Dear all, I am embarking on a new writing project called ‘The Road That Was Not Taken’. This project deals with a lot of ‘what if’s in life and how this character named Daniel deals with it. Hope this takes off well. =P

It has been quite a long journey in 2009. There are good and bad experiences but I guess that’s how we all grow as individuals. I decided maybe I should continue blogging for a bit for the benefit of the rest out there. During the 8-months offline period, I have been getting some emails coming to ask about some matters regarding education. That’s great.

I also learnt a lot about journalism ethics and self-censorship. So yeah, that’s being professional in writing.

Anyway, I can’t blog as often as I like in the past. Am in Imperial College London doing Chemical Engineering. I’ll write soon. =P

God bless.

Dear readers,
This blog shall take a short break until further notice for rebranding purposes.
Thank you.

The author

Date: 18th March 2009

Venue: Traders Hotel, KLCC

Time: 10.40am

Let’s start with the not-so-fun part.

I figured out that it is very uncommon for Imperial College to come down to Malaysia to conduct interviews for their international students selection. But this year, due to the large amount of applicants from Malaysia and Singapore for CHEMICAL ENGINEERING 2009/2010, Imperial broke tradition.

So now is the fun part.

This morning, I left home at 9am hoping to arrive in Traders Hotel at 10am. The public transportation was very efficient and I got to the Pasar Seni LRT at about 9.50am. Brilliant!

The LRT trip from Pasar Seni to KLCC didn’t take long and I arrived in KLCC at 10.15am. It was a long walk from the underground station to KLCC to KL Convention Centre to Traders Hotel.

I arrived at Traders Hotel Lobby at 10.31am. Took the lift up and arrived at the designated venue at 10.35am. Phew.

Managed to catch some conversation with a few students from Kolej Tuanku Jaafar, the college that I was about to apply into after SPM were I not accepted by Sri KDU back in 2006.

They are quite a brilliant bunch. Almost all of them already hold an offer from Cambridge. I was really amazed.

I was praying the whole night so that there wouldn’t be a technical interview. A technical interview means an interview where they just throw a maths or physics question at you expecting you to show some deep level of intellectual analysis, just like the Oxford interview last year. Praise God that there weren’t any technical questions asked.

The interview went well. In fact, I managed to adjust my tie before Dr Spelt opened the door and greeted me. =) Dr Spelt is currently the Admissions Tutor in Imperial and he was my interviewer. Yes, I understood his British accent (a personal achievement). He asked me about my personal statement and my IB score since I already got my final results.

I elaborated a little about my passion in chemistry and the step of faith that I took when I applied for Chemical Engineering. I also spoke about my interest in environmental issues such as global warming, and linked that with the Carbon Capture and Storage technology.

CCS is basically a technology where CO2 in the industries and atmosphere are being compressed at high pressure into liquid CO2 and stored into depleted oil fields and suitable sequesterian sites.

(I read about this an hour before I left home this morning. Also because Imperial is doing huge research on this. Bingo.)

Dr Spelt and I discussed about the technological challenges for this technology. Somewhat I also spoke about wastewater management. Imperial is also doing some research about separation techniques involving waste water. Bingo again!

That was one of the most enjoyable academic conversations I ever had.

When he asked me whether I had any questions for him about Imperial, I went slightly blank for a moment. Then, I remember about the questions I posed the other day during my phone interview with Princeton. So guess what? I RECYCLED THE SAME QUESTIONS!

When you’re blank, always ask these things:

1) Weather

2) Workload

3) Societies and Clubs.

4) Will I have a life?

After that, we were done. I shall know the results of my interview in a week’s time. Dr Spelt asked me a favour to respond to the offer as soon as possible once I have decided and have gotten my funding ready. Don’t wait for UCAS!

Another interview gunned down!

You know, with all the STPM and SPM results buzz going around, I feel like sharing all my experience when I obtained results for most of the major exams in my life. Allow me to start from young…. Here we go:

6 1/2 years old: Pre-school Final Year Results Day

I have no idea how it felt like receiving my pre-school final year exam results because it was so long ago. But I remember I flunked my Mandarin classes because my family didn’t and still doesn’t speak Mandarin. I also remember I got spanked for no reason – Lao Shi said it is wrong to put your head below a girl’s skirt. But where got???

*Please don’t get the wrong idea here. I have since repented.* =)

9 years old: PTS Results Day

I bet most of you have friends who sat for SPM, and they are like one year younger than you. And you ask them, “How is that so?” and they reply, “PTS ma.”

PTS stands for Penilaian Tahap Satu, which is a government assessment test to identify and accelerate the learning of bright young students. During that time, I was really playful (till once I fell and my earlobe bled because it was sliced by the table edge), and have low self-confidence.

I remember my class teacher reading a list of names of students who passed the PTS, and thus were given the chance  to skip Year Four. I was paying close attention to every name, but not mine.

Then, suddenly I heard, ” sonnn…. lee… ” Next, I turned to my friend, “Hey dude, did I hear wrongly or did Pn Faizah just mentioned my name?”

After that, I asked, “Cikgu, betul kah saya lulus PTS?”

“Ya Winson Lee, kamu berjaya!”

That was PTS results. By the way, I forfeited the chance to skip Year Four because I thought I was stupid and wouldn’t survive the brunt of Year Five. *Now Black Cheongsam, you know more about me huh* =)

12 years old: UPSR Results Day

UPSR is basically Primary School Assessment Test where everyone in the whole country does the same papers.  If my memory is not deceiving me, I took Malay, English, Maths, Kajian Tempatan (Local Studies), and Science. So the story was:

“Krinnggggg….. “

I answered the phone, “Hello.” “Mum, yeah what’s up?”

“Son, my friend works in the exam department. Do you want me to ask her to check your results before everyone gets theirs?”

“Yeah.” So I gave her my candidate number.

“Son, you got straight As!”

Upon hearing that, I was jumping over the phone. I almost did the Bollywood roll, rolling on the floor as if you’re in love and singing Kuch Kuch Hotta Hei. Wow, so unbelievable!

On the results day where UPSR results was announced for real, I was jumping over the phone calling my mum that I got 5As! I was tearing. My friends and I were screaming It was so unbelievable!

Spot the difference between the previous two paragraphs- the first unbelievable moment was real while the second was fake because my friends cannot know that I already knew one week in advance!

Answer:

Upon hearing that, I was jumping over the phone. I almost did the Bollywood roll, rolling on the floor as if you’re in love and singing Kuch Kuch Hotta Hei. Wow, so unbelievable! (Real.)

On the results day where UPSR results was announced for real, I was jumping over the phone calling my mum that I got 5As! I was tearing. My friends and I were screaming It was so unbelievable! (Fake. Monkey act.)

15 years old: PMR Results Day

I believe I worked reasonably hard for PMR. In my trial exams, I’ve got full As. So, on results day, it was expected. People would be surprised if Winson Lee doesn’t get straight As. The expectation was to that extent.

17 years old: SPM Results Day

Now, SPM was a major headache in my school career. It was complete studying at the last minute before exams. It was going through the thick reference books cover to cover.

I even took my trial exams as the real one because I wanted to gauge myself. The trials turned out well. I’ve got straight A1s in my forecast and I managed to use that to apply to millions of scholarship.

On SPM results day, I was alone. I was late because I came at 2pm. I remember wearing a red singlet with my armpit carpet, or armpit hair, exposed.

“Hi Cikgu, bagaimana results saya?”

“Ah Winson, dah expect la 10 A ni… “

Alright, it was expected. So, it wasn’t as exciting as receiving my PTS verdict.

19 years old: SAT Subject Test Results Day

I mentioned this in a post with almost the same title as above. To recap, Jonathan Mah called me up in my sleep and told me, “Winson, guess how much I got for my Maths 2?” It was a question that he asked so he can answer “800 for Maths 2!”

Mind you, 800 is full score in the SAT Mathematics 2 Test. And Jonathan had the guts to tell me “I didn’t finish the last few questions!”

I checked online for my results. It was full of suspense. The internet was so slow. I almost came to a point where I wanted to curse my monitor “wei, why so slow wan? Stupid monitor, useless la, quickly la”.

Then, it came. It was not bad. =) 2180 for Chemistry, Physics, and Maths 2. I am overjoyed, until Jonathan told me he got 2300++.

19 years and 2 months old: SAT Reasoning Test Results Day

Up till this point, I am already numbed. I checked online through College Board. Well, not bad. Above 2000. That would suffice me to apply to Singapore, I thought to myself.

19 years and 3 months old: International Baccalaureate Results Day

This one was really memorable. An hour before we could access our results online, we were all chatting through Windows Live Messenger. Everyone was so exciting and nervous. What happens if Faizal doesn’t get the 35 IB points he needs to satisfy Petronas? How would Chan Hu do since he seems to be quite relaxed throughout the whole IB? How would the hardworking ants like Ju Anne, Khairul, and Siang Hang do?

We had a countdown on our conversation window. 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 second, 10 second, 3, 2, 1, It’s NOW! Go check guys!

Then, everyone keyed in their pin number and access code.

Jonathan, Riza and I keyed in ours. We were all blocked!!!!

No access. Wrong pin code. Wrong access code. Please try again. We all three can’t access our results!

Then Jonathan proposed we called up our IB Coordinator. It’s 2am for your info. He didn’t answer. Then, Jonathan called up Mr Masukor. Jon said Mr M will call us to inform us our results soon.

“Krinnggggg… ” I answered the phone at 2.30am.

“Winson, this is Mr Masukor, I would have to say that I am slightly disappointed with you, but overall you did okay. I am glad that you have achieved what you have done in your 2 years in IB….

“Mr Masukor, WHAT’S MY RESULTS! Don’t beat around the bush! I can’t take it. I would have heart attack okay!”

“Okay okay Winson. You dropped a few points in Maths and English where you got 6 in both. You got 2 bonus points.”

“So meaning, the rest are 7s?” I did some calculation. Wow, 42 points!

Then, I started spinning on my desktop chair. The results day was on the 6th Jan.

And suddenly, I remember about dad…………..

He must be proud to see me getting this results. The next thing was, I dedicated my 42 points to my dad who went off on Christmas 2008.

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Many people feel sad when they get bad results in their exams. Some of my Form 6 friends who got their STPM results felt totally devastated. But my piece of advice to them, don’t look back and just prepare yourself for the next phase in your roller coaster life.

It’s a great feeling to be able to say that after so many different experiences in getting exam results. Thank you, God for watching me out all this while. =)

I am so excited that I cannot even construct a sentence. Haha…. This is my testimony of how God has been such a good God. Praise Jesus!

If you had read my previous post about my interview with GIC in Malacca, you would know that I did quite badly in my verbal, numerical, abstract, and writing test. Well, at least I thought I did quite badly. But how bad can bad be when you just scribble in writing, took wild guesses at 4 questions in verbal, left 8 questions blank in numerical, and had no clue what you are doing in the abstract test?

And this morning, I got a call from Singapore asking me to attend the final GIC Interview in Singapore two weeks from now. The proposed date is 17-18 March 2009, but unfortunately, I’ve got an interview with Imperial College London on the 18th (will blog about this later). So, I kindly asked them for another date.

Praise God forevermore. I am faithless but He is faithful. Sometimes, my walk with Him is dry, but He has never fail to provide. I just pray that this scholarship is indeed what He intends me to accept. =) See ya. Overjoy to write anything else…. Haha

This is a very simple post. I just want to share about a very meaningful thought today. Today, I saw a boy in a wheelchair. He was suffering from, I believe, growth hormonal disease. I could see that his legs were of unequal length.

He was sitting down in his chair looking at the children in front of him playing, running, and jumping around. I looked at his eyes from afar, and I saw a deep desire within him to be able to do the same like those kids.

The ability to walk and to be able to do anything at will anytime, without any physical hindrance, is a blessing.

For a while, I thought that going for Ivy League universities and having a good paying job is secondary to having the little things that we so often take for granted.

And, I am glad that thought reminded me of how small I am and all the more how I cannot live just for myself, but for others as well.

God, I can walk. Thank you for the ability to walk =)

Venue: Holiday Inn, Malacca

Date: 4th March 2009

It has been long since I blogged in detail about my interview experience i.e Jardine and Oxford interview. Today, I am very glad to share about my adventure in Malacca.

Basic Essentials

GIC stands for Government of Singapore Investment Corporation Pt Ltd. Historically, GIC was set up to manage Singapore’s national reserve right after its separation from Malaysia in the 60s. GIC started with a mere SGD 2 billion in the 60s, and now it is managing in excess of SGD100 billion, in only 28 years of existence.

To put it short: GIC has money, and loads of it; this is what makes the GIC Scholarship so prestigious. I am not going to elaborate about GIC further because all these can be obtained through their corporate website at www.gic.com.sg .

Interview Experience

0900 hours Short Talk about GIC

The interview started with a short talk about GIC and its history in fund management. Surprisingly, the one who made GIC what it is today is a MALAYSIAN. Malaysians rock!

After the short talk by Mr Chan, the Group’s Recruitment Director I believe, there was a short Q &A session with the floor.

Tea Break 1000 hours

Then, we stopped for a short tea break at 1015 hours. This was when we get to mingle around with the other GIC hopefuls. I was surprised at how small the world is.

I met Jason, who is from the same church as Jonathan Mah Koon Chung besides knowing Aaron Baskaran Nair in Catholic High School, and Kien Keong, who is a friend of Jorrel Too. (Jonathan Mah, Aaron Nair, and Jorrel Too are my IB coursemates.)

Then I met Au Yong who lives in BK5 which is 5 minutes away from my house. It was just amazing and we clicked really quickly.

Met Mitchell (a guy by the way) who is doing IB in Penang Uplands International and was shortlisted for Sri KDU IB Scholarship. It was fun meeting a fellow IBian.

I also met a couple of applicants who is completing/has finished their A-levels. Hats off to Jean Yip, the only girl I knew in the whole GIC episode, because I was really shy and busy talking with the other guys.

One-on-One Interview 1015 hours

I was called in for interview with Mr Chan. The interview was rather informal, but I tried to be as formal as possible. I was asked the generic question i.e tell us about yourself.

I felt that that was a good chance for me to sell myself. So I talked about myself, my family, my activities in school, and my interest in finance. To those of you who didn’t know I am very much interested in finnce, now you know. I am Chinese. $$$

Then, the interview headed towards my political views. I spoke at length of the local political scene (not sure that was the best thing to say; I thought talking about world politics would be better) and how frustrated Malaysians like me are with our local politicians.

Next, he asked me about my economic viewpoint. I didn’t take economics and therefore, I thought that I responded to this question rather weakly. Anyhow, I spoke about Obama’s stimulus plan and how the recession could have been avoided if credit card laws were tightened. I also did mentioned that I believe that the recession crisis will recover somehow.

After that, I was given the chance to ask about GIC. I asked some personal questions, but I can say that GIC also offers language classes to all their employees i.e Japanese, German during their careers.

Interview: Pass.

Writing, Verbal, Numerical, and Abstract Test

Okay, so now it comes to the not-so-fun part. All applicants must take these tests so that GIC is able to measure the aptitude skills of all applicants. For someone who hates test, I think I did rather badly.

The writing was rather random and quick. We were given a prompt about “It is a mistake to look too far ahead.” I just blurted out whatever I had in mind, but I guess it should be okay. You have 5 minutes to respond in less than 100 words.

Next, I took the Abstract test. It was abstract literally. Generally, it is a test to see whether you can spot differences and similarities in different patterns. Some of my answers were abstract and I didn’t know what I was doing. Anyhow, you have 30 minutes to complete 115 questions. Tough, you bet.

Following was the Verbal Test. It is something like SAT Critical Reading, but on a milder note. I think I did okay on this, but I can’t finish the last 4 questions. So, I kinda just took 4 wild guesses. You have 30 minutes.

Then, we stopped for lunch. *Relieved.*

Lunch 1215 hours

During lunch, the most dominant topic is our conversation was about our tests and interview. Apparently, some went for interview first while some did the these first. Some also had their interview sandwiched between the tests. I am glad that everyone found the tests to be hard. =)

One of the things that Mr Chan look for in a GIC scholar is that the scholar must be HUMAN. Yeah, you read that right, YOU MUST BE A HUMAN. Being human generally means you can relate with people and have a balanced perspective on life. He is not looking for Olympiad Gold Medallists, but for people with a balanced study and play portfolio. I think I can offer my extra-curricular portfolio to them, but I am not so sure about my academic prowess. IB 42 points don’t say a single thing about intelligence, but only persistence!

Back to the lunch, I had a 5-star buffet. Although all the food I had was so bad for my blood pressure and cholestrol, I decided that the food was irresistable. I didn’t behave like a glutton which I did on many buffets in the past, so I took lamb chop, sweet and sour chicken, pasta, salad, chocolate cake, blueberry cake, melons, and water in a balanced proportion.

Numerical Test Continued 1315 hours

Back to taking test. I am a person who can’t think when I have a full stomach. Anyhow, Lord Jesus, grant me wisdom and strength! Right, so the test was basically a maths test.

There weren’t any calculus, vector, or trigonometric questions. In fact, the questions were so easy that you would find them hard! They were simple questions in layman terms, but you would need some time to dissect what they want. I think I did quite badly in this test. The thing was, there were 16 answer options for each question. I was required to answer 33 questions in 30 minutes! Go figure how can you get that done.

I thought I was disadvantaged because I left my maths for three months already, and my brain now is not fit to crunch on numbers like it used to be. Well, commit it to the Lord and hopefully that His favour will be on me. =)

So, there you go, GIC Scholarship Interview 2009!

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Non-Essentials (Optional to Read)

I arrived in Holiday Inn, Malacca at 11pm last night. I went there with a friend who was also selected for the interview. That was my first time staying ina 5-star hotel alone!

I had a king-sized bed and 4 pillows. Also, the room comes with free Wi-Fi, which I can’t utilise because I need a lappie. On top of that, you have a large LCD TV with satellite channels. The bed was so comfortable… haaaa….

Then, this morning I checked out at 8.30am. Guess how much it cost me to pamper myself for 9 hours in Holiday Inn? Answer: MYR 276.

Super jakun!

Apologies again for such a long break from blogging. =)

Last night, at 9pm, on my landline at home, I got a call from a Princeton alumni all the way from USA. It had become one of my most memorable phone calls in life. I shall remember speaking to a fellow Malaysian who graduated from the same university, and shared about her fun days there.

Generally, the interview was informal. So, the ah and um and cool are allowed. Initially, I asked her (yes, a her) to slow down because I can’t catch the speed of her American English.

We spoke a lot about the learning philosophy in Princeton, the life as an engineering student in Princeton, and what one should expect in Princeton.

In fact, I managed to share about my debating passion with her. Good to know that in Princeton, everyone is pretty much like me! Wee-hee…

So, now I could only wait and see whether I fit into their community. Come 1 April. Stay tune.

As I type this as calmly and rationally possible, I feel shortchanged for having to pay for someone’s ugly mistake.

As I was driving on the highway back from SS3, one lousy Mercedes hit my car’s right rear, stripping partially the rear bumper. The driver didn’t even stop to look, just zoomed away. I am real pissed!

God, please grant me the strength and love to forgive that brainless cow!

P/S: The author thinks it is foolish to pay for someone’s mistake for no apparent reason. Expected car repair cost: RM500 onwards