The Road Down

The Wind Farm - Cloudy

It was 7pm in the evening, the cold chill from the outside penetrates the wall of the house in the suburban area where I live; I was having dinner alone, and eating was the only mean of keeping me warm at that point of time. When I was about to finish munching my almost cold food, all of a sudden my cell rang. That's odd; I wonder, because nobody will usually call me at such hours.

"Ming ah, you got the scholarship to study in London, I think you should take up the offer."

It was my dad's voice, uttering those words in Mandarin with a rather steady and calm tone. I thought I was either hallucinating or must have misheard it, hence I insisted him to repeat again, and so he did. It then struck me clearly, to my good senses, yes, I finally got the scholarship to study in London. Finally. FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Top of Chataqua Peak

My voice trembled, I didn't know why. I felt a surge of extreme joy and happiness flowing through every single vein and arteries of my body; I was shaking, not because of the cold, but because the overwhelming joy, which I guess must have resulted into this trembling frenzy. It ought to be the happiest moment of my life, at least for that moment itself. Though, I tried to keep my cool, because my aunt was there, I couldn't just shout and yell for all I want, so I pretended to be just a tad bit happier than before. But deep inside, my heart was smiling happily, because I have finally achieved my long awaited dream. It was indeed, a dream came true.

The 12 Apostles

So here I am, back in my home sweet home, after my 1 month short stay in Melbourne. FYI, I did study in Uni Melb for about 3 weeks, but the last week was spent touring around and visiting places. So, I can consider it as a study cum vacation trip, pretty weird right? =D Since I have the time now, I shall put my thoughts and feelings into words.

I have come a long way down to achieve this goal of mine. And no, my intention in this post was not for me to brag or boast whatever achievements I have, but I am writing this because it seriously means a lot to me, and it is something that I want to share out loud.

The hike to the Pinnacle - via the Silent Creek

I remember vividly of the time where I was feeling pretty much devastated for not obtaining any scholarships after SPM. More specifically, a scholarship to study abroad. I was ignorant, naive, proud and over confident because I thought with my results, it shouldn't bee too much of a problem to obtain a scholarship. I was wrong, very wrong indeed. Not only did I jeopardize my JPA application because I neglected their condition of applications, I did not even bother looking out for other available scholarships out there because like I said earlier, over-confident. Long story short, by the time I realized I need to start applying for something, most of those prestigious scholarship applications were closed already. After that, I was offered to study in Taylors under their Taylors World Class Scholarship, which was meant for me to study there with full tuition fee waived for 4 years, until I graduate from my degree. However, baffled between a choice of doing A levels and a full scholarship doing a local degree, I finally decided to choose for A level, and the reason was apparent to me, because I wanted a second chance, to realize my dream of studying abroad.

Wild flowers - the end of winter, and beginning of spring

It was a gamble to me. There were no ways of knowing whether will I get a scholarship to study abroad for my degree, what's more the requirements and selection procedures would definitely be a lot tougher and stringent than those catered for post-spm candidates. If I didn't do well in A level, I will probably end up in a private college, which would require me to spend more money and burdening my parents. Also, that would mean losing the deal that was offered to me earlier. In economics term, it was not a favourable move, for the opportunity cost of forgoing that deal is much higher than taking up A levels, not to mention the uncertainty involved. Plus, my family have always been struggling so much with financial issues, and I know clearly there is no possible way for them to support my tertiary studies, be it locally or overseas. But it didn't matter to me, my goals were clear, hence I am bound to achieve it.

For that 1 and a half year, although I must admit, there were times where I almost wanted to give up striving for my goals, but I constantly reminded myself of my aim and dreams, because this is the reason why I took A levels in the first place anyway. As time goes by, I was ascertained that I want to further my education in the UK, and get myself enrolled into a prestigious uni. From then, I tried to gather as much informations and news about scholarships so that if the time comes, I will be prepared. I laid down my goal and broke it down into several plans and stages, so that I will know clearly of what I need to do.

Get Excellent Results in A level > Get accepted into Top Uni > Get a full scholarship.

And so I achieved the first and second part.

Top of the Pinaccle

Then comes the most crucial part of all, the ultimatum of my goal. After I got my results, I waited until the period where most of the applications were open, then started preparing and sending them out, I told myself I will not miss any opportunity available, and will never repeat the mistakes I made before this. Some application will take me at least days to complete it (the ones with essays especially) because I want to get it as perfectly as I can. Yes, I am that desperate, so I tried to apply as many as I could, but then again, such overseas scholarship applications were very limited, especially those catered for degree levels.

Days after days and weeks after weeks. Some companies started sending out replies, and some called in for interviews, of course, some sent out rejections as well. The wait for all these were not easy. You can never imagine what I went through mentally. I have been thinking about it practically day and night, checking my mails every single morning whenever I wake up to see if there's any replies, heck I even had multiple insomnias because I'm afraid if all these wait and applications resulted into nothing. At some point I even questioned myself, is this really what I want?

Are you even sure you can secure any scholarship? All of your friends are either studying or doing something productive already, and you're at no where now, you sure all this wait is worthwhile? Heck, you don't even have any impressive qualifications or achievements that can distinguish you from the average joes, you think you can beat all the brilliant competitors ahead of you? I was constantly bombarded with all these monologues, haunting myself mentally with such negativity, yes, it's just that pathetic. Although I can't control myself from thinking negatively, I know I ain't a pessimist, so I continued to motivate myself just because I choose to believe, and just believe that I can.

Mackenize Fall - The Base

Rejections after rejections, this bright, shining and glittering positive hope that I once chose to believe is starting to diminsh, and fading away into just a tiny spark. It was heart-breaking at times, because sometimes I just don't know what went wrong. Still, I never give up, I tried to ace every interview ahead of me, but the outcome of those interviews and test proved me otherwise. The competition is really tight, almost every candidate I have met seems far more brilliant than me, what's more when you can see most of them holding what is like a hundred pages thick of certificates that boasts their achievements in everything. Looking back at me, I have never really achieved anything significant, neither do I possess world class academic records. I was just an average, mediocre student, to say the least.

Judging that my applications to the UK are not yielding much positive outcome, I resorted to my back up plan - that is to study in NUS, because I don't wanna lose my aim of studying abroad entirely. And then come one day, I received news that the University of Melbourne is offering me a scholarship to study there, I was awarded a 100% tuition fee waiver scholarship. It was like striking a lottery, out of no where, and God just blessed me with this miracle, because I was asking Him why didn't any of my hard work pay off, and believe it or not, the next day I got this scholarship. I was really glad and elated, but not excited as I think I would be. Allow me to rephrase it, although I am really contented and grateful to be given such an opportunity, because I know how difficult it is for somebody to receive this scholarship, but there is still a part in me that still wants to achieve my dream of going to UK.

The sight of nature - Simply gorgeos

So in the end, I ended up in Melbourne. Bought my flight tickets, applied for student visa, paid the student health cover insurance ya da ya da. I'm all set and ready to go there. I started my new life there, started adapting to the new culture and weather, in fact I loved the public transport system over there :D it's really far better than what we have in Malaysia. Then on my 3rd week of studies, I got the news from my dad, which is what you have read in the first few paragraphs of this post.

Halls Gap view - the Pinnacle

As of now, I am one out of the 4 lucky receipient of EPF (KWSP) scholarship, which sponsors me fully to study in the UK for the duration of 3 years. The feeling of achieving something that you have wanted so badly is really freaken awesome. Come to think of it, despite all the mentally torturing moments that I have undergone, it was all worth it, simply because the feeling, that one particular moment that when you knew you finally hit your goals and aims, everything else just didn't seem to matter anymore.

It was indeed, a dream come true to me.


p/s: The photos you see from this blog are taken at the Grampians National Park & The Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia. I know it's pretty irrelevant but I figure it's nice to have some photos instead of all dull words yeh? : )