The pursuit of happiness... Figuring out LIFE and embracing it as it comes.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

I am a chicken


Believe or not, these days I'm not as brave as I used to. Back then, in campus, my motto in life was, "one who is hesitant is lost" and "life is too short, so enjoy!". Well, I guess when you grow older and perhaps wider, (opps, I mean wiser!), we tend to allow a lot of things cloud our decisions. In my case, maybe I think too much. Which people might think is good, but I felt worse after that for missing out on the oppurtunities and feeling even remorsed wondering about all the "what if"s. Sigh.


My best example of bravery was the swimming competition back in college. Being a person who hasn't swum much and definately not a natural born swimmer, I signed up for the competition, thinking of swimming just for leisure. Yeah right. Feeling all "gung-ho" and like a wonder woman, I jumped into the pool and I suddenly realized I couldn't feel the floor. So I began to panic. The race was about to began and they instructed me to go to the starting point (which was the middle of the pool). Even swimming to the middle of the pool, I felt exhausted already.


On your mark, get set, go! *whistle blow*


Every participant swam as fast as they could to the finishing line, except for one girl who was still in the middle of the pool. She seems like she's struggling, and almost drowning. She raised her hands to ask for rescue. Then somebody shouted "I think she can swim wan lah..." So they all cheered her to swim on her own to the finishing line. The moment she reached the finishing line, they applauded her for her determination (talk about spirit of sportmanship!) and of course it was the most embarassing moment of her life.


The moral of the story is, one must know their strenght and weaknesses before attempting anything that might make you look stupid or so me-malu-fying. But the truth is, I never regretted the experience at all. No doubt it was really embarassing, but it's something that I would look back and laugh at myself (and of course friends laughing at me too).


But the thing is, I'm just afraid I might not be that girl who would jump into the pool thinking she's a duck anymore. And it kinda terrifies me. Now I feel I'm no longer a duck, but a CHICKEN.


Based on recent experience, I actually chicken-ed out twice on auditions. First was an audition for a theatre play where one have to prepare a 3 minutes monologue. I have always been interested in performing arts, i.e. theatre or anything on stage, so I signed up for a slot to be auditioned. However my first problem was finding the right monologue that suits me. The one which caught me eyes was from the movie "10 Things I Hate About You" where Julia Stiles reads her poem in front of the classroom, then breaks down and cry. Then I realized, "wow, too much drama and emotions, don't think I can pull it off.." And I didn't wanna cry anyway so I decided to select a happier monologue. Still couldn't quite find the right one, I wasn't prepared for the audition, so I called it off. Yeah basically, I chicken-ed out.


Not wanting to give up all hopes left, I settled for a monologue taken from "When Harry Met Sally" (no, not the fake orgasm scene). Even got some tips from a friend who does theatre often to help me in the acting bit. Finally when I was ready (at least I thought I was), I called again to reschedule my audition, but I was told that all slots were already full. Oh bummer. Guess it was not meant to be then.


Today, again I became a chicken. There was an audition for TV host which my friend was involved in. For the audition, you have to stand in front of the camera, introduce yourself as the new host for the show and talk on the specific given topic for about 3 minutes. He told me to try out, even gave some tips of all possible topics to be asked. I saw the questions, and I chicken-ed out. I blame myself for not being knowledgable enough as they were all current issue.


Politik semasa – masa depan BN dalam kemelut politik semasa.
Tuduhan liwat sebagai sandiwara politik.
Apa perlu dibuat dengan Middle Rock dan South Ledge?
Mengapa pertanian Thailand lebih terkehadapan?
Batu putih – pengajaran sejarah yang boleh dihayati.

Kesan jangka panjang kepupusan pelajar lelaki di IPT.
Kaedah menangani kos pengangkutan di luar bandar.
Filem Malaysia tandus nilai.

Suddenly I felt so stupid. I'm so unprepared. I don't have the brains for this! Instead of trying out the audition, here I am missing out on my oppurtunity and studying back the questions, imagining how would I be able to present it to the panel. This really sucks you know. I wish I had more brains for this. Not a chicken brain.