Enrolling For an ALS Examination

Assalamu Alayukum!

My younger sister and I are gonna be taking the ALS A&E (Acceleration Learning System Accreditation and Equivalency) exam this year. It's an examination for out-of-school-unit children. As home schoolers, we're required to take it before we can get into high-school or college. My sister is gonna be taking the Elementary level exam while I'll be taking the exam for Secondary level.

 I remember the first time I took the ALS examination 2 years ago. I was still 13 then and the day of the examination was one of the first few days I started "permanently" wearing the hijab. As I've been wearing it on-and-off since Kindergarten 2. I very proudly carried it while I was the only one among all the examiners in that place wearing it. It also helped me cover my exam answer sheet from the person behind me to whom I had the feeling was leaning over looking at the papers of my seatmate and I. XD
The exam was quite easy I suppose. The only thing that made it kind-of-confusing for me was that it was in Tagalog. I've had some problems with this subject since kindergarten. My brother knew about this and I remember him giving me pinpoints on the names of polygons in tagalog in case I might forget.

June 15, 2010...

I was in the middle of washing my clothes when our Auntie Salha came calling, telling me to write an essay about the Importance of Education or Ang Kahalagahan ng Edukasyon, to be specific. "What? But I'm not in the mood yet.", was all I could answer. "Well, you've only up to this afternoon before 4 pm to finish it. You'll need it before you could register for the Exam.", she answered. When I came inside the house, my sister was already writing the essay. And so we spent our morning till afternoon writing the essay in a language we found not-so-easy to write an essay with.

After hours of thinking, writing, and browsing for translations in dictionaries and in the internet... We exclaimed, "Success! Alhamdulillah!". We barely had time to get ready to go to the registration center, Upper Bicutan Highschool. But we went there only to find out that the essay we wrote was not the essay to be written...

Aww... But at least the essay topic they gave was much easier. They also told us that we're required to take review classes before taking the exam. I wasn't letting that chance of inquiring further pass. So I asked the teacher assisting us whom to look for and the schedules for the review.

My sister and I were glad that the processing of our registration forms were done fast. We were told to come back after 2 days to claim our Examination Slip.

I admit that we had trouble inquiring about the registration before that day. But Alhamdulillah, we were able to register before the deadline, which was extended for a few more days.

We've been taking up review classes for the exam for about 2 months already here in the Silangan Elementary School, Taguig.

After a long time of inquiring, we feel very relieved that finally, we're on it already.

Alhamdulillah...