So again, thank you Allah for this “prize”. it is one of the best prize ever. Words failed me yet again, just know that I thank you with all my heart.

For a person who loves to create memorabilia… I sucked yesterday. I forgot to bring any camera, I did not pose when other people was taking my pictures.. God, What happened to me?

Well let me tell you what happened.

Yesterday was the Annual Post-graduate Student Expo (SEXPO), which was done in Law lecture theatre 1, UWA. the day before the sexpo I was so nervous for I am presenting for the first time at the sexpo. the first time presenting..yes..but also the second last person presenting for the day… my session was scheduled at 3.15 pm. I have a lot of experiences giving public speaking before but all the experiences did not help the nerve wrecking feeling I always have before each presentation.. and given the fact that my turn was at 3.15, I had to wait for 6 hours before I could present.. needless to say, It was the shortest 6 hours in my life.

each presenter had 10 minutes to present their work and 5 minutes for question & answer session. out of the 25 of us, the only guy that participated was Leigh Pearce. He’s a “HOTTY” if you know what I mean. and this hotty presented right before me. I could not concentrate at all during his presentation, because I was desperately trying to no avail to gather whatever energy I have left to concentrate on my own presentation…that is how bad I was feeling… and when he stood down, “That’s it, I can not hide anymore..It’s my turn now…” and when I stood up, i wished that the earth had just swallowed me whole, to provide me a safe place to hide. but, there was no earthly movement at all… So with a heavy heart, laboured breathing and feeling extremely scared beyond anything one could imagine, I went to the podium…even the fancy sony vaio laptop that contained my powerpoint slides looked blurry and insignificant at that time…  I then looked at my audiences..males, females, fellow speakers, judges, scientists, the empty chair of my absent supervisor, my smiling present supervisor, the sponsors, I looked at them all. everyone was murmuring, restless… as though they couldn’t wait for the whole thing to last. then I looked at the time keeper, Samar.. She nodded at me, So I began…

It was the longest 10 minutes of my life. I had just made eye contacts with one hundred people, I had blabbed about my research without anyone interrupting me, I have made sure that nobody was dozing off, and I have just developed some soreness in my throat because I was speaking so loud without me even noticing it. before I knew it, it was already Q & A time.. they applauded like I have given them a singing performance. sure I saw my audiences giggled and laughed as  I presented, but I thought it was mainly because of my nervous facial expression. but Miranda then came to me and said, “well Done, you were very gutsy and strong.” where did she get that idea?.. But I did win third place which means that may be I didn’t do so bad either.

In fact I can still remember that morning as Anifah messaged me, I told her that I was so nervous and asked her to pray that I win third place. this is the first time in my life that I had ever wished to win from the start of a competition.. I usually joined them for fun or because someone else was pressuring me to do it.. and to actually win when you have wished it is really out of this world.

so again, thank you Allah for this “prize”. it is one of the best prize ever. Words failed me yet again, just know that I thank you with all my heart.