Finally over... :)

Finally gone through the presentation...

I woke up pretty early today, around 8am.. couldn't get back to sleep.. so in the end, I watched 2 episodes of 爱上陶花园, which are episodes interviewing 阿妹 and 张艾嘉. These 2 women are some of the few women that I admire personally.. So it has a calming effect on me watching them talked about their fears and hopes with 陶子(陶晶莹). Drank some Milo and ate some biscuits for breakfast.. didnt really have much appetite although I do feel hungry..

Changed into the only suit that I brought over from Malaysia.. btw, the pants does feel looser.. :P Left my room around 11:10am.. I decided to walk to the Interview location, which is at the 29-5 Building.. I treated it as a leisure walk and was listening to some Chinese pop songs along the way. I reached the entrance exam location just after 12pm. From the list of candidates, I saw that my slot is at 1pm.. so I had to wait for almost 1 hour at the waiting room...

That waiting room is actually the student lounge which has shelves of books and magazines at the back. I sat down near a window and try to rehearse (in my head) the 'script' that I would give during the presentation exam. There are thousand and one possible questions (by the Professors) going through my mind at that time.. and it was making me nervous.. but in the end, I told myself to stop thinking.. no point stressing out last minute.. what could be the worst case scenario? Not getting into the graduate school? Well, I could accept that.. So I sort of blasted the songs using my iRiver mp3 player.. through my headphones of course.. There were 2 other guys waiting too..

At last, the time has come.. I was told to go to Room 222 in Building 29-7. There are 6 Professors in the room, including Prof Obi. I started rather nervously in the beginning.. but my nerves calmed down after a couple of minutes. When the bell rang after the 5-min limit, I had only 1 more slides to go. My timing was good... I was beginning to feel a sense of relief.. 10 more minutes of Q&A and I would be done...

Prof. Obi asked me the first question during the Q&A. He asked why did I choose Japan and Waseda University in particular, instead of US, in view of my multi-language proficiencies and prestigious Alma Mater (the NUS). After that question, Prof. Obi asked what is my plan after graduation. Then he made a comment that compared to the monthly 170K yen that I am receiving from the Monbusho scholarship, I must be commanding a high salary in Singapore, why did I quit the job and come over? So far these questions are the ones that I had anticipated, partly thanks to Shinta and Michelle who gave me tips on the presentation exam. Then Prof. Kitamura asked me about the IT industry in Malaysia and Singapore. The last question was from Prof. Kano, about why do I think the people component is important in ITSM. I used one of the appendix slides to explain...

My overall feel is that I should pass the presentation entrance exam with flying colors, but again, anything could happen.. I have done the best I could in that circumstances/instance, so the final decision lies with the panel of Professors of GITS. But I must really thank Prof Obi, feels to me like he is leading and guiding the way for me during the Q&A session.. Arigatoo..