Summer delight

I received a call last two weeks at 5am on my Malaysian mobile. Still in a daze, I answered the call. It was a lady who spoke to me in Malay.

*Translated*
"Hi Mr Yap, recently you submitted an essay for a National Essay Competition?"

I paused, trying to recall what on earth was this lady talking about at such an ungodly hour! O what the heck, I just answered, "Er, yea. Anything?" I thought it was the essay assignment for the Cornwall project. Maybe the department's online submission screwed up and some Malaysians got hold of the essay and liked my Disneyland Project idea. Now that I am awake, I realised how ridiculous my mind works when I am half awake. **Warning for all you prank callers**

"Okay Mr Yap, I would like you to attend for our prize presentation ceremony at this place and at this time..Would you come?", she continued.

"Erm, yea, yea..of course. By the way, what have I won? Erm, essay?", then I remembered I submitted an essay a month ago. I could hardly recall what I wrote in the 3000-word essay. I could only remember I did it in 8 hours! I wasn't serious about it but merely submitting it for the sake of submitting it. After all, Irene called all the way from Malaysia and coaxed me into it and dropped me email reminders at almost every hour a day before the submission deadline. Just write anything, "any $#!T" that you usually put in your blog and it would make up 3000 words. Oh right, that was really inspiring to get me started!

"So, what have I won? What placing?"
"Sorry sir, I am not allowed to divulge more information. You will know on that day. Would you come?"
"You see, I am currently not in Malaysia. I can send a proxy if you don't mind"
"Sure, just give me the person's name and email address"
I gave Irene's name since she was the one who told me about the competition. Obviously there's a fair share of success from her part.
"No chance of telling me what position I won?"
"Sorry sir, I can't. But I can only tell that I was given the instructions to invite the top three finishers. I can't tell more."

Lots of suspense for the past two weeks. But the goal to finish my dissertation was an effective antidote.

Today Irene called.

"Guess what. You are number one!"

Praise be to God!