Happy Chinese New Year! Despite my lack of culture, I’ll be celebrating chinese new year just like most chinese. More like forced to celebrate cause I still live under my parent’s house. I’ll be going back to the hometown which is Bahau, Negeri Sembilan. It’s a rubber estate and not much to do. The most happening spot in the little kampung town is a snooker center. I’m not kidding. Plus most of the roads are dirt roads.

Here’s what I like :

Here’s what I don’t like :

Well , I’ll stop whining now about how I dread going back to the hometown. This time I’ll bring a book or two to read while I’m there. Urghhh … forced to go back every year. Why can’t my dad understand I don’t like it ? He thinks that one day I’ll appreciate it. Yeah , if and when that day comes then I’ll think about it.

Happy Chinese New Year to those who enjoy it !!!!!

I’ll be back on the 30th. 3 days of boredom. Blegh.

Be less sensitive. Of course this doesn’t mean being inconsiderate to others. In fact, I’ve been told that I’m inconsiderate, and I’m working on that. Being less sensitive means not whacking myself emotionally when something goes wrong. I’ve been too hard on myself in the past. Also I wouldn’t be too sensitive about criticisms but work on them instead.

I failed the aiesec interview. The first thing that came to my mind was what did I do wrong. Then it was what I could have done better. Then it was how I could improve myself. I thought about it for half an hour.

Then I was glad. I suddenly thought of the things I could do to improve my abilities. Namely public speaking, goal setting, independence, time management and communication skills. Okay , I know I sound like a corporate hack, spouting all these terms. If I didn’t fail I wouldn’t be motivated to improve myself as much as I feel now. Did I expect to pass my first interview ?

Furthermore I get to spend more time with aiesec. They have the friendliest people there and they’re all younger yet more matured than me ! I really respect them a lot and have tons to learn from them. They have conferences (local and international) too which I hope to join and seminars which I would attend. I could deal with my public speaking problem. Unfortunately they don’t have a seminar to deal with my frog-phobia.

Well I know at least one person who’s glad that I failed this interview and won’t be going off too soon

I went to Curve today and checked out children’s books. Wow I feel like a kid again looking for the red striped guy in Where’s Waldo. Then there was this book called Once Upon a Time A Cool Motorcycle Dude. It was a book where a girl started a story and a boy butted in and changed the story. Hilarious .. heheh.

Success
Some people dream of Success
while other people live to crush those dreams

Underachievement
The tallest blade of grass
is the first to be cut by the lawnmower

Consulting
If you’re not part of the solution,
There’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem

Teamwork
A few harmless flakes working together can
unleash an avalanche of destruction

After the interview, I met up with my good friend Wan Yin. She would tell me stories of her adventures as an air stewardess. I always feel like I learn something new everytime she stops by Malaysia. Should hang out more
Well , I wonder what’s for dinner ? Oh look who just came online, it’s Elicia. Maybe I’ll ask what she’s up to for dinner. Then she messages “come go steamboat!”. Then I say “what a coincidence” and she says “see you there”. So I went to Kepong and it’s a trap ! I’m the eldest there ! Lucky no old people jokes. A guy who’s 19 there actually looks more matured than me ! I have a boyish look they say. Well , maybe they didn’t see me formal attire earlier from the interview.

After dinner it was off to Murni for drinks. The place is busy as usual. Gathered there was the Shufen Fan Club (SFC) , Aidan , Lifu , Ann , Fong Mei , Hui Sen and me.

Of to Midvalley for movie ! I really enjoyed Memoirs of a Geisha. Whatever if it isn’t true to life, or true to the book, I love the cinematography and the music. Although it’s a little on the lenghty side.

Okay , I slept for 5 hours the previous day, and I had a really really long day. I love all this chaos.

Took a drive down to cyberjaya yesterday just to see how far it is. It is really far, 40km from my house. Takes about half an hour to get there. That would be a huge factor for me in deciding whether to work there or not. Alamanda in Putrajaya is kinda nice shopping center, being beside the lake and all. But the whole Putrajaya and Cyberjaya still feels like a work in progress. It would be nice to live there in the future, but it’s so freaking far from KL.

I slept at 2:30am and woke up at 7:30am. Didn’t have breakfast and headed straight for UM for the interview. Didn’t know it’ll end at 3pm. Despite being hungry and sleepy I think I did well.

12 other candidates were there. No worries, it wasn’t a competition.

First was a 3 minute presentation. Great, public speaking. Well ,the panelists were only 3 people but still I was a little nervous. I barely spoke up to 2 minutes. Other than that I think the content was okay.

Second is the group discussion. That one went really well.

Finally, the interview. By the time it was my turn the panelists were tired and probably just wanted to get on with it. So they asked some questions and soon it was over! I think I did okay really, but I can’t be 100% sure.

I met some interesting people too. I have some career options to consider also. Might want to go for a Managerial Traineeship at B.A.T. The job sounds interesting cause the training is structured and the pay is good too. Also found out that I might have to wait up to a year before I get the aiesec internship (if I do get it). Actually it could be as fast as 3 weeks if I’m not picky about the the country I want to go. I don’t know, have to think a lot before deciding on anything.

Been mostly home yesterday until at night that is. I went to UM for me weekly AIESEC meeting. Todays topic was time management. Unfortunately the speaker couldn’t make it because of a schedule clash. I guess I don’t need to mention the irony.

So we discussed about other stuff. Got into smaller groups and talked about “is it okay to date within an organization ?” , “does long-distance relationship work?” and “why do cows have brown patches?”. Okay we didn’t discuss the third one.

After the meeting, I went to college seven (that’s the busiest part of UM) for some chinese new year festival. I don’t know whats it called, I know I’m chinese but I think I’m losing my culture. So there I was watching the whole show. Some of the mini plays were really funny. Well, I guess it was funny cause everyone was laughing. I didn’t understand the mandarin thats why.

The term for that would be banana. Yellow on the outside (some people think chinese are yellow skinned) and white on the inside. I think in my case it’s not just the language. I’ve been brought up on television and in my school, most of them speak english. Heck , my parents speak english to me. At least now I speak cantonese to my aunt.

Well you see, most chinese in UM speak mandarin, and IF I actually studied there I would be a minority. First I would be subjected to some ragging and then mostly ignored. I kid… I kid. My friends were good enough to try and translate what’s going on. At least I understood the English and Cantonese bits. Imagine a play that has three languages in it. I don’t know how the malay felt watching the whole thing.

Barring language problems, I enjoyed last night. I really should learn to speak mandarin.