I guess you could say the first audition went well. After a few days I found out that I had a call back for a second audition and I went for it. At last, it was between me and now a good friend of mine. Both of us had to write essays regarding something that I've forgotten of. I guess I kind of delayed my submission a few days passed the deadline because I seriously had nothing to write about. I recall the theme being "unity".
After a few days, my eventual coach called me to meet him and turns out, I got the part. I asked him why and he said that my essay was awful but I had the style, the look and the language. So, yeah. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew I was on the second bus trip to Muar for Team Building.
There, not really "a lot" of things happened, but significant events led to the commercialization of my name, my game and my fame. I was alone, left to mingle with total strangers, though from the same contingent. There, we were all exposed to participants of each event, introducing ourselves in our own way, creating our own cheers and having fun all the while. It was a weekend full of sweat, tears and smelly T-shirts; since we had to wear the same on for the whole time. The motivator at the time was one great guy. His talks, his points, his motivation really helped us all a lot in discovering and unraveling our true potential as a single unit, set out to war.
I had the pleasure of tagging along with the football team to support them at their friendly match against IPG Batu Pahat. They lost. But it wasn't a total bummer. The time I spent with everyone really brought us closer to each other and I gained a hell of a lot more friends in a short period of time than I could ever imagine. By the time we got back to KMJ, people's awareness of me had risen thousands fold.
Before Team Building, practice sessions with my coach was pretty ... bland. But after that, with my renewed spirit and determination, I had it in my mind to win nothing else but a Gold medal for KMJ. I was that determined. I knew that I had the upper-hand since English was, in all honesty, just a piece of cake. I had it in the bag, and KMJ had already won one Gold medal - or so I thought.
Public speaking was like Heaven and Hell when compared to debating. I had to prepare a full text, memorize it, make it interesting and when it came the time to present, I had to act natural and spontaneous. Prior to everything, I thought I was aware of what I was in for, but little did I know that I was nowhere ready. Even the first presentation of my talk was a complete, utter disaster. And also, I think it was because I was too indulged into the KAKOM business, that I didn't really pay attention to my studies. My UPS was a bad first assessment; with 1A1B1B- (excluding English).
Come the time for pre-KAKOM week, I was way behind on my preparations. I had to write a new text, research on materials about unity for the main part and also had to read on things for environment issues, IT and all other stuff. It was chaos. The closer it was to Tuesday (the day of my event), the more horrified I got. I couldn't release my stress by cheering on my teammates (of the same contingent) because my coach had warned me and told me to save my voice. That ruled out shouting and cheering and all kinds of other wonderful, happy stuff. I was too fixated on winning and doing it right. Since I had no experience in public speaking, I followed every instruction my coach gave me. But in doing so, I forgot and totally abandoned the one thing I should have done all along - just be myself.
And because of that, when it was my turn to speak, I went blank. The words were pouring out of my mouth but all the audience could hear were just noises of incoherent speech. I knew that my singing (I had a singing part), my jokes, my smile, my whole performance was a mediocre, no, a mega lame attempt at winning even last place. It was that awful. At the end of my speech, I held back tears and couldn't turn to face my coach. I was so distraught, like I had failed the world. I felt ashamed, humiliated and deeply disappointed with myself. Adding the fact that I had only the BM speaker of KMJ and some volunteers to support me was also a major turn off. for my impromptu speech, I said to myself, "to Hell with it", and blabbed on about nonsense about saving Mother Earth. I just wanted everything to end right there and then.
At the end of KAKOM, KMJ finished second behind KML; 6 Golds to 7. I learned a lot during the whole KAKOM period and it was, without a doubt, the best moment of my life in KMJ. I gained a lot of friends, an ample amount of confidence and also an experience I wouldn't get anywhere else. I also learned that in everything I would want to pursue in the future, sometimes, it's best if I do what I want to do.
The rest of the semester just went on without anything memorable that I can think of. Semester I was a really good semester all in all. My beloved H15 turned to be this amazing group of strangely wonderful, friendly people and at the end of the semester, we wished that there wasn't a semester break. During that period, I really didn't expect anything to change much in the second semester. Now that I look back on it, I realize how completely wrong I was.
After a few days, my eventual coach called me to meet him and turns out, I got the part. I asked him why and he said that my essay was awful but I had the style, the look and the language. So, yeah. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew I was on the second bus trip to Muar for Team Building.
There, not really "a lot" of things happened, but significant events led to the commercialization of my name, my game and my fame. I was alone, left to mingle with total strangers, though from the same contingent. There, we were all exposed to participants of each event, introducing ourselves in our own way, creating our own cheers and having fun all the while. It was a weekend full of sweat, tears and smelly T-shirts; since we had to wear the same on for the whole time. The motivator at the time was one great guy. His talks, his points, his motivation really helped us all a lot in discovering and unraveling our true potential as a single unit, set out to war.
I had the pleasure of tagging along with the football team to support them at their friendly match against IPG Batu Pahat. They lost. But it wasn't a total bummer. The time I spent with everyone really brought us closer to each other and I gained a hell of a lot more friends in a short period of time than I could ever imagine. By the time we got back to KMJ, people's awareness of me had risen thousands fold.
Before Team Building, practice sessions with my coach was pretty ... bland. But after that, with my renewed spirit and determination, I had it in my mind to win nothing else but a Gold medal for KMJ. I was that determined. I knew that I had the upper-hand since English was, in all honesty, just a piece of cake. I had it in the bag, and KMJ had already won one Gold medal - or so I thought.
Public speaking was like Heaven and Hell when compared to debating. I had to prepare a full text, memorize it, make it interesting and when it came the time to present, I had to act natural and spontaneous. Prior to everything, I thought I was aware of what I was in for, but little did I know that I was nowhere ready. Even the first presentation of my talk was a complete, utter disaster. And also, I think it was because I was too indulged into the KAKOM business, that I didn't really pay attention to my studies. My UPS was a bad first assessment; with 1A1B1B- (excluding English).
Come the time for pre-KAKOM week, I was way behind on my preparations. I had to write a new text, research on materials about unity for the main part and also had to read on things for environment issues, IT and all other stuff. It was chaos. The closer it was to Tuesday (the day of my event), the more horrified I got. I couldn't release my stress by cheering on my teammates (of the same contingent) because my coach had warned me and told me to save my voice. That ruled out shouting and cheering and all kinds of other wonderful, happy stuff. I was too fixated on winning and doing it right. Since I had no experience in public speaking, I followed every instruction my coach gave me. But in doing so, I forgot and totally abandoned the one thing I should have done all along - just be myself.
And because of that, when it was my turn to speak, I went blank. The words were pouring out of my mouth but all the audience could hear were just noises of incoherent speech. I knew that my singing (I had a singing part), my jokes, my smile, my whole performance was a mediocre, no, a mega lame attempt at winning even last place. It was that awful. At the end of my speech, I held back tears and couldn't turn to face my coach. I was so distraught, like I had failed the world. I felt ashamed, humiliated and deeply disappointed with myself. Adding the fact that I had only the BM speaker of KMJ and some volunteers to support me was also a major turn off. for my impromptu speech, I said to myself, "to Hell with it", and blabbed on about nonsense about saving Mother Earth. I just wanted everything to end right there and then.
At the end of KAKOM, KMJ finished second behind KML; 6 Golds to 7. I learned a lot during the whole KAKOM period and it was, without a doubt, the best moment of my life in KMJ. I gained a lot of friends, an ample amount of confidence and also an experience I wouldn't get anywhere else. I also learned that in everything I would want to pursue in the future, sometimes, it's best if I do what I want to do.
The rest of the semester just went on without anything memorable that I can think of. Semester I was a really good semester all in all. My beloved H15 turned to be this amazing group of strangely wonderful, friendly people and at the end of the semester, we wished that there wasn't a semester break. During that period, I really didn't expect anything to change much in the second semester. Now that I look back on it, I realize how completely wrong I was.
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