Literary Award Dinner

Got an early morning phonecall from someone at IMPAC yesterday, asking me to go to Park Royal at 5.30pm instead of the 6.30pm as planned. My parents were the semangat cases and already took leave, so they drove me there and we reached on time.

Not many of the shortlisted candidates were there in Cattleya 3, only exactly half of the 20. I was overwhelmed and taken aback by everyone’s powderful england, with only slight traces of the Malaysian English lahs and lors and hors peppered around. Wahsei.

So there’s the usual socialising in which I subconciously turned horribly shy because.. I don’t know, maybe I was intimidated by how good everyone’s English is, and apparently almost everyone had been a debater or public speaker, wtf. o__o My spoken English is so sub-standard, and on learning that you have to read out excerpts of your essay in front of people, I thought “sei lor”.

Got to meet Andrew who actually read my essay before on my blog, and Suet’s as well. o__o Su Ann sat next to me when she came in slightly late, and funny how we both are “Suet’s friend” and know each other’s existence through blogs.

We recited our essays to practise in that room, and.. I particularly enjoyed Amanda’s (I think it was her) essay on how if she could change the world, she would start with the toilets. Funny shite (pun not intended).

At about 6.40pm we left the room and went to the ‘grand ballroom’. The emcee was doing an excellent job and I enjoyed her voice tremendously. The hotel food sucks, with it being either too spicy or too dry.

The stage, and the tables near it.

Me receiving the ‘yay-you’re-a-finalist’ certificate.

Suet receiving the same (her camera’s memory card conveniently decided to self-destruct).

Both of us, and Mr Victor and Pn Minder Kaur.

A look of the table, food, glass of water and red wine.

When the results were to be announced, I was hoping to get the Merit Award for the extra cash of a whooping RM250 or RM500 depending on how ‘high’ your Merit is - I really need and want and desire it, the cash I mean.

But noo I was the second name called and landed myself with a consolation prize of a brochure proclaiming the wonders of Trinity College of Ireland and a nice-looking Cross fountain pen in which I doubt I would appreciate its classiness. But still, I’m pretty happy about getting to the top 20 out of 1100 contestants, since this is the first time I joined this IMPAC competition, my second essay-writing competition (the first was the MPH), and it was submitted on the very last day of the deadline.

Good achievement lah I think.

Suet got the highest Merit Award which netted her RM500 (wtf!), while Andrew won the Grand Prize. His essay was brilliant and managed the topic of “If I could change the world” very well, unlike most of us which skirted about the topic with fictions or done-to-death ideas. Best of all, he was bloody articulate.

Funnily enough, some religious makcik was sitting next to my mum having a lively conversation (her daughter couldn’t attend because she’s studying Islam or something), and complained to my mum about Suet’s and Su Ann’s attire and said something like, “Gadis-gadis muda hari ini…” to which both my mum and I chuckled.

Group photo session where my face is obstructed by a group of over-excited girls, and so many people were taking our photos like we’re a group of celebrities. The flashes were coming non-stop.

Fromt left: partially cut-out Andrew, Tara of Chempaka, 15 year-old very mature-looking sorry-I-forgot-your-name dude also from Chempaka (private school it seems, and their teacher forced their class to join the competition lol), Suet, Amanda (I think), me, and I-don’t-know-whos.

Since her camera is practically disabled, Suet proceeded to camwhore with my cam in the ladies.

Group photo with my family and Suet’s family.

So it all ended at about 10.30pm. I went back after some photo sessions, SMSed Jess who asked about the results, and I asked them where they were. At 11.15pm I reached USJ 1’s Rumours (some pub) and joined them for a while till 12am, since Esther was generous once more to belanja us again. Wah.

Esther sangat high.

Happy-go-lucky.

The guys who were there (Heng not in photo).

The performance by this duo. The lady at one point (during a Guns n Roses song) stared at me and I stared back, then she winked seductively and did the ‘rock’ sign (dunno how to describe it lah, rappers and all like to use this particular hand sign) to which I did the same to oblige.

A survey of Rumours.

They also have a pool table.

It was like a lively boombox inside, and the cigarette smoke was thick and rife but still wasn’t bad enough that we couldn’t breathe. Drank a mug of Tiger (btw, the table I sat with with Mr Victor and Pn Minder ordered red wine; didn’t know you can freely do that! They even refill for you, huhu), and after trying to enjoy songs belted out despite the fact we are sitting right in front of the large speakers and stuff.

At 12am, we went to SS15 at first on the pretext of playing pool but it was bloody full, being a Friday night and all. Went back to Shawn’s house, RB’s car bought 15 packets of Maggi Mee (wtf) and RB started to cook ‘em, with 10 packets.

Jess, Shawn and RB in the kitchen.

The load of Maggi Mee.

Chit-chatted in the kitchen for a while.

Supper prepared by the temporary chef. De-lee-shos.

We hanged around till about 2am, then went off to RB’s house to shift our chit-chatting arena. No, we didn’t get accused of maksiat by Shawn’s parents.

There, we continued our utter nonsensical chat which comprised topics like “can you have sex for 8 hours straight” and “how to play drums” as asked by Esther. At about 4am, Andy fetched the rest home, leaving me, RB, Ding, Shawn and Heng to go to the nearby RM1.50 cybercafe. Played CS till 5 something.

Seriously wtf. I reached home only at about 5.30am, and azan sudah berkumandang. Waliao. The latest I recently went back home was at 5am, and it’s getting later and later as the days go on, lol.

But the fact that we enjoyed the mutual fun without getting high on Ecstasy and cigs and other inane stuffs I couldn’t imagine myself doing, and enjoyed our bond as a whole, that’s quite good enough.