Tag SPM

Big day: collecting SPM results!

Rachel Tan HX Leave a comment

Finally comes the big day: collection of our SPM results, that we toiled day and night for last year (2019)!

With work and all, doing a 14 hour double shift TWO times this week (Alert, I will be letting you in into my new job soon! And…. it’s not what you would expect.) I haven’t been letting the ever-approaching big day sink in yet. Instead, my mind has been occupied with something else: Covid-19, which has become the hot topic of my workplace only very recently.

But that is a topic for later (stay updated… if you want to find out.). So it is because of that that my result day only really starts to hit me when I take a day off to collect my results today, on the 5th of March. Worn out, I had slept through the night, waking up the next day to messages from friends who were still up at 4 am due to nervousness!

After I arrive at school, I enter the hall and I walk around, find some people to say hi and catch up with, then I find our class label and scoot to the front and sit down behind my old deskmate. We talk animatedly about our study plans for the near future. Then… it’s time to collect our SPM results! Hot out of the oven – it’s here. Ready or not!

9As. Out of 10. Yay!

I feel happy that my hard work has paid off. I tell my folks, and they are proud too. Since my younger brother has first-term exams, we decide to postpone any celebration or reward to “later”. No specified date is mentioned, however, so there is a possibility that all the hecticness of university preparation will cause those to be forgotten. Should have asked for a signed contract! 😛

Then I walk around, looking for some friends. Being in a high performance school meant that there would always be people better than you: 10As, 11As, and 12A students were in such an abundance that 9As is relatively mediocre. However, I know that I must always stay neutral. Take in your surroundings, acknowledge it and see it for what it is, but ultimately, let your only competition be with yourself.

Everyone starts leaving the school compound. In denim jackets and long skirts and casual T-shirts and gel-ed or curled or dyed hair; for college classes or pre-U exams or part-time work or victory parties or family plans, they leave with their future ripe in their hands.

I am not sure what reward to ask for, because truly, the only thing I wish for in life is for happiness and a fulfilling life. I am happy I surpassed the requirement (the requirement is 5Bs for these five subjects: add math, math, physics, biology and chemistry). My results are well within the requirement to study medicine.

Now, I am looking forward to the fast-paced and demanding, but meaningful life being a doctor can give me!

My First Job Interview: PART 2

Rachel Tan HX

I went for my first job interview the very day after SPM ended.

(If you have not read part ONE of my job interview yet, click here!)

Christmas mood filled the air at Midvalley Megamall, and Christmas crowds filled its streets. My would-be colleagues bustled about their colourful kiosk, and it wasn’t until about 20 minutes later that I was attended to, but that did not bother me. I was glad to have the chance to take my time to observe the products on display and how the staff attended to their customers.

A lady gave me a form to fill up, and then she proceeded to ask me if I had any problems with talking to people. I was nervous, as would anyone at their first job interview. I also knew for a fact that my social skills were not the best. However, with my promise to myself to perform and breach my comfort zone, I told her I was okay with speaking to crowds, just that I don’t happen to do it very often. Even then, I can, I emphasized to her, and in my mind I told myself I would raise myself to the standards I spoke of. It was also that day on which I learnt that this was another effective way to encourage improvement in oneself. In the consequent weeks, I would discover yet another way. These were all methods we had heard of a million times in theory, but it really only dawns on you when you discover it for yourself through experience.

Then the lady described what it would be like, working at their booth (During Christmas season, they had a little booth at the Centre Court in addition to their permanent kiosk at LG floor.), how I had to be observant and watch for roaming eyes toward their products on display, how working with them would be very fast paced indeed, and I had to be able to be efficient. Already all that was making me dizzy, but I nodded my head and smiled calmly at her, like all this was not a whole lot to take in after being locked up studying for months. Then came the final blow:

“It’s okay to make mistakes,” said the lady, “But if the same mistake is made too many times, it becomes an offense.”

I stared at her, feeling as if I had already started making mistakes. But I had walked into this anticipating “the world out there” — demanding bosses, strict rules and a fast-paced working environment were what I was expecting, and what I wanted for myself, so I nodded bravely.

(I would later discover that it wasn’t the super-strict scenario I had been trained by my parents to imagine, but instead my bosses were a perfect balance between being strict when it was time to work, and being friendly when it was appropriate to have fun.)

After discussing the days and hours per week that I was available to work and my salary scheme, the lady told me to come for training on the 2nd of December, where they would observe my promoting abilities and see if they could accept me. Before she let me off, she smiled at me and said: “Welcome to the working world!”

My First Job Interview: PART 1

Rachel Tan HX

If you really want something, you will make it happen.

Rachel Tan HX, 18

It was almost by chance, that I managed to secure a small temporary job that would add so much colour to my life compared to the dull studying days of before.

During the past month, I had scoured the Indeed Job App in search of promoter work, as a means to improve on my confidence while getting valuable work experience after SPM. I finally landed myself a job interview with Matchy & Co (Midvalley outlet), a company that sells colourful travel products and personalised gifts. Finding the right job match for myself was not easy, having to take into account many factors such as distance, age limit, and working hours and days per week, but I got it done.

Despite the huge effort I had put in throughout November to find this job, I was prepared to drop the opportunity for this already-secured interview if I could not find the right timing to inform my father about it. Only teenagers with strict parents will understand when I say angering the fire dragon/s in the family is no small joke! Haha.

Today, I am instead grateful to my dad for unintentionally causing the opportunity to ask him to arise. This is how it went:

Dad: “Your SPM has ended! What do you want to do? Hmm….. Aha. How about I take you to visit your potential university tomorrow?”

Immediately, the word tomorrow clashes with something else I’ve planned. Before I can stop myself, I say: “Tomorrow?…. Uhhh….But tomorrow I have an interview.”

Dad’s excited grin falls into a deep frown. “Interview. Since when?” (Rarely do I ever make plans for anything on my own, without first informing my father.) “Then when did you plan to tell me? It’s tomorrow already.”

I then proceeded to pounce on the opportunity like a starving cat, and I think it is partly because SPM had just ended that my father was a bit more open to the idea, and he allowed it! (After making some reluctant grunting noises.) Yay! I was very excited for the opportunity and the experiences my potential job had to offer. I knew that given all the effort taken to find the job and get the permission to go for the interview, I was going to make sure I got this job. No way would I allow myself to be rejected the position. I was going to perform well and secure it.

We still went to visit my potential campus the following day to make some enquiries, then I was rushed to Midvalley just in time for the interview at 3pm. “This is one busy woman,” my dad laughed, as he sent me to my first job interview ever. Scattered around KL and Selangor, my friends were watching Korean dramas, going for outings, scrolling on their phones or lazing on their beds. Oh dear! What was I getting myself into?

>>> To read about what happens next in my first job interview, click here.