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Astro Scholarship Assessment

Tuesday, May 3, 2011
I went to the Astro Scholarship Assessment Day this morning. Woke up babi early to prepare myself physically and emotionally. I lost count of how many interviews I have been to previously but one thing for sure, every single one gave me butterflies in my stomach. But it was a lovely morning, woke up by a message from love wishing me good luck (thanks baby!). After that, I somehow had an instinct that I would have an awesome day. However it was raining cats and dogs on my way there. Sg Besi highway after the toll was a bitch as usual. Cars queuing from bumper to bumper, some idiot tried to jump queue and endless of horning. The interview was conducted at Astro Capability Centre in Technology Park Malaysia. Reaching the place was not a big deal but getting into the center itself was troublesome. Dad and I end up stopping twice to asked the security guards for direction. Who knows the whole TPM was so huge? I reached there 5 minutes late but luckily I were just on time for the ice breaking session. As usual the activity lasted for roughly 15 minutes with everyone stood up to introduce themselves and picked something that we like about Astro. I talked about how awesome Astro decided to launched the AFC channel as I'm a food lover. Many of them came up with creative answers and the tense atmosphere in the room relaxed a little. Over the morning tea break, I had the chance to get to know more about other people. Most of them are doing their A Levels and a couple of them are SPM leavers. Speaking of old age... >.< Regardlessly, everyone got along quite well. I've made a number of new friends like Hoe yen, Sue Ann, YY (I forgot her full name sorry) Lily Koh, Xia Shien, and Wen Han to name a few.

The real fun came after the short break. As we had been divided into 3 groups earlier, our 1st task was  to solve a situation given.  All the groups got the same questions. We were told to imagine ourselves crash landed in a desert with the pilot and co pilot dead. But the rest of us were uninjured (not making sense isn't it?) The pilot failed to inform anyone out there on our position so we're literally stranded in the desert in middle of no where in America (sounds cliche?)  So here comes the question. We were given a list of 15 items and we were suppose to list it in order starting from the most important to the least important item. It might sound easy in the 1st place but it really test our critical thinking and survival knowledge. I should have paid more attention when I watched Man VS. Wild last time. We were given 40 minutes to complete this task with the first 15 minutes we did it individually. Later, we were require to compare and discuss our respective answer and came up with a list that everyone one agree with. My group members were very participating. Each of us trying to sell our points and to convince each other on which is more important. After countless debates whether sunglasses, vodka or a book titled "Edible animals on desert" was more important, we manage to complete the list on time. Then, Mr. Viknesh (I think that's his name) a facilitator read out the list from an expert point of view. All though some of our numberings were way out but we did manage to hit a few correctly. Seriously, who can guess the most important thing to carry when you're stuck in a 50 degrees desert is a cosmetic mirror and not water. And a map is literally useless unless you want to use it as tissue paper or as source of entertainment when you're bored of waiting someone to come rescue you wtf. I was proud of my group members as I think we had really done a great job and we achieve the best score among the 3. Good job guys!

After lunch, it was time for individual interview. Mine was conducted late in the afternoon, about 3.15 pm so I got 2 hours plus to hang out, chatted with the rest, played hangman and a true/false game. I did found out that I would be meeting a few of them again this Friday for Axiata interview. My interview was a typical one, a panel of 2 interviewers were asking me about myself, my family, the course I chose to study, what can I contribute back to Astro, strengh and weakness. It was less tension compared to what I have been through previously. Miss Bernie, one them, is from Kajang as well. I think I did fairly well in this round. Hopefully, I will get into the final round of interview which I guess will be with the senior management team. I considered myself quite lucky as they told that we were the top 80 out of 2000 applicants which made up to almost 4% only? And from this, they will further select another 15-20 candidates for the final round. I'll keep my finger crossed and pray hard to be chosen.

Dad picked me up and we went to the post office in Sri Petaling Carrefour for me to send a document to LSE. Another 80 bucks gone just to mail that one piece of paper. Overall, today was a fantastic day and I'm glad to be able to meet a whole fun bunch of new friends. Back to work tomorrow and hopefully my whole week will be as great as today. Going for a hot bath now.Nitez peeps! Have a nice week =)

P/S: I joined this LSE Freshers 2011-2012 page and guess what, to my surprise there are going to be a lot of Malaysians going to LSE for this coming intake and even better, quite a number of them are going to be my course mates. The student counsel will be organising a freshers camp in 1st week of September somewhere in KL. Will update you on that next time=)

Love,
yin