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Ah I missed saying this in my previous entry, but I went for a focus group discussion at a marketing research company at Menara IGB, Midvalley, last Thursday night.. and it was something. Jon and I were about 40 minutes late lmao after being caught in the usual rush hour (Jon reached my place around 5.45pm-ish, and then picked up Sarah), and we completely missed the appointed time of 6.30pm.

We thought that that was gonna be it – that we have missed our focus group and the chance to make RM80-100 for a 2-hour session (later it turns out take about 3 hours and we were paid only RM80 :/). But lo and behold after trading phone calls with Adrian and Esther, we found out that they still haven’t started the discussion yet ‘cause they were waiting for the me and Jon.. talk about embarrassing. =.=”

It was an interesting experience – and I’m game for experiencing new things. We were ushered into a meeting room, where upon the table sat plastic boxes of fried rice, McD’s nuggets, and cut fruits. We were told to eat our dinner before the discussion began, and we did, and there was a silence of temporary awkwardness permeating the air as 8 strangers (well, not me, Jon, and Adrian) were sitting around a table together.

Actually some of them didn’t even eat at all (including Adrian) – and we have some very interesting characters: Debbie the Hospitality student who wore a coat and looked like an incredibly mature pilot or something, Kewy (pronounced as ‘kiwi’ wtf) who was bubbly and child-like, her friend whom I forgot his name whom I found a little annoying and dished out stupid questions or answers, and, well, the other 2 girls were fairly quiet and didn’t exactly stand out, except for one who has started working and had an amazing boyish messy hair.

Long story short the discussion was really about Justea’s new packaging, and we finished at about 10.20pm no thanks to the both of us who were late in the first place. >_> We were also supposed to be given our ‘incentive’ – as they put it – on the spot, but our moderator Rebecca was apologetic and said that the person responsible for the payment has left the office without the payment. She said that it was the first time it ever happened, and we could leave our bank account numbers and they’d bank in for us blablabla.

All was fine until the next day when I was told by Adrian that surprise!, we have to go all the way back to Midvalley again to collect our pay personally because the person responsible was incredibly rigid about the whole thing – and Adrian can’t even collect the payment on my behalf because they need.. our.. signature. Wei wtf lah seriously why are we being punished for your mistake! Midvalley isn’t exactly near to my place, plus it’s always a jam fest there.

Fast forward to last Saturday two days after, I collected my pay with Andy waiting for me in the car. Upstairs at the 18th floor where the company is, I had to open the envelope containing my ‘incentive’, check the amount, then sign. All the way there just to do that wtf I don’t understand this company’s uptight policies at all! Never would I deal with this company again ever.

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I was walking back from college to where I parked at SS14 two days ago after my 2nd last paper ended, feeling that spark of euphoria that was beginning to light up inside me. Right there and then, I thought of where I stood exactly in life – and I realised that my entire life was compounded on choices and decisions I’ve made (and probably my parents’ and friends’).

If I rewinded and backtracked – visualising at the same time the reversal of the flow of time and everything in my life was reverting in a fast-backward motion – to where I stood right after my primary school ended, that was also when I had to decide on a fairly large decision: to study at SMK USJ 13 or SMK USJ 8.

Most of my friends were pulled to USJ 13 while I was offered USJ 8, and I disliked that – I didn’t like having to make new friends all over again, having switched primary school 3 times already. But of course, it was there at u8 that I found the most amazing bunch of friends one could’ve ever hoped for – so much so I could regard them as an extension of my family.

Ah and if it wasn’t at u8, I wouldn’t have met Gopi and Siew again (they were from the same primary school at Seafield 3 IIRC), and if I hadn’t met them, I wouldn’t have had the chance to backpack with them for the first time ever to Cambodia and Vietnam (and later on, Laos and Thailand) – something I’ve always wanted to do for a very long time, after one or two botched overseas travelling plans.

Every single sen I spent on my backpacking trips were all very well spent – meeting Kazz, the former drug dealer with his endless interesting and eccentric life stories; drinking freshly brewed rice wine in Dalat, Vietnam; wandering alone at the magnificent rustic site of Angkor Wat that words completely failed me to describe its utmost grandeur; kids on the streets of Cambodia running up to you peddling their wares screaming in their tiny high-pitched voices “One dollar one dollar!”; staring at the elegantly crafted gems in the sky and a few shooting stars at the skyline of the night in a remote, secluded village in Laos, that filled me with a sense of awe and humbled me to think that we’re a mere speck of dust floating in the boundless universe; the painful, arse-aching 12-hour bus journeys that I think I’ve grown accustomed to despite them being such a torture; fellow backpackers that we met and crossed and would never see again; the often cheerful locals going about their simple, daily lives.

To this date, I am still thankful for the choices that Siew and I made back at Vang Vieng, Laos. That we skipped a day ahead in Vientiane and stayed in Vang Vieng longer instead, and decided to do a cycling trip and ventured into several caves before we decided on this particular Pou Kham Cave, and met Jazz the Singaporean in it. And then we met Ting at the foot of the cave. =)

I don’t believe in fates and destinies and all that, but if I try to think of all the choices that we made, it’s really more than amazing how coincidental our meet up is, isn’t it? If Siew and I hadn’t skipped one day at Vientiane, if we hadn’t departed from our guesthouse to go on that cycling trip at that specific time, if we hadn’t venture into a few caves before going to Pou Kham (and missed seeing Jazz altogether), we wouldn’t have met Ting. We wouldn’t have then continued our cycling trip together – the four of us and the tour guide – and all because if we hadn’t met Jazz in that cave at that exact hour, minute, second.

Choices, decisions. I couldn’t imagine how life would be if I had studied at SMK USJ 13 instead. From that single decision itself, I wouldn’t have met my current friends (granted, I would’ve made other friends instead, and maybe start smoking, playing truant etc wtf), and I wouldn’t have become sorta closer to Siew and Gopi enough to go on a backpacking trip, and then I wouldn’t have gone on a second backpacking trip to Laos and Thailand, and then I wouldn’t have met Ting.

And she wouldn’t have been able to help Matt, Albert, and I to recover our money partially from the Bangkok gem scam.

And. And. And.

There are so many more what-ifs that I could think of. If we hadn’t invited Ding to our after-SPM Langkawi trip together (and hence wouldn’t be part of our extended family now); if I hadn’t visited digg for some reason on that fateful day and spotted Boss Stewie and Boss Lepton’s lengmou blog, I wouldn’t have learned of Chris’ existence and wouldn’t have been such good friends with him; if I hadn’t edited and passed up an essay I wrote when I was in Form 3 or Form 4 on the very last day of the deadline, I wouldn’t have gotten shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; if we hadn’t joined the Celcom Youth Ambassador programme, I wouldn’t have decided to start creating a MapleStory database fansite out of boredom together with Jon during our long November/December holidays in Form 4 (which was when, during the CYA programme, my interest in web design grew); if I didn’t decide to join Metropolitan College, I wouldn’t have thought of studying Mandarin (because back in Foundation my classmates converse a lot in Mandarin), and then Japanese.. So many ifs. So many what-ifs.

And they all compounded and rolled into a single point in time today, right down to this very moment where I’m typing this.

I am so glad to have met and known all of you, and apart from a few foolish decisions that I occasionally kick myself for, I hadn’t regretted a single thing I did.

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My holidays officially began yesterday at 5pm the moment our lecturers told us to stop writing and hand up our Price Theory papers (nearly every single tip that our PT lecturer gave was true, right to every single letter wtf). My holidays have begun, and I am overjoyed at the thought of the many things that I’ve planned to do. =))) Here I come games, books, movies, and music! (And studying Japanese for the JLPT3, because I’m a nerd like that wtf.)