AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Brooke Chong-Ashing and I just started form two at St Joseph’s Convent without ever going into school for my full school year in form one.

I have two brothers, one older, one younger, so I’m the middle child.

My brother Luke is 14 and Marc is seven.

My dad is Andre and my mom is Lauralee.

I’m fortunate enough to grow up with all my grandparents, Granny June and Papa Mervyn and Granny Patsy and Papa Winston.

It’s good being the only girl. That makes things easy.

I am Catholic. I did first communion and Mom signed me up for confirmation. I haven’t started classes yet but, based off the stories Luke has told me, confirmation isn’t really that big of a party.

Before we went into lockdown, I had thought, “It’s going to be fine, surely we’ll get SEA done before covid comes to Trinidad.”

But, lo and behold, we ended up doing SEA on 20 August instead of 2 April.

Part of me was glad for the extra practice but the other part of me was kind of freaking out because now I had that much longer until the exam!

I read a lot of fantasy. It’s very interesting to read about another world that could coexist with ours.

I can’t really say what age I really started reading a lot.

But my grandma was cleaning out a while ago and she found a folder of stories I’d written, in

horrible handwriting, when I was, like, four.

I used to have fish as pets because Mom wouldn’t let me get anything else. I don’t have fish any more.

[caption id="attachment_912697" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Brooke Chong-Ashing is considering a career as a physiotherapist or a sport career in sailing. Chong-Ashing is a form two student at St Joseph Convent. - Mark Lyndersay[/caption]

If I could twist my mom’s arm now, I’d get either a hamster or a dog. Dogs are fluffy and cute.

I’m definitely going to continue reading. I’ve read the Trinidadian books on the school booklist.

And a couple my mom got me here and there, but I can’t really remember specific titles.

The SEA exam day was a lot more calm than I thought it would be because I went into it and, on the morning, we were just in the courtyard like any other day.

And then we went up into the exam. We sat down and we did it and then we did the creative writing.

Right after, I do remember we made jokes about how badly we thought we’d done and that was it.

But I passed for my first choice.

My mom went to SJC before I did and she told me about her experiences there and I was, like, “That’s cool! I want to go there!”

But then, as I matured in standard five, I was like, “Okay, this is important!”

So then I wanted to get into SJC because I realised it would be good for my education. I researched a bunch about the school clubs, because my friend’s sister was actually head girl of SJC.