My name is Logan Chong, I am currently attending Terry Fox Secondary School in Port Coquitlam. One of my strengths is my ability to learn and apply new skills, even better when taught by a skilled teacher. This is visible in my progression as a soccer player. Within a year of being coached, I moved from the house level to division one. However, I do have a weakness in my logical thinking and my ability to keep track of my thoughts. I often struggle to maintain a conversation without forgetting my topic mid-sentence. One of my main passions is soccer, whether I am playing on the field, watching a match on TV, or playing video games, I am deeply connected to the sport. My long-term goal is to make the Junior Soccer team next year. This year, I was able to participate in the Carney-friendly game, but unfortunately, I was cut from the final squad. I am determined to achieve my goal by consistently improving and dedicating myself to extra daily training.
At Terry Fox Secondary, a “Character in Action” program is set to focus on the four main pillars of the school; kindness, leadership, perseverance, and integrity. To me, kindness means that you can treat others with respect and that you can go above and beyond to make people feel valued. A great example of this is to give out compliments whenever you can, some things being as simple as complimenting someone’s shoes. Leadership is much more than handing out assignments to your group and expecting them to get it done. It also means that you can take in input and ideas that are given to you by other group members and use them effectively to get the best possible results. If someone is struggling with instruction and you help them, this can also be seen as an act of leadership. Perseverance is an attribute that describes someone who does not give up easily. If something is too hard for someone with perseverance, they will always seek a new way to figure out their problems. Most people will give up easily after losing out on something, even when they are attached to it. Someone with perseverance will always try to set things right even if there are things to stop them.
In my opinion, the most important of the four main pillars is integrity. Someone with integrity is someone who will stick with his or her moral principles with or without people watching. It’s the decision to do what’s right or what’s wrong with nobody judging you. I believe this pillar is the most important because it shows personality to only themselves, whether it be good or bad. An example would be cheating on a math test. Say if you haven’t studied and are accidentally given the answer key, do you use it? Showing integrity in this situation would be giving the answer key to the teacher and attempting to do the test without any practice. It may not benefit you but it will show yourself your morals.
The pillars I described are part of everyday life situations. I personally find kindness the most common pillar because it is very easy to make someone feel good about themselves with small things. Little but positive words can set someone’s mood very easily. An example of kindness is giving small subtle comments to let them know that I liked what they did such as “Wow!” and “Nice!”. The other common pillar I find is leadership, which is taking responsibility and listening to others. Historically I have struggled with this attribute because I have had a lack of confidence. Recently, I have improved this attribute and am now able to consistently bring out my opinions and take in their feedback during group projects. There is still lots of improvement I need to work through but my progress has been above expected. Perseverance is moving off of something you struggle with, which is something I do constantly during soccer games. Lots of times I communicate with teammates, and lots of times they don’t listen. I then need to act quickly before I lose possession of the ball.
In this clip I show leader ship by telling my teammates to make a run so we can progress the ball forwards. I am then trapped by a defender who is trying to attack the ball from behind me. Instead of panicking I use perseverance and I dive to draw the foul and I earn us a dangerous freekick.
Finding real people with integrity is hard because they try not to show it. Movies can show characters with integrity much more easily because most heroes are virtuous. A hero who shows lots of integrity is Spider-Man. In this clip Spider-Man sacrifices his identity to save the multiverse. Nobody will know of what he has done but he does it because its the right thing to do, and not because he would look like a hero in everyone’s eyes.
