8. Look out for oppurtunity (1).

This chapter is simple and straight forward. Be alert to opportunities. Once it is there, grab it. It may appear only once in your life time.

If you are sensitive enough, (equipped with wide range of knowledge and exposure) you will be surprised at how many opportunities are there waiting for you (or someone else). There is a saying which goes ‘the quick and the dead’. How true! If you are not quick enough in life, you will be assured of failure (dead).

This is not only true in student life but even more in working life. In my student life, it took me into Form Six to recognize an opportunities. In Form One, there were two classes, 1A and 1B. I ignored the chance to be in 1A by foiling my assessment exams. There were rumours that those in 1A will be subjected to a much higher expectation and thus will be under much more pressure to perform. I was afraid of that pressure and opted for the more ‘relaxed’ class.

I am still not sure about the rumours, but one thing for sure; even in 1B I was still feeling the pressure to beat my classmates as well as the those students in 1A. I would not know what would have happened if I was in class A, but even in class B I managed to break the school record in my SRP exams three years later.

The fact that I have intentionally choose to stay in mediocre class showed my inferior personality and lack of strong desire to be distinguished in academic achievement. Fortunately I was not too late to change.

The story repeated itself after I broke the record in my school in SRP. I was more than eligible for full-boarding school in Sekolah Berasrama Penuh (Full Board School) in Bukit Padang, Kota Kinabalu. Some students who scored lower than me managed to get in. I did not even bother to get the application form and even ignored the suggestion from teachers and friends to apply for the full board school. My reason was similar, afraid of pressure, afraid of freedom limitation and not to mention afraid from being away from friends and family. Even though I still manage to score the highest in my school for SPM, I could not help but thinking about possibility of me scoring even higher if I was in the full-boarding school. I guess, I will never know.

After Form Five, I became more aware of my potential and vowed not to compromised with the prospect of me achieving the highest possible.

In Form Six, despite being too comfortable with friends and the established reputation, I let go off my fears and applied for University Matriculation in a place I would never ever dreamed of going at that time. When I was accepted, I went to Peninsular Malaysia in Taiping Perak alone without having any idea of what would the whole new world hold for me. The journey from a lonely remote place in deep jungle of Keningau to a bustling place in Taiping Perak was one of those dramatic moments in my life worth capturing for a movie. May be someday, I will make a movie out of it.