The Call

Referring to a previous post, I've pledged to document my entire Uni life semester by semester, jotting down every significant detail I can remember. It's long overdue I know, but it's now or never!

**

The annoying hum of my dilapidated Nokia woke me up from my daily afternoon nap ritual. The prospect of waking up, lowering my feet to the ground, and taking those arduous steps towards my dressing table just to retrieve a call seemed incongruent to the effort I had to make. And so of course, I left my Nokia unattended.

Until I remembered...

On the morning of the same day, I sat among seven other equally twitchy short-listed candidates. Our legs trotted up and down in a rhythm that spoke of our tension while our postures assumed a confident but rehearsed gait. A young lady approached us with a red plastic bag where we began to draw lots to determine the order of our one-on-one interview.

Lucky number... four!

As we settled down into our orders, what started out as a shallow small talk quickly turned into a heated debate, conjuring an argument on who should have bagged the American Idol title back then. Meanwhile, the young lady paced back and forth between the copy machine and our sitting area, making copies of each our original certificates.

The third candidate before me pulled out a stack of certificates no thinner than our local Yellow Pages to be photocopied. What's more, as her interview progressed, a thunderous applaud followed after each of her presentation slides.

At that, our eyes collectively lowered, our confidence pretense immediately unmasked. What's worse, I was next.

Entering the room, I squeezed myself through an overly-sized round table to get to a vacant chair I assumed was reserved for me. Without much thought, I plunked on the seat and as I lifted my eyes, I was met by what looked like four pairs of clueless eyes, indicating that something was amiss. To assuage the awkward predicament, I managed a coy, uneasy smile.

Learning that I probably didn't get the message, one of the interviewers lifted her hand towards a blank white screen, and asked that I should immediately begin with my presentation. Embarrassed, I quickly apologised and clumsily made my way to the front of the room.

I presented my slides as best as I could, throwing in some jokes where appropriate (an eager attempt to show some personality). The presentation consisted of details about myself, my likes, my dislikes, my accomplishments, etc. Questions were strewn concerning my father's view of the course that I would undertake should the interview prove successful - and if you know my father, he definitely wasn't one to wave a "Go for it!" banner, at least not until later.

In about 40 minutes, I was out of the room. Phew!

As I waited for my dad to pick me up after the interview, I took a seat by an open air sitting area facing a crowded walkway. As a string of students walked by, I remember sitting there, eyes closed, head to the sky, letting out a simple prayer, "God, could this be it?".

Recalling all these, I quickly hobbled to the dressing table to salvage what remaining rings were left of my unanswered Nokia (I realise I've made reference to the mobile giant for the third time now but this can hardly be considered a product placement). As I made a dive for it (I exaggerate), the phone quietened - classic!

Thankfully, a voice mail was left, with the young lady (the same one I met earlier in the day) asking me to call her back the next day. And so I did, and the rest was - as they say - history.

So on June 3rd, 2008, I got my butt on stage to receive the Taylor's World Class Scholarship, in partnership with Leo Burnett - Arc Worldwide Malaysia.

Yes, that's Nicole!

Recipients from the School of Communication

The first three photos weren't taken by me and are not even mine actually, it was another fellow recipient's who blogged about it (yes, I Googled the award ceremony up and borrowed some pictures but only so that I could enrich this word-laden tapestry).

There are two main reasons as to why I'm recounting this experience:

1. I'm writing this not to gloat over my achievement (okay, maybe a little) but more importantly, to always remember God's faithfulness in my life. On the day of the award ceremony, a list of accolades for each of the recipient was announced as we made our way to the stage. I remember feeling so small because I probably had one of those barely-made-the-scholarship-requirement achievement while others were grinning ear to ear with their 10 or 20As.

On that day, I felt Scripture truly coming to life, i.e. "God uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise..."

2. To always recognise God's plan for my life. I know this post doesn't even document my uni life per se but this was a pivotal point. Had it not been for this, let's just say, the three years that followed would have been a very different one. I remember spending a full day mulling over whether to accept the scholarship, asking God if this was truly His will. And if I'd known then what God had in store for me in three years that followed, I would have said "yes" in a heartbeat!

Let's just say, it was quite a plan.

P/S: I later learned during the award ceremony that the other candidate - now a good friend - who got that thunderous applaud when she was presenting during the interview... Turns out, it was actually an animation sound effect she inserted to her Power Point. We laughed so hard when we found out!