So the whole search for self-identity is over. (Or is it really?)
Man I question things too much.
It's been cathartic but at the same time emotionally straining.
Brought me to places I don't wanna reminisce about but I'm glad it did.
Anyways.
My primary piece. I *kind of* regret submitting this as my primary essay instead of my third piece but life's too short for regrets so yeah.

Of English and Growing Up
“Uh-oh.” That was the first thought that sprang into mind when I was elected class representative in grade 3. As thrilled as I was with the new responsibility, being class rep also meant that inevitably I had to perform chores for the teachers, my English teacher, Miss Leela included. Built at six foot and often capricious, Miss Leela, who was never tolerant of her students conversing in any language other than English, was a highly-intimidating figure. It didn’t help that I struggled to comprehend her instructions given in a language entirely foreign to me at that time (I was studying in a Chinese vernacular school where lessons were conducted in Mandarin.). As a result, I was often chastised for my mistakes in performing duties as a class rep (for example, delivering exercise books to the wrong classroom, conveying the right message to the wrong teacher). The sense of rejection that I experienced after being berated each time was indescribably painful, and at the same time, was also equally painfully indescribable. Yet it didn’t occur to me to do something to fix this predicament of mine.
My complacency for taking things as they were melted away slowly as I entered secondary school. Secondary school was a whole new world filled with things I was not ready for : the way national school students are far more outspoken than us timid vernacular school students, the diverse student body and the way people of all races converse almost effortlessly in the universal language. Magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life, I resorted, like most of my fellow primary schoolmates, to a timid girl who doesn’t voice her opinion in classes and doesn’t blend with the national school crowd just because she couldn’t stand being mocked for her grammatically-wrong sentences.
It was in grade 9 that I finally came to my senses that evasion and denial were not going to make my bad English go away. I realised that I didn’t want to be condescended to for the rest of my life. I realised that I wanted to be able to befriend people with races and cultures different from mine. I realised that this fear of humiliation that had been wringing me since grade 3 had to go. Utterly ashamed of my past self, I was obstinate to find a way to recover my lost voice.
In attempt to improve my English, I blogged, watched movies and dramas, read novels and even subscribed to the monthly-published Reader’s Digest Asia. Blogging seemed torturously difficult at first – it took me two hours to complete my first blog post, and I couldn’t even compose the post without using both Malay and Mandarin words because my English vocabulary was pathetically limited. Many a time have I been mocked by my fellow English-educated schoolmates for “not knowing my place”, for starting a blog* when writing was supposedly an elite activity meant for those who excel in it. There have, of course, been thoughts of giving up, but I am really grateful that my determination to prove myself worthy overrode my akratic self at that point of life. Soon not only was I able to string sentences without much effort, I could also watch Grey’s Anatomy without the subtitles.
As honoured as I was to be one of the two students who obtained the double Distinctions award in ICAS Writing and English Comprehension Competitions organized by the University of New South Wales, Australia, the most triumphant moments of my life lie within the process of mastering English itself, in which I have fell in love with British period dramas (especially adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels), been inspired by videos at TED.com and found myself an Ithaca-based penpal whom I can share the snippets of my life with. From a shy and reserved little schoolgirl who couldn’t understand what her English teacher in elementary school was trying to convey, I turned into one who loves English for what it made me : a conqueror of my fear of being humiliated. “External expectations, pride, fear of embarrassment or failure are all things that don’t matter in the big picture. Remembering you are going to die is the best way to remember you have nothing to lose,” the late Steve Jobs is right.
* eileenooiyilin.blogspot.com

Next : the one being trashed. A lot of people suggested that this piece is the better one compared to my previous piece. But it all comes down to soul-baring and instinct. So yeah, it's trashed cause I think it comes with too many streaks of immaturity.

Of Nonconformity
In my secondary school, prefects used to be deemed “cool” while librarians, on the other hand, were perceived as “geeks”. Given my history as a prefect back in primary school, I could have taken up the offer to continue my service as a prefect in my secondary school. But I didn’t – I chose the road less taken, mainly because I was sick of the monotonous daily routine of checking if the girls’ fringes touch their eyebrows, if their nails are too long (too long : when you hold up someone’s hands with their palms facing you, their nails are visible from your angle) and if they are wearing ankle socks (also one form of violation of the school rules). I might sound like I really had a backbone and knew what I wanted, but the truth was, I didn’t want to spend my entire five years in secondary school sticking coding labels onto books either.
Serendipitous is what you call a situation when you were offered the title of a librarian under a new department (with its own room) to process non-book materials ranging from board games like Scrabble and Monopoly to floppy discs with educational contents issued by the Ministry of Education to really useful flash cards (which helped me ace my class quizzes). The idea of being a librarian while not actually having to come into contact with books appealed to me, so after half a year of probation, I was in my dull green librarian uniform : a skirt, a white shirt and a vest.
We, the ten of us who were offered the positions, decorated the BBM* room and by the end of the second month, it’s become a hangout spot for us. The BBM room was like our fraternity house - even when there wasn’t any new material to process, we were there - doing homework, catching up on the stories of our lives (we were in different streams*, and hence different classes) and playing board games occasionally. We worked as hard as the way we had fun, devoting at least four hours a week to our jobs. We even took the initiative to drop by at the library, which was situated one floor below (and many steps away from) our BBM room to learn processing books (yes, that’s the label-sticking job – not as simple as it appeared, though). As a result of our hard work, in our senior year, all ten of us were offered prominent spots on the Librarian Board. We bagged the titles of the President, the Secretary (that’s me), the vice Secretary, the Treasurer, the vice Treasurer, the Head of Library, the Head of Audio Visual Department, the Head of BBM Department, the Head of Discipline and the Head of Assembly Management.
In retrospect, as honored as I was to be elected as the General Secretary of the Librarian Board, the title wasn’t actually the thing that mattered the most to me – the experience was. Had I not chosen that path, I wouldn’t have the chance to venture in administrative works like organizing an event, contacting a sponsor and preparing a report. Had I not chosen that path, I wouldn’t have had realized how conforming merely to fit in would make you lose out on life. And most importantly, had I not chosen that path, I wouldn’t have found myself a tight-knit family in school.
*BBM stands for Bahan Bantuan Membaca (Study Aids).
*Stream : We had to choose to enter either the Science stream or the Social Science stream (more commonly known as the Arts stream) in our upper secondary years.

And lastly, the most personal piece of all. This was only submitted to a few of the unis I applied to, regrettably. =l Writing this was the most cathartic experience of mine in this whole application process. Kind of procrastinated in writing this until the very last minute because I was afraid getting my heart broken all over again. Still, it's done. =)

Of Choices
Groggily my ears took in the pilot’s announcement that I was 30000 feet above ground. Apart from the streaks of sunlight that were barely sufficient to light up a small room, there was nothing outside the cabin window that hinted dawn. I did not understand. I should have at least felt excited about the campus visit, if not euphoric about the fact that I was fortunate enough to be one of the 1500 Year 11 students to be offered the Federal Scholarship, which entails full tuition, food and accommodation, but I was far from any feelings of joy. I landed, grabbed my suitcase and hailed a cab to Allianze University College of Medical Sciences (AUCMS).
The campus was … well, a campus – it was everything a medical school should be. No, I’m not being fair, it actually offered more than what I’ve thought of having : shuttle bus service interlinking the campus and the student residence every ten minutes, free laundry service and a clubhouse with two pools in the student residence area. The amiable nature of the Dean and all the trouble he went through to arrange for me to visit the student residence (which was not entwined with the campus) and meet the lecturers in class made it more impossible to not like the school. My brain said HELL YEAH whereas my heart hesitated.
Somehow I could not envisage myself as a medical doctor. But the temptation to sign the 350k contract to pursue a medical degree program, which tuition fees my parents could never afford, was so strong. The prospect of being a doctor with a starting salary of 4.5k per month, which is my father’s current salary (he has worked for 30 years and possesses a Master’s degree in ICT), made accepting the offer even more alluring. Most importantly, it’s the approving nods and beams from my father and my grandfather, both of whom have always been in favor of my brother over me (sexism runs in the family), that gave me this urge to take the easy way out by accepting the offer so that they could be proud of me too, even if it meant denying myself the dream to pursue a liberal arts education, to be able to take up minors unrelated to my major for the sake of exploration.
I thought the matter over and over again. I couldn’t muster enough courage to bring myself to telling my father that I was far more interested in subjects like economics, psychology, foreign language, cultural studies and anthropology; subjects that dissect the psyches of humans instead of their flesh; subjects that are underappreciated by the Malaysian society because of the less-than-promising career prospects in these field. But I realized that I had to make a choice, to decide between an outfall with my father and losing my dream. In the end I chose to follow my heart. The same day I hit the “Reject” button, I cried bucketloads of tears. It felt like the end of the world: the “I’m so proud of you” and the “future doctor” talks were replaced with confrontations (some of which involved calling me an imbecile). Hints of gloomy prognosis of my likely-to-be false (how does one ever know it is false?) decision were everywhere: the all-night-long heavy rain, the thunderbolts and worst of all, the flaring tension.
I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do (and how can one ever be so sure?), but my heart told me to go on, so going on was what I did. For months, I’ve never stopped contemplating what might have happened if I’ve accepted the offer instead. Would I have been living the lifestyle that everyone envies six years from then? Would I have been revered for my profession, being addressed as “Doctor” by grateful patients wherever I go? I seriously do not know. But one thing I am certain of is that, accepting the offer will mean trading my soul and my passions for something I don’t want: the lucrative rewards of a doctor that, of course, comes with eighty-hour weeks (including one 24-hour on-call shift per week).
I’ve come to realize that it’s our insatiable curiosity, piqued by these unknowns in life, that propagate us forward, regardless of the joy and (unfortunately) the occasional misery that come with the opening up of the treasure chest or the Pandora’s box. With this, I am proud to say that I am not afraid of taking calculated risks on the life-long journey of self-discovery. If I have to name one thing I found in this whole process that I wasn’t looking for, it has to be courage.

Oh and there's a slight mistake in this last piece. Find it? If you can't, that means the AdComs probably won't notice, right? =3