I attended the Petronas Educamp at The Regency Rajah Court Hotel in Kuching from the 15-16 of April 2008. Like any other excited participant i woke up early and do a last minute check on everything i should be bringing. Took a bath and dressed up as best as i could to give a good impression . The funny thing is, they were a lot of things we need not to bring although they specified to bring it in the offer letter. I had to bring a luggage bag and two plastic bags to fit everything.
Thing we need not have brought along:
1. Bedsheet Cover
2. Pillow Cover
3. Blanket
4. Sport shoes
5. Tracksuit
6. Collared T-shirt
In the end we need not any of the above at all. All along i thought they were just using Rajah Court Hotel as a venue, not for lodging. I thought they will send us to some hostel . Anyway, surprise, surprise we stayed in the hotel eventually. Have backache for no apparent reason. I'm not exactly angry but its better staying in a hotel compared to other Educamp participants held in other parts of Malaysia. We got AIR-CONDITIONER & ASTRO!!!!
So after the immense traffic-jam that early morning, i reached the hotel at about 8.10 and i could sense the environment of smart-alec all around me. Prim and proper designer shirt, ties, coats, blouse, blazers, shoes, and high-heels flashed around me. I reminded myself that i was surrounded by top students all around Sarawak. 160 of them. OK, ok minus one excluding myself. Anyway, you know what spoiled the sense of professionalism in the air? The loud voices like pasar malam, mixture of Foochow, Hokkien, Mandarin , English and Malay all rolled into one. Its hilarious. Try dressing a normal hawker stall ah pek in office wear and you know what i mean. Haha.
Just like any ordinary Malaysian time, the registration only started at 8.30 am. I don't blame them because a lot of things need to be settled so i used the time for socialising. Meeting new people and fellowshipping with old friends. 8 greenians were they namely me myself, Samuel, Walter, Ivan Tan, Amy, Leetizia, Lee Siao Fen and Terence. Our number were small compared to other schools. Oh well. Some of us figured out that Sarawakians are KiaSu(competitive). It so happen that they were two human lines are made . One is super long and one is short. Guess what? Those people in the longer line don't bother to even join the shorter queue. So dumb and *insert whatever word you want here* . Hehehe. I think you can decide which are smart and are not. It also happened the same way for the buffet spread of breakfast for us.
Got my name registered after a slow mass traffic jam of humans and my ID. Went to eat some breakfast and waited in the "grand" hall. Anyway, i wasn't given any room number so i thought i would be the one going to Kuching Park Hotel. As Rajah Court was full, some participants would go to Kuching Park Hotel and stay there overnight. I heard the participants would be notified by phone call if they are selected to stay there. They didn't give me a timetable too. Everything is free, what more can i ask. I remained optimistic
In the morning was a opening speech by the Sarawak Region Petronas Boss at 10am. It was followed by a short talk about the Scholarship or Convertible Loan and then some experience sharing by two students studying in UTP(universiti teknologi petronas). As most of the participants are vying for UTP, it was more appropriate for the sharing as they were not many students being selected for the overseas course. What intrigue me during the speech about the scholarship was that Petronas used to sponsor medicine as Petronas has its own mobile clinic. The sad thing is all 220 of these medic students never returned to our homeland. So ungrateful lah. I mean you're sponsored , the least you could do is work here for a few years. Nowadays, people are not grateful enough.
Then its was LUNCH TIME! The food was HORRENDOUS(i'm exaggerating) . It wasn't nice at all. Some people didn't eat as it was not right for their diet. I thin what they should do is find out the students diet. Not all people can eat spicy food and meat and some are allergic to certain food. If i was hired as a chef in The Regency Rajah Court Hotel i think all the participants would actually have an appetite to eat. Now i am having Stomache upset. Its sad lar, Petronas spend so much money on low quality food. I think they will agree with me as they ate the same thing as us. Throughout the camp it was :
1. Super hard fish(either overcook or frozen fish thrown into the wok)
2. Meat falling of the bones or too hard( overcook)
3. Yellow veggies (overcook)
4. Oxidised/overiped fruits
5. Coloured sugared water (its not even syrup!)
6. Cracked boiled eggs(as in cracked during boiling exposing its "flesh")
7. Watery baby-food looking porridge
8. Wet fried mee/mee hoon
BUT i salute for the beef rendang and the spicy sweet fish. Those were the only edible nice food. Good job on that one. Other than that, needs lots of improvement.
During Lunch on the first day, all my friend had calls to stay overnight at Kuching Park Hotel EXCEPT ME. I was worried and hot. All the other participants got their rooms(enjoying air-con and a shower) except me and the Kuching Park to be participants. Ivan Tan got the call. Imagine waiting for the next agenda for about 2 hours plus under hot sun or fan WEARING office style clothes and tie. Terrible!
Went in the hall at 2pm and sat for the aptitude test. It was tough to rank your liking and dislikes from 1-8 . They were 17 questions and each question has 8 statements. You're suppose to rank them. But for "special" people like me, i like most of them the same way and value. It was hard deciding which i like best. To top it off, someone turned off the air-con . It was like a Sauna. grrrrrrrrrrrrr.........................
About the test, though i rank it from 1-8 i like all the 8 the same. Sigh weird me.
After the test we had a tea-break. I hadn't receive any calls so i decided to approach one of the officer. Good thing i approach the right one. She was very nice though she was handling so many things during that time, She said she'll try to arrange that i go to Kuching Park Hotel if my name isn't in the Rajah Court Hotel List. Yay!
After tea break we had two more talks. The document arranging and Potential J Briefing(PJB donno what J stands for but its about the interview process). They brought forward the PJB in the afternoon as we are very cooperative we have too much time left. In the end our nights will be free. DOUBLE YAY!
The officer called my name and i was suppose to stay at Rajah Court Hotel. They thought i didn't register. =.= Sigh, i stayed in room 404. They also announced that the number of people going to Kuching Park Hotel is reduced from 24 to 7 people only as they found out Rajah Court has more rooms that evening. So all the greenians were here to stay. Haha. Ivan was initially in another "suite" room which has a kitchen. So super big lar. But they were 6 people in one room and they had to share 2 queen size beds. In the end, Ivan moved in into my room cos they were only 3 of us(2 queen size beds too). Practically wasted my night watching tv to relax my mind. Disney, discovery, and then more disney. Ivan and I wanted to go out to buy some titbits at Everrise but the guards prevented us. Sigh~. Spend the rest of the time reading my notes and preparing for the interview.
That night i couldn't sleep because my mind was racing about the interview.
What happened to Anders the following day? What challenges and problems did he face?
Stay tuned to find out tomorrow as he blogs about the 2nd half of this special Petronas Educamp episode.......
TO BE CONTINUED........
I am obviously watching too much disney. Haha. I think i will continue tomorrow. Too lo-so already. Me and my Anthem of words. haha
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