(continued from previous post)

I reached School of Information System at about 10:35am, I was early, registration starts at 10:30am, competition starts at 12:00pm. Many people were already there, eager and ready to get started.

I found a corner, sat on the floor, shortly after three familiar faces walked into the briefing area, I stood up, and it was strange that we greeted each other from far, we knew each other’s name, though we had never met before. Well, the power of blog and mailing list, they are the Malaysia Ruby Brigade guys, Kamal, Azizat, and Ke Gan, the RSB Team. Glad to have finally met them in person.

Soon, the briefing started, and minutes before the competition kicked-off, I found out that the package given to us after signing in had a slip of paper with the competition theme. And I was stupidly oblivious to it, no wonder, I saw people were busy brainstorming, drawing diagrams with their group members. “Shit”, I said silently. The theme was Hospitality and/or tourism services in a participative society.

In no time, the competition started, 73 teams in total spread across different seminar rooms, I was in room 2-1, glad to have a front row’s two-seater desk, not much distraction.

Plugged in my iPod, and blasted my favourite songs, I started to brain-storm, 45 minutes passed, I wasn’t still very sure what to do, panic started to kick-in, I quickly decided on one, working on the idea for the next two or three hours, it was getting worse, I knew something was wrong, the functionalities were not clear, there were just too many things to do and too little time.

I thought, I’m dead, this is not going to make it. I seriously thought of just packing my stuff and go back, I have lost too many hours.

Then I got an SMS from my wife saying that some of my friends said ‘Cia Yo‘ (meaning don’t lose your spirit). I was glad that it came at the right time, then I told myself to relax, Herry, you don’t come here to win, you come here to try your best and have fun.

I walked out from the room, took a break, took a deep breath, gazed at the sky, when the pressure is out, my brain started to work again, I remembered what Paul Arden said in his book Whatever you think always think the opposite, so I thought of something else related to the hospitality and tourism industry, someting different, yet it is clearer and it is easier to execute, somthing simple and makes sense. Bingo, I said.

I came into the room as a different person, my old self, I broke the idea into smaller tasks, prioritising improtant tasks, took out all the fancy stuff, will do the fancy stuff only when I got the time. Set a targetted completion time for each task, and I worked like a machine, drank lots of water, went out of the room only to fill up my water bottle, to wee wee, to eat and answer phone calls Yeah I still answer my phones. :)

I could not believe that two days ago I was on this beautiful beach, dozed off in a hammock, and now I’m cracking my brain, and typing like it was gonna be the end of the world tomorrow.

Hours passed, it was morning already, I was still fully awake, iPod still blasting, I felt good, for completing a task each time, I felt better when I completed a few more.

Two hours before the dateline, my fingers started to ache, though I was fully awake, but I felt a bit numb and slow, I told myself, It’s enough Herry, just deploy, test, fix and do whatever necessary in the last two hours.

At 12:00 pm, it was finally over. This is crazy, I thought, this is extreme indeed, exhausted, I was glad that I did not call it a quit, I was glad that I have done my very best.

At this stage, whether you win or not, it does not matter anymore, for those who have gone through that very night, give yourself a pat on your back, we all are winners.

The next day I was shorlisted with 10 other great teams, I gave another short presentation, and this morning I received an email saying that I have won the second prize, not believing my eyes, all I could say, thank you Jesus for the second prize.

And not forgetting Ang, who was kind enough to lend me his notebook, to Peter Bohm who had helped many of us with deployment issues, to Chardy for his last minute’s tip, to the organizer, ITSC, and the supporting organisations. Kudos for the job well done, I was impressed with how smooth and well the event was executed. Hopefully this will be the start for many similar exiciting events to come.

If you are wondering what happens to the two cans of Red-Bull? Good question, I totally forgot about them.