Mega Post

I have not been writing in this blog because I have been super busy. So, I've decided to cram the past two days into this blog.

Or at least, whatever I can remember clear enough to blog on.

On Thursday (9th September), my father called me at work. First of all, I'm not allowed to answer calls when on duty. Second of all, he should know this, and third of all, I was busy working. But I answered it anyway as it kept buzzing and buzzing in my pants (phone was on silent mode), so much so that it became very irritating to just leave it unanswered.

My father was calling to tell me that I had an appointment with Mahathir. Yep. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad, our former PM.

As you all know (I have bored you with the details time and time again, but I will have to do it one more time so that this post will retain its meaning), I have been applying to scholarships to go overseas for more than a year now, with no success so far.

So, what my father did was he contacted Mahathir's private secretary and asked him to arrange a meeting with Mahathir, so that I could appeal to the best person who could help me obtain a government scholarship.

According to my father, Mahathir is still very influential although he has officially resigned (now, why are we not surprised to hear this) so much so that he only needs to write one letter and BAM, within 24 hours JPA will be after me offering me a scholarship overseas. That is the easy part.

The difficult part is convincing him that I actually deserve this scholarship. Of course, I have good grades, but so do the 1001 other people out there. What makes me stand out from all the others? How much more am I special? Why should *I* be given the scholarship over anybody else?

As they say, although a person is poor, nobody is obliged to give the person a scholarship if the person is mediocre.

That's the exact word. Mediocre.

Am I mediocre?

I went to Putrajaya on Friday, all dressed up. Mind you, I was working on that day, and on the day after. So you can imagine how rushed it might had been; I was up until about 3am researching all I could about the field I wish to study, my vision... bla bla bla.. I was so tired that literally there was blood oozing from my eyes.

And so, I went there with all I had, clad in a blue G2000 shirt.

Before I went in to meet him, his secretary wanted to see me to brief me about the procedures and to hear what I had to say. Mahathir is a no-nonsense person, so you have to know where you are coming from. He is only giving me 30minutes to prove my worth, and within those 30mins if he is not convinced, I would have blown up the most secure opportunity at getting financial assistance. Mahathir is also a man of vision and he is well known for grilling people (i.e. asking you questions and attacking you from all corners)

So, his secretary wanted to see me to prepare me physically and mentally, and to make sure that I was up for the task. But unfortunately, I wasn't. I blame it on the few hours of sleep (I was asleep by 3.30am, and awake by 7.30) as well as work, and my own inability to be articulate.

The first argument that I couldn't defend myself in was the reason as to why I had taken A-Levels instead of STPM. You see, STPM would guarantee me a place in a local university, and they too had biotechnology as a degree. His secretary seemed to think that I had cut off my own leg by taking up A-Levels as I closed the local public university option.

One must be objective when it comes to dealing with such queries. I didn't want to go to a local public university anyway because it sucks. And STPM requires you to study history which sucks. You graduate later than any other pre-university qualification, making it suck even more.

Try telling that to the former leader of a country where STPM is the country's national pre-university examination.

So right now, I am trying to squeeze my way through this loophole, but so far I have been unsuccessful with coming up with a good explanation without the possibility of making him think I'm a total bastard.

Other than that, I have to have a vision, something that I lack (knowing my lack of self esteem sometimes). Apparently there were others before me. A guy who just completed his SPM had seen Mahathir and he wanted to get a scholarship for medicine. He was so convincing (God only knows what he told Mahathir) that he got the scholarship and is now pursuing his degree overseas. Imagine that. A student who had just finished SPM convincing the man of steel. I wonder if I am capable of doing that.

As Mahathir is a man of vision himself, I have to emulate him and come up with a vision for myself, and for my country. Apparently I have to show that I really HUNGER for this scholarship. Desperation is what he is looking for, but not the crazy type of desperation. The determined type of desperation. He wants to see that this potential "investment" does not back out half way. He is looking for the cream of all cream of the crops. This is Mahathir. Don't play-play.

So, his secretary suggested that I reschedule the appointment to a week later (that is, 16th September) so that I would have more time to prepare. Also, he asked me to prepare a dossier containing a letter addressed to Mahathir, together with my visions and what not (mind you, it does sound disturbing... my "visions".. like I'm telepathic or something), followed by copies of my cert, arranged in chronological order and filed up nicely. He will help me to send the dossier to Mahathir personally, so as to "break the ice" and prepare a way for me to enter into this fortress-of-steel.

Haha

My father drove me back from Putrajaya. I don't know what I felt... humiliated, or enlightened... but the drive back was a quiet one.

Anyway, as I'm still working it is very tiring to cope with the stress of both worlds; I broke down immediately after I had found a quiet spot in the shopping complex. You see, I headed straight for work after the failed meeting, but I was two and a half hours early. Fortunately I had a friend who took me out for Dim Sum before I started my shift.

What he said was, yes, it is tough; yes at this point I feel like giving up this opportunity... I had told him that I didn't feel like going through all the hassle and meeting up with Mahathir... I had told my friend that I wanted just to get back to being mediocre.. but he said something to me that made me feel very guilty.

He said, how many people actually have the chance to meet Mahathir in person? Also, at such a young age, and personally meet him, not from a distance? I then thought about it a while. If I pull this through, I would have convinced the Iron-Curtain that plutonium is deadly and Chairman Mao that capitalism is the way to go to the future. In short, I would have done what very few people could do; imagine all the foreign PM's and VVIP's can't convince him, so if I make this happen, I'm above all them.

I would also have lost out on this once-in-a-lifetime chance. How could I give it up so easily?

Of course, its not to say that it is easy to get by as I have to work and mind you work is VERY TIRING.

I shall be meeting Mahathir on Friday. Help me come up with ideas and motivation!

Today was a very busy day at the cafe. Furthermore, we were understaffed. When I punched in, the cafe was almost 80% full, and everybody was everywhere. We had so few people that we couldn't clear the tables in time for new customers, and as usual, all the customers wanted us to serve them, and all at the same time too. It was a nightmare.

At around 2.45pm, we reached full capacity. From the first day I started working in the cafe until now, I have never seen all the tables full. But today was seemingly unusual... there were so many people that we had to turn away some customers who came in as we had run out of tables.

However, the most special thing about today was that the Malaysian Idol (MI) finalists were in the shopping mall where our cafe was located. They had a short performance, kinda like a promo, so they were there. They dropped in for a drink before they had a performance, and later dropped in for lunch. So, if you do your math correctly (which I presume you must have), they came in twice.

Not surprisingly, people came in just to see them, all oogling and googling over them. One of my colleagues, a female waitress was an avid fan. Before I could say where-the-heck-is-your-apron-and-what-are-you-doing-with-that-paper-in-your-hand-asking-for-autographs, she had already taken off her beret and well, began flirted with the finalists. She took pictures with them, took down their autographs... wah, you had to see the look on her face to understand what I'm talking about. God. I was yelling at the top of my voice, asking her to help out to serve the other customers but she seemed nonchalant to it all... She was just... out of her normal self. Her brain had ceased to function. Or rather, she was spellbound.

Other people in the cafe were, however, not equally amused as we waiters had to tend to this "VIP" group of people... citing that they were indeed a large group of about 20-25 people all in all, with the media, TV8 crew, and sponsors.

The interesting thing about the whole experience is that you actually get to see how human these people are. On the telly, they seem almost invincible and untouchable. They are prim and proper, heavily decorated with ornaments and make-up, and they appear to be the perfect "models", if you like.

But in person, you see the way that they behave, the way that they talk about things, their attitudes, their outlook towards you, and you see that they are not very much different from you. Only thing is that they've got the media spotlight and you don't; they've got the fans and you don't. Other than that, they are as rotten an apple as you and me.

Not that I'm saying that they were rotten.

Oh and by the way, as I'm not a MI fan, I didn't know a single of their names, not that I gave a twat about them haha.... Don't ask me if I saw Jac, because I don't know how she looks like. I most probably did, as she was there, just that I didn't know her by her face. Oh, and MI fans, don't get offended; I felt that their singing was really bad... they were doing renditions of Malay songs and singing them at the top of the voices. Mind you, the stage where they were singing was located in the concourse area about 50m away from the restaurant, but their voices were loud and disturbing. Kinda like karaoke with the grim-reaper

After they left the restaurant (no, I will not disclose what they ate or how much their bill was, as I am bound by company policies and I see no reason why I should anyway) the fans left with them. Surprisingly the other customers also slowly emptied out of the restaurant, and we were back to the empty tables by 5pm. Business picked up later after 8pm, but it was not as heavy as in the afternoon.

I came back and finished the write up I'm going to present to Mahathir and now I'm blogging. Gosh. Time DOES fly very fast!

And now, the end of a very long post, as promised :)