Connections

The night before the departure back to my hometown always gives me a surreal feeling . For me , it is usually the time when I have ample time to do my reflection. This is particularly true when you are at the room alone , devoid of any interference and obstructions , the night before the long awaited day of departure . Maybe it’s just me , but whenever I am about to depart for a long journey ( 5 hours bus ride is quite long for me ) , I would always try to find time to do some self-reflection on what’s happening in my life recently . I like reflections .It helps in reminding me of the experiences , the ups and downs and the little things that I ought to be grateful of that I had the privilege to experience in the recent days.

Tomorrow is finally the start of mid semester break , which means , it’s time to go back to hometown again : ) , which also means..tonight , is reflection time !

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My team made it into the Samsung Appstar contest top 12 finalists ! This fact made us eligible to participate in the boot camp for the finalists , which is to prepare us for the finals . I am absolutely grateful for this opportunity , as it have allowed me to meet few of the most awesome people ( CEOs in fact ) up to date . I have high respects for friendly, down to earth CEOs that are humble yet successful , and the CEO for MYC company , Mr Jason Ko , happens to be one . The boot camp was very entertaining and informative at the same time and I am honored to be able to be a part of this awesome event . Now that the bootcamp is over , it’s time to put in our all to hopefully win this competitive contest . Wish me luck ! I will be needing it !

Camwhoring with the cool MYC CEO , Mr Jason Ko. Bromance yo!

Oh , apart from the Samsung App , I have the honor to participate in the National Programming Competition AMCP – blablabla al khawarizmi too last Sunday . It was the first time I have participated in any programming contest . Frankly , I don’t have much confidence in my logical and rational thinking skills . Being someone who is quite self-conscious about his own abilities and skills , I know my capabilities and limitations well . I can probably think logically and rationally for some short span of time , but beyond some simple logics and calculations , my brain will just stop thinking and get stuck . Yet , I chose to give it a try , simply because , I believe when opportunities presented itself , one should just take it , no matter the consequences . The end result doesn’t matter , what matters is the experience . Bearing that in mind , I said yes when I was asked to join it , eventhough I was perfectly sure that my standards aren’t on par with the rest of the team yet.

Now , there are good news and bad news from the competition . The good news is , it’s a team event , and I have some really smart teammates ( a senior from my faculty and another senior taking Actuarial Science ) . And with their powerful machine-like brains , we managed to solve 2 out of 10 questions to bag the 4^th placing . ( Top 5 among 100 + teams , not bad for a first-timer huh ? ) .That was the good news  . Now, the bad news is that , the prize for the 3^rd placing is RM 1000 , BUT the prize for us , who got the 4^th placing is .. well  a pen drive O_O . Sad to say , it was partly my fault that we managed only the 4^th placing . I tried to solve a question for 2 hours , and I was quite close to solving it ( in fact , I solved it the day after the competition is over , apparently just missing a single command in my program ) , but oh well , reality sucks . I did not manage to solve it within the time limit of the competition . If only I did solve it , we would probably be bagging the 3^rd placing. Cruel , harsh reality . Haiz. But well, I did gained a valuable experience , coupled with a pen drive and a T shirt ! Aha , not so bad afterall. Gratitude Gratitude…

This is the pendrive that each of us won .

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That’s all for the recent happenings in my life. Now , moving on to a more serious issue . As I was reflecting , a question started to pop up in my mind . The number of  “ friends “ I have in facebook seems to be increasing in a rather astonishing rate lately . Maybe it’s because it’s a new semester , which means a new batch of juniors will come in , and when we get to know them , a friend request is usually expected next . So yeah, lately I have been getting quite a few friend requests from people , ( just because we are all connected in the same college community , not because I am popular or anything , just clarifying , lest I sound arrogant or prideful ) . You see , in my hostel , there’s something called Chinese community club ( as well as Malay community club and Indian Community club , nothing racist , just a culture based club to help foster relationship and celebrate our unique racial and cultural diversities )

Since our college is rather small ,almost all of us , residents there who stayed there know each other . However , knowing each other does not mean we are close to each other . Even some people that I don’t usually talk to in real life adds me in Facebook and lately it gets me thinking . Is there even a point in having that many friends in Facebook , If we are only hi-bye friends , or worse yet , if we don’t even talk in real life .So , really , in recent days , I have been more conscious and careful when accepting or adding friends in Facebook. Yet a dilemma arises whenever I wanted to decline friend requests , because even though we are not close , we might still meet in real life , and it would be quite rude and , at the risk of sounding arrogant , for us to just ignore their friend requests . I mean , it would be unpleasant and outright awkward if they ask us questions like “ Hey , I added you in Facebook a few days ago, why don’t you accept my request ? “ right ?

Hence , threading carefully between the line of proper social etiquette and own comfort zone , I have to think twice before choosing to add , accept or delete friend requests in Facebook . In actual fact , if we just stop and think for a moment , the so called “ friends “ that we made now in secondary school or even university life now , are just temporary connections . Take for example , my college juniors . Perhaps we do meet now and then , and have some interactions because we live in the same college hostel and participate in same activities , but what happens next when we graduated and walk our own path ? Will our paths cross and we meet as regularly as we do now ? That would be unlikely to happen , and after a few years , we may just be strangers again . Yet , all my recent activities and events are conveniently accessible and put on a full display to every “friends” in Facebook , and I am definitely not comfortable that he/she can have access to those information . And then there are some friends that I used to talk to in the past , yet in the recent years , he/she had such bizarre change that I could barely recognize them anymore . The point is , I dislike having fake “friends” that I don’t usually talk to in Facebook , which is why I totally abhorred the idea of some people having a thousand friends ( even to the extend of creating another account because their current account has reached the limit of friends , seriously ? 5000 friends , is that even possible ? Even celebrities don’t have that much friends ) and bragging them as if their so called “ friends “ in Facebook are symbol of their popularity and fame .

Nevertheless , in the unlikely event that if in the near future , you meet the same people who you don’t talk to last time , and this time you are required to work with them closely , it would be bad to finally accept their request or re-adding them again after deleting them right ? Ah.. I can’t even begin to imagine the embarrassment .

Anyhow , as I mentioned before , most of these “friends” in Facebook are just temporary connections , however ,it is up to all of us to decide which one of these connections can evolve into permanent connections . I have this personal rule that if I can chat with these “friends” in Facebook in real life at any given time comfortably , even after a long separation time , these are the people that I really wanted to befriend forever , and these are the people I truly grateful for and would be willing to do anything I can to help them should they require my assistance . Of course , the converse of this is true as well. If I don’t feel comfortable talking to them , and I don’t think I can mix well with them , I probably won’t add them / accept their requests .But oh well , these decision varies depending on the situation and the circumstances .

As I always like to point out , life is very unpredictable and we need to always be flexible in handling life’s difficult challenges . That being said , I am still thankful that amidst all these hi-bye ,awkward “friends “ that I have , some of them actually turned out to be quite nice , and it is these true , permanent friends that I cherish and treasure , and I am forever grateful for their presence and existence . To those who are my facebook friends and seeing this , Thank You for visiting ! and no worries , if you are still in my Facebook Friend list , I assure you , you are important to me , one way or another.. ahaha , THANK YOU , I love you guys X) .