Friday, June 10, 2005

My Life before My Eyes....


Dear all,

Shall I reiterate the fact that Life is no Joke, nor Peach nor a Box of Chocolates?

If Life is a Joke, we’ll only take our breaths when we are dead.

If Life is a Peach, it’d be free of constipation and we’d spend whole lifetimes stuck on the toilet seat.

If Life is a Box of Chocolates, our dentists would be World Leaders and no one would know the meaning of ‘thin’, ‘slim’ and ‘smooth skin’. We’d all be sore-throated, fat and pimply.

Why am I talking about Life? Because in the space of 2 hours, a small fraction of my own life, I experienced the whole spectrum of the Human Emotions like white light through a kaleidoscope.

And I experienced it standing in front my BBoss and his Buddies… in a room full of colleagues (read:>10).

By the flow of the entry, you can tell that I’m not feeling any kind of euphoria. But nevermind, just read on…



It started when the 3 examiners entered the seminar room booked for my presentation. I took it as an extremely bad sign that they actually not only arrived early to get the best seats, which is close enough to decipher even the small prints on the PPT and trace every new wrinkle I grew seeing them sit so near me, but also came in with bouncing steps.


Serious…you know what I mean…not rabbit-hopping, which goes ‘boing boing boing’, but rather like Sharity Elephant in Overdrive with Anorexia...…yea…


…… Skippity Skippity Hop

You would have thought they’d have a bit more respect for the soon-to-be-dead, but no! They had huge wreaths of smiles on their faces and joked and laughed among themselves and shifted their chairs closer and closer to the projection and hummed….


Yes! I’m not Joking! How to joke?! *sobz*


By then, I was experiencing Apprehension, Anxiety and Personal Space Invasion. Then, while I was smiling nervously at them, BBoss saw the presentation notes nestled in my hands and said laughingly,


“Hey hey! Are those notes I see? Put them away or I’ll fail you.”


Wham! Disbelief, Panic and Fear soon made themselves comfortable in my heart, lungs and tummy. Of cos, for a split second, I also felt Suspicion in my own hearing, but when the other 2 nodded their heads and said ‘Good idea, you should get all your info from the slides.’ I felt Despair greeting the others.


When I put away my notes, I also lost the umbilical cord to Organized Thoughts. The PPT had over 60 slides with animation….I started feeling Forgetful, Lost and Helpless.

Then I started my speech. It started OK when I could still remember what slides came after what and all the points with which to touch on each….but those were only the first 7 slides.

On the 8th slide, 1 examiner burst out with a question. I’ll not bore you with what question he asked, except that it was a good question, a valid question. It was also a question which I forgot the answer to.


I felt my face heat up in the midst of my own silence-- Humiliation, Embarassment and Worry took up elbow space. I stuttered out a vague answer which brought more questions from the judges….I begin digging my own pit for my own grave and still the questions won’t stop coming. My colleagues had Shock sitting among them because it’s technicality a no-no to interrupt a presentation and with Bewilderment, they watched the examiners hammering questions after questions into me.

Of cos, I do not have to tell you that subsequently after that, everything went downhill. I forgot my flow of thought and began to succumb to Terror and Confusion. Almost every slide they stopped me and questioned me. I became totally Disoriented and Overwhelmed and start reading my slides. I started taking cues from my colleagues who nodded and shook their heads accordingly so I knew when I was making Sense and when I wasn’t.

It was supposed to be a 45min presentation with 15min Q&A but, it turned out to be, yes, you guessed right! it was 2 hours worth of The Most Exciting Momentous Moment in my Whole Life.

Finally when I reached my last slide, I was barely standing, my left knee had given way and cracked everytime I shift. I was totally Distraught and had aged 10 years. BBoss asked if the general crowd had any more questions, but by now, my colleagues were too sorry for me and too tired to open the floor for discussion Again and thus, filed out quietly.

BBoss and examiners whispered a bit agitatedly before telling me to ‘pls leave while we settle some more issues’. There were more issues? I felt that I was done for already...


I was all alone along the corridor and now had my chance to experience some Private Hell. BBoss and his buddies had looked so grim….Is Hyperventilation an emotion? Oh well, I experienced that too. I saw a red mist and thought I was slowly fainting from all the Exciting Fricking Excitement.


Less than 5 minutes later, all three of them bounded out and found me standing there with a bloodless face.


BBoss immediately made another accurate observation, “So it so bad? You looked like you’ve seen a ghost!”


Then he gave a whack on my back and exclaimed,

“You passed! Well-done!”


Then I felt like I was really fainting. My downtrodden dying heart suddenly leaped into life in a salmon and almost gave me a heart attack. My face flushed again and my body suddenly experienced zero gravity. I think, if I didn’t know better, it might have been an orgasm ….


I experienced the Joyous side of Life once again. 256 million pixel colours chased away the red mist. My lungs suddenly expanded twice their size after shrivelling up in Dejection. My knee miracously recovered…..


I’ve come from Zero to Hero….


In front of the smiling trio, I burst out, “WHY?! I thought I was going to fail!”


BBoss replied amusingly, ‘Of Cos, who wouldn’t? I asked them to pull out all the stops! We deliberately made it this way. We already knew you’ve done enough, you did good work, I’d be the first to admit it. We also did it to raise the standard for all Examinations from now on.’


Happiness, Joy and Butterflies Suffused into my tummy….I don’t ever think I’ve heard him praise me so…

Then he turned to the other two Extras and laughed, ‘And frankly, it was really quite funny watching your face do acrobatics, we had a bit of problem keeping a straight face. We want to see how far you can go before crumbling…’

OK…so the Happiness level was trampled abit by Betrayal and Resentment. I quickly said, ‘Thank you.’ Before I decided those Wasps don’t deserve it.

I also think I’d better stop this post now before I really whack BBoss for that horrible thing he did to me. Because at the bottom of it all, I passed. I did well and he gave me my heart’s Desire:

A Fricking HUGE Kindergarten STAR!



And it was really shall go down in history as the most momentuous Moment in My Life, it’ll be utterly unforgettable because I had my head scalped for this.



In fact, it is everything he promised it would be.
He is such a Fricking Genuis...





I got My STAR! Posted by Hello


That's it!

Out,
AKK :)

Ps. thx for the well-wishing! :) everything's ok now!

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woaa..
Gal, way to go !
You have passed!
With flying colours, i believe?!
-Yoyo-

Tempest Blue said...

Congrats congrats! And more congrats!

Now will you tell me who those evil people are so I can siam as far as possible from them? haha

They're in NUS issit?

Ang Ku Kueh said...

hey yoyo!
not with flying colours lah, not that great, but good enough to still scream in joy every now and then. next obstacle is to hand up the dissertation! it'll be another ride...

tempestblue:

I'm in NUS, but due to privacy and lawyer letters, cannot tell you who they are! *hint* examiners don't have to come from within the school...Biopolis big big...hospitals also have....*chortle* i just widened the options...

Tempest Blue said...

lol... bad lah you... later I also kena them. the Bio/med academic fraternity isn't that big.

But anyway congrats on your STAR! :-) Its not from A*STAR isit?

kachuaz said...

3 cheers~

Wallace said...

~chey~
i knew you'd be fine. no surprises there.. but very interesting post!
btw, i still didn't get it. its a defense for what ah? passed what ah?

takchek said...

Congrats!

Ang Ku Kueh said...

tempestblue:

orh...you from biomed ah...careful i find out who you are....

OTOH, just in case you are A*, apart from just ONE person I knew who is a* scholar, i don't think much of PYeo's protegies at all....

Sad to say, most of them end up regretting their 4-6 yr bondage very soon into the scholarship.

Kachuaz:

thanks for dropping by leh and thnx for the well-wishing! I bloody like your nick!

Wally:

I did so think I would fail lor! I cried after he say I pass leh. How pathethic was that, man? :)

takchek:

thank u thank u! haiyah, very soon I wont be takchek-ing anymore! fantastic! :)

Tempest Blue said...

Haha.. don't worry, I think we're thinking along the same lines when it comes to A*star, though I like the proteges more than the big boss. :-)

Err. did I say I was from Biomed? No no! i'm doing Comparative Neoclassical Literature!

Finsology said...

YEAH YEAH!
I totally understand how you felt during those nail-biting two hours.
But hey it paid off... =)

atelierz said...

Congrats!!! =D
I feel so happy for you man! Keep up your good work and I'm sure there will be more stars coming your way!!

kachuaz said...

you r most welcome & blardy thanks!

=P

nadnut said...

congrats! do whack ur Bboss one day. hahaha

Ang Ku Kueh said...

tempestblue:

aiyah, just watch out ah! scarly see got stalker peering at you doing expt one day, ehehehe...

Averilchan:

Thanks for dropping by! Nail-biting is very apt! ahaha...you sound like you've got a whacked up presentation before too! :)

li-er:

aiyah! you see?! your pom-pom waving worked like a charm! thankee thankee!

nad:

thanks for dropping by! actually my boss is very nice to me already, ehehehe...maybe the other students will really Really get it from him during their own defence...die....

hisreason:

Haiyah! I did it I did it! I also Cannot believe it! I bloody went toilet to sob from pent-up stress and happiness after he told me I passed! how pathethic!

Ivan Chew said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Ivan Chew said...

Congrats. BTW, when people ask questions after questions, it means there's hope. It's only when they can't be bothered to ask any... that's when you start panicking. Speaking from experience.

Anonymous said...

TempestBlue is from Bio-Engineering.

Muhahahhaha!

- YoYo -

JellyGirl said...

hehehe...at least your boss has a sense of humour! But well done, it's over!

Ang Ku Kueh said...

Ivan:

I'd rather they don't question so much actually, interested or not. :)

yoyo:

ayay! a mine of info from you! might as well tell me name and which lab liao..ehehehe...


Jellygirl:

thankee thankee! I hope never to have him waste his humour on me anymore! :)

Anonymous said...

wah!!! Thanks ah Yoyo!! :-/

Panasonic X400? I'll take a look at it. I had a panasonic once. It was so crappy it made me swear off buying any Panasonic phones for the rest of my life.

Anonymous said...

Oops! Lol, I didnt' see the bottom part of your comment in my blog at first. That was exactly what made me swear off Panasonic in the first place. :-D

Zen|th said...

Congratulations! :)

Ang Ku Kueh said...

tempest:

gosh, really? i just might know you....I'll con't my panasonic for obvious reasons---chio chio hp.

zenith:

thankee!

Anonymous said...

Oh my...seems you really had it big and hard :)
Maybe you should have asked for a PhD instead of a Masters...dont you think you derserve it???
And speaking of your boss, I think I;m seeing the 'sexy' part of HIS science. You started without 'protection' (your notes), felt extreme sensations of high while doing face gymnastics all along, it lasted a friggin 2 hours and culminated with you experiencing zero gravity. And who said SEX is the ultimate sensorial experience???

Definitely one for the books...or diary :)
Congrats

Ang Ku Kueh said...

duck:

gosh....u are really reading my blog backwards...for that, I thank you. and thank you for congratualating me :)