Absolute Power

Power is intangible.

Many people striven for their whole lives to reach the top.
The top, where one person could see so many people underneath.
But, never see one person, and only one person.
That's himself.

Power is intractable.

There is no such a way to eradicate it, it grows infinitely.
The events happen one after another. It is an endless chronology.
Man in power may get everything, but could never keep one thing.
That's himself.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Either man in power or man being powered.
Hence, change while chances are available.

Make good use of it.

It's your power. Decide then.

Life's Good in UK

It has been 7 months I stayed in Bristol.


The further I go, the more I could see.

An important point worth mentioning is that life's brief candle, nothing is better than doing what we could.
Life is just that simple.

Life is an endless exploration.

Two Days in Kota Kinabalu

The whole trip can be described as a come into bloom in my life. My first trip to Kota Kinabalu began with the application of Shell Scholarship.

When I first received an email from Shell, I was surprised as I my self never expected to be offered with Overseas Scholarship program under the Shell's Fund. The offer is so great for me, I am asked to attend an interview at Kota Kinabalu, the interview was described as Mini Shell Recruitment Day (Mini SRD).

It was supposed to be a happy news to anybody who had receive this kind of email. At the moment, I am compounded with the feelings of happiness and hesitation. I talked to myself whether I should attend this interview, at which I am originally never thought of further my studies abroad, and how can I get such offer? So many questions in my mind, how I am going to attend the interview? how to make sure that I'll be safe there? I just can't imagine how can I ensure my safety in a place that I never been. Luckily, Shell is such a caring company, the company covered my itinerary and the accommodation was booked for me.

As most of my worries being settled, I am then ready for a plain sailing towards Kota Kinabalu. By this, I have learnt on how to check-in at the airport, I knew what are the procedures to be done before sitting in the airplane and so on. My flight to KK was in the 8.15 morning on 24 April 2012. It took about 45 minutes for me to arrive at the KK International Airport. The airport is so enormous, much more bigger than the one I have in my hometown, Sandakan. The trip had opened up my eyes.

For me to get to the Hyatt Rengency Hotel, I bought a taxi coupon of RM30 for the airport taxi service. The taxi driver is quite friendly, he told me on how to deal with the roads in KK, he answered me many questions on how to getting around the city. I found that KK is actually another bigger version of my hometown. However, KK is a more peaceful place due to less immigrants to be seen all along the coastal line. In Sandakan, the town is almost crowded with Filipinos and Indonesians, less sense of Malaysia's culture can be found as compared to KK. KK's citizens are found to have even higher civic conscious, less people will spit on the ground everywhere else.

On 24th of April, once I have settled down my room and luggage, I then quickly move around Wisma Merdeka, a shopping spot next to hotel where I live. Here, is also the place where I bought a neckite, and a few t-shirts. Clothings can be found at reasonable prices, and plenty choices are available, but the food in KK was a bit expensive, the food was not counted per plate, the hawkers will looked at the portion to set the price.

In the afternoon, all the candidates are gathered at the office of Shell Kota Kinabalu located in the Wisma San Hin. Here, a total of 12 candidates from different regions of Sabah are briefed by Miss Mariane Ng, who is the HR Analyst, also the Scholarship Coordinator for our batch. The briefing was started by a simple ice-breaking session, which comes with a question: What will you do if tomorrow is the last day of the Earth? Throughout the briefing, we are told about C, A, and R which stand for capacity, achievement and relationship respectively. That means we all are evaluated based on these three fundamental elements in order for us to be a qualified Shell Overseas Scholar. Before the real interview come into play, we were given a group practice, a case study related to Shell. The whole briefing session ran for 2 hours, although it seemed to be short, but it was so compact and useful.

The next day, 25th of April, was the day full of challenges, the candidates where divided into 2 groups, one was interviewed in the morning, while another in the afternoon. I was in the morning batch. My first task was an individual case study, the case study required about 45 minutes to be ready with a presentation. The case given was very interesting. One of the advantages from being a candidate for Shell Scholarship was that we got to play a role based a case faced by Shell in an anonymous location. The task was about the difficulties faced by Shell, related to local community, internal management, human resources, short-term action, and as well as a long-term goal to be achieved which could sort out all the problems.

In such situation, the candidates were actually being assumed as an engineer or even a role as a decision-maker, the qualities sought are based on their capability to solve problems, critical thinking to handle a situation, ways to interact with the local community, deals with environmental issues, public health and much more. The task studied was in fact required clear understanding, and the candidates needed to come out with an overall planning to solve all the problems. The more evidence one's can provide together with some pieces of analysis, the more marks will be awarded, hence, biggest chance to be offered the scholarship. Next, a group study was carried out. 6 candidates in a group were sought to work as a team. The issue was about the allocation of Shell annual fund. We worked out the best two proposals to be funded, one was for the local district, another was for the local community. Somehow, there was an accidental issue happened, an earthquake occurred. At the time, all the candidates are tested, they need to decide on what to fund also how to fund with the specific amount of money available. The group practice was then ended up with an 'imaginary' press conference, at which each candidate was given a question.

After all, the interview was done. I was no longer staying in the state of flight and fight. Thereafter, we all have our lunch together, and we chat with each other. At my first sight, they were so serious, but once we started chatting, a tacit was built naturally.

Hahaha, in the afternoon, it was just my time to enjoy my shopping. My movement was only limited to the surrounding of the Hyatt Regency Hotel. At the time, I went to Suria Sabah, a huge shopping mall in the KK town area. Suria is just an one-top shopping with almost everything inside. Due to time constraint, I was not be able to go to the 1Borneo. However, I will not miss the chance to be there in the largest shopping mall of Sabah in near future.

Time flies, when it was 5.30pm, then I went to the KKIA to check-in. It was the time to say goodbye. Although there was no enough time for me to enjoy the sun in KK, but I do looking forward for the second time to be in KK. No more miss out by then.
Ab initio till the ends of my journey, I was so happy to be given a chance to open my eyes, though it was a short travel, but it was so mellow.