brought my friends with me to the party, and we had a lot of fun together all thanks to Horizon Camp! I and somebody else, also from the camp, were even invited to cut the cake that was prepared. What an honor!
Last summer, I wasn't able to come because I was going on a trip to China, and even though I had so much fun there, I still missed coming to this camp. So this year, I came back, and I'm having just as much fun and learning as much, if not more, than I had remembered! I'm very glad that there is also a secondary class so that I can be with my peers instead of children a lot younger than myself. Not many other places offer something like that! This camp is also very well-organized in pretty much all terms, and the te achers are very experienced in the subjects that they teach, making learning experience even easier and more fun. Also, this camp is very involved and focused on hot topics of the present. This year, of course, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games was the main topic. When I came here and saw the Beijing mascots high on the walls, I was very moved because I loved the Olympic Games a lot, especially because this year it was taking place in Beijing! We also go on very fun trips, and many of them are very big. I really enjoyed the trip to Ottawa this year since I moved to Montreal from there, and it brought back many happy memories, but especially because I also discovered something new that I hadn't even experienced from living in Ottawa for more than five years! That is because we went to the Chinese Embassy to watch clips which introduced the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games!
Horizon Camp has played a very big part in my life, and I will never forget the times that I have spent here, how much I have learned, and... everything about it! Therefore, not only do I want to come back next time, I also want to participate in other extra-curricular activities organized by it during the weekend. Horizon Camp is a place which will forever remain in my heart.
Fin
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