Okay, so this blog has been completely neglected since it's birth and I'm really sorry! It's 2016 and I'm about to embark myself of a whole new exciting journey which is COLLEGE LIFE, or university here in Malaysia. I would like to document this journey and put it up here on the internet for others to read and relate to. Not that I am expecting people to be interested in my brainfarts anyway, but I'm doing it anyway. So be it!
So let's start with a sad anecdote to celebrate the rebirth of this blog. It happened a couple of days ago, on the 21st of May 2016, to be exact. I went to my second last interview hell session before my final one this coming Wednesday. First, I would like to say that the whole thing happened due to my own laziness and carelessness and I blame no one but myself wholeheartedly. So off we go back to that Saturday morning. I had prepared all my documents needed and packed up all my drawings in my portfolio. I was all good for my third interview to enroll in an architecture degree program here in the local university. I had done a quick search on the university to read up on the overview of the program they provided and it went over my head that the school I applied for has a few campuses in the same city and I was so sure it was the Puncak Alam campus of UiTM that the interview was held at. I was an ignorant fool who have only heard of people saying things about that specific campus that I didn't know that they had another campus in the middle of Shah Alam.
That morning, we left Seremban at around 40 minutes after 6 am because the interview started at 8:30 am. My dad drove my mom and I to Puncak Alam. At around 8 am we followed the direction from our GPS device and my big mouth led us to taking a wrong turn on the highway, wasting us about 10 minutes since we had to travel farther up into the highway before reaching an exit. Then we moved along toward our destination went past hills and kampung houses. When we got there, there were no signs telling us where the interview was held. This campus is huge! It was located on mountains, I kid you not! We took another wrong turn and my mom made me ask people on the sidewalk for directions. I called my friend who also had the interview as me and she told me that she was waiting under a tent waiting for her turn. So I thought to myself that we need to find the tent. We went to the faculty of medicine and apparently the pharmacy kids also had their interview that day. No one freaking knew where the faculty of architecture is so we just went ahead to the other side of the mountain since that was the only place we didn't get to yet.
Once we got there, we drove around since there was no damn signs that indicates that it was the right faculty. The signboards seriously didn't help at all! We were beginning to get frustrated at this point. What struck me was there was no tents around and no cars to be seen! We asked directions from a few students waiting at the bus stop and apparently we were at the right place. We were already half an hour late by that time. My mom and I went inside the building of the faculty and it was dead silent. We went upstairs to the third floor since when we asked the guy said the faculty is located there. There was nobody there!!!! I felt like crap when we got out of the lift and it was empty. No one there, nada. Then, my mom asked if I was sure it's the Puncak Alam campus and we checked the interview slip and it was actually in SHAH ALAM not PUNCAK ALAM. I was already an hour late and now we had to drive another half an hour away to get to the right campus!
My dad can be quite patient when he wants to but I know for a fact that he's not the kind that takes mistakes lightly and can be set off with the smallest, tiniest mistakes which annoys the fuck out of me since I tend to live my life carelessly and freely. My mom and I made our way back to the car and I spilled out the fact that we went to the wrong campus. My dad as expected just made a big deal of the whole thing (understandably tbh) and that was just the very beginning of the journey to hell. I just exploded once my dad began to nag away; first with anger and then I just burst into tears since it was already so stressful. I was actually more angry toward myself and I just let it off on my dad. And I actually cried thinking how I was such a stupid dumbass and how selfish I was to always make my parents go through a whole load of shit all the time. I was at an all-time low smh.
We made a move to the right campus following the GPS navigation. I was full on sobbing in the back seat and stared out the window the whole journey. The interview was the last thing I wanted to do at that point. I really wanted to be back in my room under the cover and shut the whole world out. Along the way, my mom nagged on how selfish I was and that I didn't even bother to search up on the place we were going beforehand. I felt completely shitty; shittiest among the shitty. Once we got to the city, it seemed that my mom put in the wrong address in the GPS and it took us to INTEC rather than UiTM Shah Alam and I was just too tired with the whole catastrophe at that point. I was 2 hours late already. My dad was pissed off and took off to take a smoke to chill down.
Once again we made our way to the RIGHT campus this time. We made sure to ask for the direction when we got to the front gate of the university. This campus was as mountainous as the last but even more densely packed with buildings. We climbed our way up following the given direction. We didn't see any signs for the interview either. I saw a sign for the interview for "Seni Lukis dan Seni Reka" and we almost missed that sign. I was sure that was the right faculty but then my interview was for "Seni Bina". My mom got mad at me for being such a wuss (admittedly I am) my whole life and made me get out of the car and asked the staff there for the right direction. After that, the hellish journey continued because we actually made at least five rounds across the entire campus just driving in circles trying to find the goddamn place and asked so many people for the way to get there.
FINALLY, when we actually got there I was 4 hours late. I got there around 12 pm and I was the last person to register. I took the drawing test as needed and tried to do my best for my parents' sake and tried to make the whole torturous journey worth it. Then, all I needed was to sit and wait for my turn for the interview. I didn't have to wait for long since there weren't many people waiting. I was the last to go, obviously.
When it was finally my turn, I went in trying to contain my nervousness and I was almost moving on auto-pilot since my brain is on energy saving mode after over-exerting itself that morning. All I wanted was to sleep the day away so that I could forget that whole thing ever happened. I sat down in front of the interviewer and tried to put on my best confident-girl face and faked myself to the fullest. It was a very casual session and he seemed like a very lovely man. He was about my dad's age and seemed like a pious Muslim with his beard and all. First of all, he scanned through my SPM result, my foundation pointer and where I studied. Then, he asked me why I wanted to get into UiTM since my result of 9A's for SPM was really good and that I would've gotten into other universities. I told him that I wanted to try out for all universities because I didn't know which I would get accepted into. Then, we looked at the drawing that I did (I had to draw a geometrical set of shapes that they placed on a podium in the drawing hall) and I saw that marked mine with 73% (that was so close to A-) and he explained that I had trouble with perspectives and getting the shadows right. Then he showed me some portraits that his first year students did to show me how I compared to them. At this point, I could sense everything going downhill tbh. He then asked whether I really wanted to get into UiTM and for some reason I felt intimidated and didn't fucking fought him with any points at all and I acted all confused. I didn't give a very convincing case to show my eagerness to get accepted there. He then asked me if I would rather have him teach me how to draw after he found out that I have an upcoming interview for UM. He was so keen on having me go to UM and my heard dropped at the whole scenario of being openly rejected for once. I did take up his drawing lesson and he taught me how to draw based on a one point perspective with a person's eye level as a way to measure heights of buildings.
I walked out of the room completely dejected but at the same time was glad that whole thing was over with. I found my parents waiting for me under some tents and as I told them how the interview went, I was holding back tears and really didn't want to cry in front of another family sitting nearby.
WHOO, so that was my worst and most bittersweet interview experience. I hope no one has to experience that much in a single day. But you know what! As a Muslim I learned to be thankful with whatever fate that I was thrown into. Seriously aku redha dengan semua perkara yang terjadi pada hari tu sebab memang sebelum hari temuduga tu aku banyak take for granted peluang-peluang yang aku diberi dan memang tak boleh dinafikan aku seorang yang pemalas. Sejak hari tu aku mula berfikir secara positif dan aku cuba untuk menjadi seorang anak yang lebih baik terhadap ibu bapa aku. It was one of the hardest drawing lesson that I had to attend hahaha. I had to go through hell and back for it, alhamdulillah.
XOXO
aniish
