A Series of Blurry Photos

Bucks (Class of 2006) was in action in the national level final of the English Speaking Union Malaysia Public Speaking Competition at Eastin Hotel this morning. I felt it was something that we should be quite proud of considering:

1) The 12 finalists were selected from 700+ participants from all over Malaysia
2) Bucks was the only Malay boy (in fact the only non "mud-blood" Malay ha ha considering the other girl was a mixed)
3) Koleq had been sending the only Malay boy representation in the grand final for the past 3 years

I never expected any of the boys to win, especially since it was open for students in the age bracket of 16 to 19. Bucks was one of the four participants still in school, the others are already in college. On top of that, it was not really our "turf", so what matters most was to be able to give an equal fight and stand side by side with other participants as far as performance and maturity was concerned.

And Bucks did well. He of course did not get to be the top two speakers to represent Malaysia to the international competition, but he did give a good performance worthy of MCKK. His argument during the speech was up to standard, though he could have given a better reply during the cross examination by the panel of judges.

As usual there was a series of SMS going to and fro with Sherry (who couldn't make it) during the competition:

Coach 1:
"Bucks dah habis deliver his speech. He came a long way frm d small kid i knew 3 yrs ago but cannot win la. His answer was bad but his main speech delivery was gud. He ll survive d world outside la. Dat s my only concern with d kids ha ha"

Teacher 1:
"Three yrs in a row masuk final... tapi tak menang menang.. we'll try again until we win. Thanx 4 yr support"

Coach 1:
"Difficult 2 win ever until ***** n *****'s time ie kids who speak perfect n accented english coz other contestants r like dat. But we ve been holding d fort s d only rep 4 malay boy 4 d last 3 yrs. So it s not our turf. I feel we need 2 b proud of being able 2 compete at par or better in other ppl's turf"

Teacher 1:
"its only when d boys compete in competitions like esum dat they see how other stdnts r faring n how much harder they hav 2 work 2 do better. Sometimes i think our boys r too selesa kat mckk..."

Coach 1:
"In fact bucks is d only malay bcos d other malay girl is mixed ha ha. Such is malaysia we live in 2 parallel worlds. So long our boys can compete in both worlds, we ve done our job"

Footnote

A series of photos taken from the camera phone (hampehhh):

Lunch with Fazurin & Canoe (started out as simple lunch since Fazurin had just came back from jogging, ended up in GE Mall with Fazurin hiding his bulu ketiak

Twister Club March 2006 - Memang laa nampak muka

MC-RMC Weekend 2006

ESUM National Level Final 2006 - The picture immediately above was taken during Bucks' speech (tapi memang nampak laa Bucks kan)