MOHE Briefing

All good things must come to an end. I am not sure if working with company X is entirely a good thing for me but it certainly is coming to an end. But before the end is here, I was sent to attend MOHE's briefing on student data collection at PICC yesterday. The session was specifically held for all private higher learning institutions. Last year they did it according to zones and I attended the one for the east coast zone which was held in Terengganu. Due to financial reason the Ministry has decided to do it annually at PICC only.

In the letter of invitation, it was stated that the session would start at 8.30 am and end at 5.00 pm. The driver picked me up at 5.30 am and we raced to KL in the darkness of the dawn. As expected we were stuck in a jam at 3 places along the highway between Ampang and Cheras. The driver was not happy with the jam because he didn't want me to be late. Surprisingly I was more relax probably because I had a hunch that the organizing committee would serve breakfast first and I was also confident that I was not the only one to arrive late.

Sure enough, when I arrived around 9 am, every body was still enjoying food in the lobby and I was told that the briefing would start at 10 am. Well, patience is always a good virtue. Since I was starving, I helped myself with a plate of fried rice noodles and lots of fruits.

The first session was quite interesting and many participants asked questions at the end of it. Then all of us adjourned to the next ball-room for lunch at 12.30 pm. The letter said the lunch break would be from 1 to 2.30 pm but it was changed to 12.30 to 2 pm instead. I am not sure whether the second speaker was boring, or I was too full, or I was just sleepy because of starting the journey so early, I really had trouble keeping my eyes opened through out the afternoon session. I wonder if anyone noticed me nodding many times. Finally at 2.45 pm the briefing session was over. Guess what? There was more food! Many people die due to starvation around the world but in Malaysia people die due to the opposite reason.

Since I was still full from eating lunch, I remained seated in the hall with a few others in the row behind me. A few minutes later a guy who looked like a technician at PICC told us to go ahead and take the fressh flowers which were used to decorate the stage. He said " If they are taken, they will be thrown away". I thought the Ministry had financial shortage but why such wastful thing to do. They were beautiful peach colored roses and yellow daises. I took 6 stems of the roses home and they are in my kitchen at the moment.

Since I thought I would be ready at 5 pm, I told the driver to go to wherever he wanted to go as long as he came back by 4.30. He decided to go to our HQ in Cheras and I had to wait for an hour or so for him to get me. It was not too bad because I had a chance to talk to my colleague from different branches. It was raining really hard on the way home but thank God we arrived safely in Kuantan around 7.30 pm.