We've all been through this before, haven't we?

Lurking is my hobby. When I have nothing to do, and I dun wanna let my 2Mbps line go to waste, I will constantly lurk in forums to see if there're any interesting discussions going on in there.

And you can imagine the good stuff that you can almost find in these forums!! I was lurking Renotalk when I came across this poem by a 'sad student'. It begins....

Malaysia semua babi,
our government is so lousy,
all college no quality,
Chinese and Indian pun tak boleh masuk
university.

It never had a choice for me,
because no money cannot study at
oversea,
so I always feel i'm so pity.

Every college are greedy,
sini sana all need money,
their pocket kosong our perut noisy,
I am poor because they suck my money.

Exam question full of difficulty,
it has one reason only,
which is to earn more money,
because we retake money masuk lagi.

The staffs always so eksi,
they did wrong never say soli,
before asking please show your money,
otherwise they wont be happy,
we pay their salary still make us
angry.
that's why i wanna study hard to earn
more and more money

Tiap-Tiap hari feel so lazy,
never try to wake up early,
always hope college will cuti,
everyday go to class feel so sleepy,
lecturer always scold me lazy.
do assignment just like to copy,
before the final only start to worry,
every nite study like crazy,
because scared scolded by mummy.

Why my class girls all not pretty,
big like elephant but always show me
how she's sexy,
while the monster wanna treat me
nicely,
like that i better mati.

my looks are very ugly,
saya mari girl girl semua lari,
everyday wanna date them they only say
busy,
semua orang tak ada hati,
make me always so lonely,
only can watch soap opera movie.

Dota always let people bully,
maybe i really am so lousy,
although nice people is so happy,
but i am always unlucky,
kena headshot easily,
after mati still mati.

This is just a small story,
typed it simply simply,
just wanna feel funny and happy,
actually i am not lonely,
because I have many friends around
me.
They all so so friendly.

I hope this poem will make you happy
This is tak ada kena mengena with
anybody
just want you to feel happy
Cos if you happy i also senang hati.

And you can imagine how true that poem is in the real Malaysian world.

Dined in Hell... and came back to tell the Tale

Went through Hell on Tuesday with the HSBC Assessment Center. Cause they were gonna be in London for a few days, they had to squeeze the whole recruitment process into just one day. So for me, my day started at 9am and it ended at 8-ish. 11 hour assessment center, ownz everybody's faces hahaha!!

But it was a memorable experience for me as this was only my second assessment center, but a through assessment center. Not to say that Genting's one was any bad, but it kept you relaxed and being yourself. For HSBC's one, they really put you under constant pressure and deadlines to see if you can really handle the job.

I was lurking through lowyat's jobs and careers section and the Shell Recruitment Day thread caught my attention. It explained briefly what candidates went through in Shell's AC. I realized that the AC had huge similiarities with HSBC's one, so maybe one's explanation of an AC might be for all ACs. SO I'm writing down my experience in HSBC's AC for people who have ACs to pass and are curious to know what is done in an AC.

I did my first interview with the HR representative and Commercial Banking's representative. They were damn poker-faced with no emo, and started asking questions straightaway. I kept a cool composure (smile XD!) and answered their questions that came from all directions. Some of the questions were like ;

Why don't you want to go back and work in Citibank?
What did you learn in your internship?
Why choose HSBC rather than CIMB or StanChart who are also having recruitment drives here?
Playing computer games as a hobby? Thats interesting and honest. Can you tell us briefly why computer games?

For the last question, thanks to Thean for giving me the idea years ago XD. Somehow it impressed them.

I was then called back to do a presentation after the interview. This was supposed to be the 3rd stage of the recruiting process. They gave me 2 documents of about 40 pages each, go through them in an hours time and after that do a 20 minutes presentation. It was about a company wanting to submit a tender for an investment and we're supposed to say whether we should do it and why. It was also a role-playing sessions and u're required to roleplay the second you start the presentation, which I didn't know, hahaha.

After that presentation, I had to do a group discussion/conference with the other candidates. We took the time to build rapport amongst ourselves to work better in the conference. We were given the same scenario in the discussion and asked to discuss amongst a group for 40 minutes, write a draft proposal and send it to the boss. After that we had to do a questionnaire to evaluate ourselves and rank their contributions to the discussion.

And that was the end of Hell!! Offers were made on the spot too, so you could say that I was extremely fortunate to get one after what I thought wasn't a good enough performance from me. But nevertheless, it was a good experience for me and I was glad to have went through this so that I can better prepare for any future AC's XD

Hunting and being hunted for a job

Daylight Savings robbed me of one hour's sleep today!! Goddammit, and it couldn't come at a better time when the UKEC Career Fair was on the next day! Didn't really prepare for any interview, might as well made use of the experience from Genting's AC.

Went to the fair at 11am and realised that it was freakin packed. I thought everyone wanted to stay in UK, then why you all wanna search for jobs back in Malaysia? WTF?? At least every company was giving away really good freebies. Astro, Deloitte and Intel were giving away free bags which were really useful for going for shopping hahaha. The best was Bank Negara I guess, as they gave away a pewter keychain! I thank you all for the keychain, taxpayers in Malaysia!!

I just realized that the HR has a very important role in recruitment as they must exhibit the company's culture and values. However, I was quite dissapointed with quite a few HR whom anyone could tell weren't bothered about searching for talent. One of them was from a reputable management consulting company with an office in KLCC. So freaking lanci, and didn't even bother to promote her employer and just sitting down and talking to a few people with a bored look. With an attitude like that, it gave me a perception that everyone in the company would be like that, so I couldn't be bothered to even leave a CV with them.

Went to the Securities Commission booth next as it was one of the companies that I hoped I could enter. Was greeted by their Director of Manpower, who strikes me as a person who is very friendly and approachable, yet very experienced. She invited me to their talk at 12.30 about what the SC actually does in Malaysian capital markets. She also slotted me for a job interview with her at 3pm, and I haven't even researched SC yet!!

The interview with the director was really a good experience. She said beforehand that it was only going to be a 15 minute interview, so I was really worried that she would not be able to know me well. I also would have thought that interviews were where they grill you and make you feel uncomfortable and ready to pounce on your mistakes. She focused her questions on my internship in Citibank, asking what I have learned there and how it might be useful. She also role-played with me a few times as customer-manager, so it was a really good experience. 15 minutes really flew by, and when she finished the interview, she offered me a conditional job offer on the spot! Happy giler haha!! But I still need to get at least a merit for my MSc and pass a medical and assessment..which shouldn't be too hard, I hope ^^

Now, with a concrete goal to aim for, I can now focus on my postgrad and not worry on being a freelancer when I come back to KL haha...

Visit Malaysia Year 2007

Malaysia, a country rich in culture and opportunity. It has been fifty years since this wonderful country had gained independence from the Brits, and every Malaysian should be proud of that.

And perhaps what other better way to commemorate this landmark event than to issue special stamps? One of my friends have sent an email to me on what should be on these stamps. They are, after all, fair views of the our unique that we could use to promote our nation to the world.

A fresh start

Yes! After stopped blogging for a few months, I have finally begun a new one! But I dun think I will start migrating my old posts to this one, as the old one is lagged for too long. Inappropriate to begin blogging on an old blog after such a huge time lapse, so decided to start a new one muahaha....

Lets hope that this one will not meet its demise PREMATURELY.....

How daft can someone get?

Apparently, very.

One of my stupidest things that I've ever done in London happened a few months ago. At that time, the most anticipated game in the UK that will be released was WoW : Burning Crusade, or the expansion to World of Warcraft.



And I wanted that game so bloody much! I wanted it so badly that I even preordered it from Amazon UK (important for later!!) for only £14.95, which is definitely much cheaper than the high street shops that were retailing for up to £29.95!! I even stayed up late on the night of the game's launch to see other people's comments about the game through the forums, and then I realised something very important...

WEREN'T THERE 2 REGIONS FOR WoW?


Yup, I checked and I was right. WoW was released in 2 regions; the US version which is playable for US, Asian and Australasian countries, while the EU version was for EU countries. As my version is the US version, there was NO WAY I could play the expansion at all. How stupid was that...

To add salt to injury, the game arrived on the same date that it was launched, so I could only just stare at it while I can't even play the damn expansion. I ended up returning it to Amazon for a refund and had to call Sin Thean and/or Andrew in KL to get the CD key for me, as the game disc's torrents were already available from mininova. It was only a few days later that I got the CD key. I thought I had an advantage to level up quicker than my friends but at the end, when I loaded the expansion, Thean and Andrew were already lvl 63-ish....sob.



Garggh...the silly things that I do.