How I got an award from the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition.
The whole journey from submitting the essay to receiving an apple from the school’s Principal
Hey folks! I hope you are having a great day (or maybe not!). Anyway, that doesn’t matter because every day is a new opportunity to make it great. So, as you know, I am Khan Jariff Al Naseeb, a student in 8th grade living in Bangladesh. I kind of write blogs when I’m free but you know I have lots of academic pressure nowadays so I can’t write that much. Find more about me at: https://medium.com/about-me-stories/about-me-khan-jariff-al-naseeb-00f074757eb8 . Well, I was awarded the Bronze award from the Queens Commonwealth Essay Competition 2024 on 23rd September 2024.
If you don’t know what this Competition is about:
The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition is the world’s oldest international writing competition for schools, which has been proudly delivered by the Royal Commonwealth Society since 1883. Every year a lot of students from the whole world participate in this competition, this year there was a record-breaking level of entries in the 2024 competition with 34,939 entries from all Commonwealth regions.
Visit https://www.royalcwsociety.org/about-the-competition, to know more about it.
Now, let’s begin the journey, Buckle up!
The night of 28th March, My mom was scrolling Facebook as usual after her long day of work, I was sitting beside her because I had nothing to do in particular. Suddenly, a post appeared in her feed, it was from one of the prestigious newspapers of our country, Prothom Alo, and it had the following title:
“Opportunity to travel England for a week just by writing an essay, maximum age 18.”
Well, the text was in Bangla, our mother tongue and it was way more captivating, I don’t know, it just doesn’t hit properly in English. Well then, after seeing that, I was totally fired up, I was like (AYOOO WHAT?!, NO WAYY!). But, I thought it was just another scam, you know you just can’t trust people online nowadays. Anyways, I took the phone and I showed it to my father, he told me to check it, and I checked it with zeal and zest and it eventually took me to realize that it wasn’t what I was thinking about, I was real and worth it. Getting International Recognition at a young age is the real deal. Now, being really eager, I got to work. I was eligible for the Junior category and it had 4 topics, I chose the first topic as I was more familiar with this thing. The Topic was: What new habit could you adopt to positively contribute towards a greener Commonwealth?
Later that night, I was on my chair and table thinking about what to do. My mind was totally clogged thinking about the praise I would get from my friends, relatives, and my family and literally everyone if I won. I was so onto my so-called dreams that I couldn’t actually write a single word not even the headline that day. It was really aligned with a well-known metaphor:
“Building Castles in Air”
My dad taught me this and surprisingly he learnt it from Facebook, the same platform where my mother had told me about the competition. (My family gets so much stuff from Facebook). Sometimes, it’s the small things on earth that make the biggest changes.
Getting back to the story, I couldn’t actually do anything that night, so I went to sleep.
Here comes the next day, woke up and started to finally unclog my brain(naturally), took my notebook, and then started writing whatever came into my mind. I was kind of getting a hold of it, and I started to get more comfortable after writing a few paragraphs, and I decided to name it:
Embracing new habits: Bringing down single-use plastics for an Evergreen Commonwealth
And started writing more words. But….., when I reached nearly around 400 words, I was at a dead end, I couldn’t write anymore (dunno why). Became frustrated and stopped writing for that day. So, that marked the end of day 2. (I count the useless night as day 1), because it was the starting and also the beginning and used my fuel on thinking about it, so yeah!
Starting with day 3, the last day of writing, I took my dream-shattered, rusted essay to my dad to ask for ideas to add, and he really changed my whole perspective! So then I went to work as expected and BOOM! The essay came out perfect (to me) and it was within the word count of 749, just 1 word less than the maximum limit of the essay. Gave a few final checks, and tweaks and it was good to go. I was proud of my essay and I had high hopes for it (More high than what I received at the moment). A great way to end day 3 of writing.
The deadline for submitting the essay was 15th May, 2024. And I got the work done between 2nd April, I was waiting for the deadlines to come closer so that I could send it, and I sent it around 12th May. I took a whole month for nothing, but I waited till the end to alter my piece if I could find any changes that I could Implement. The results were to come by September.
So, the waiting began…
It was a really long time for me. I had patience and I still have on everything. But, I never waited knowingly for something. But every time, I used to think about a quote again and again.
Success doesn’t come overnight
Very common yet so unreplaceable, and another quote helped me as well.
“To achieve greatness, one must wait.”
In the meantime, I used to check my mail every single morning in the hope of something. And, I used to check the main website of the royal society every now and then (for no specific reason). And, I would especially lure in the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition Section of the website (Again, for no reason).
So fun yet so dull. I kept waiting and waiting, but I realized months were passing really quickly. And so came September, days were passing by and I used to do the same thing. The waiting kept going.
Then, on 23rd September, I wasn’t expecting the mail to come by that day. I opened my mail because I had to send some of my assignment files to my dad. And, I saw a mail from the The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition. I quickly opened it and what I saw was crazy:
I quickly forwarded it to my dad and called him. I told him about it and he was extremely (extremely) happy. He was proud of me. But we were expecting a better position. However, I’m still happy with what I have got. Because something is always better than nothing. You know I could’ve just been eliminated, or maybe I wouldn’t have gotten any award at all. So at all times, no matter what the condition,
We should be grateful for whatever happens to us, be it good or bad
And here’s the award:
My dad called my grandmother and my uncles and told them about it. They were also feeling really ecstatic about it. I sent it to one of my English teachers. She is one of the best teachers I have met in my life and I am really grateful to have her. I was surprised when she told me that she knew about this competition and she became really proud of my achievement as well.
As the sun went down, my dad came home from his work, with a bunch of sweets for me and all our neighbours. He gave me a hug as soon as he saw me (Felt heartwarming). After that, he went to all of our neighbors to distribute the sweets and to show them my award. They were also elevated and they praised me for my excellence in writing as well. (Man.., I felt like I was the main character). Anyways, so we came back home and yeah, I did nothing too special and went to sleep.
The next morning I had school and I told my friends about it, so, they were also really eager to see my award. But, I was late so I had to rush to find my Form Teacher (Homeroom Teacher). Fortunately, he just came out of my classroom and I went to him straight. He was contented as well and he became proud of his student. After all, it’s an achievement for the whole school as well. He had a class so he had to go but he promised me that he would come back to talk with me during tiffin break (lunch break).
Giving farewell to my teacher, I went inside my class and greeted my friends and they were really keen to see my award, I showed them and they were like everyone else(happy, excited, amazed, proud, etc). I was really over the moon after achieving the award. We had a lot of fun and talked with each other, and then finally our classes started. After a few classes came tiffin time, and I finished my tiffin quickly because I knew that my Form teacher would come to see me. And oh boy he did. I went outside of the class and he took me and my certificate to show it to our Principal Sir. We went inside the Principal’s room and fortunately, the Vice Principal Sir was also in the room. (He has a separate room on another floor). Principal sir was talking on his phone with an employee of our school and our VP ( Vice Principal) sir was sitting in a chair. He gave me an awkward look. The room suddenly started to emit an eerie vibe. The Principal started to look at me in a confused way.
Now let me clear things up:
The teachers take students to the Principal’s room when somebody breaks a rule or does some mischievous work. So, they looked kind of irritated because I came here to get scolded (LOL). Anyway, I started talking and I started to explain things about the competition as he(the Principal) hung up on the phone. VP sir as well as him became really eager to know more and I showed them the certificate and they were really surprised and happy as well. They asked my name and asked my teacher how I was as a student. I was praised as usual and also I told them that I sometimes write online and much more, He took some pictures with me with the VP as well. He stood from his chair to give me a handshake (Man.. what a privilege!), I was over the moon at that moment. They asked about my family and how I was inspired to write this (You will know how if you have read it from the start). In the Bengali tradition, it is customary to give and eat sweets on a bonzer occasion. So they wanted to give me some sweets in favor of my procurement. Sadly, the sweets were finished and all they had was a single apple, only that. It was a snack for the principal but he gave me the apple. I bore him thanks and made my way out of the room with my form teacher.
While I was on the stairs with my teacher on my way to my classroom, he told me a thing that was worth mentioning:
It is a matter of great dignity for you that the Principal has given you his apple as a form of gift, not everyone gets this!
The day passed like that and it was a burning issue in the teacher’s room. A lot of teachers knew about it by now.
The next morning, I went to school as usual and classes were going smoothly. During the 5th class, I got another gift from my class teacher. Here is the conversation:
Teacher: Hey Khan! I heard you were given a bronze award and also an apple from the Principal yesterday.
Me: Certainly Sir!
Teacher: Well, congratulations! I have Ceevit for you. Take it.
Me: Haha! Thanks a lot, sir. Means a lot!
Ceevit is a type of vitamin C tablet, it’s like a medicine but it’s tasty (for some). Some like it and some don’t. But it doesn’t taste bad like traditional medicines.
So much yet to unravel in my life…….
If you made it here thanks a lot! I really appreciate your valuable time. And give me some claps and a follow if you liked me story. In the end,
The award that we get doesn’t last forever in our brains. But the memory we make during the journey is what lasts forever within us.
So keep running in your journey and write amazing stories. Good luck!
