BTN 2013

Attending BTN was one of the prerequisite for the scholarship. I've attended BTN twice before this and having to attend another one at this age certainly made me feel "lemau". Last time I attended, I was around 25 years old and there were a lot of my friends (batch-mate) attending with me so it was fun, despite the aksi lasak, living in dormitories (me always having to climb the upper bunker coz I was always the youngest & had to hormati the more senior sisters...not that I mind at that age...but at this age, I would). Now, I felt that I was too old for all these "gasak2". Was really not looking forward to it and had to practically drag myself there. The letter saying that they would confiscate handphones throughout the session was of no help to brighten me up.

The negative image of BTN was shaken right upon registration. I was given a blanket, a bed sheet, a pillow sheet and an air-cond remote. Air-cond remote? I took my very heavy bags up SIX flight of stairs and when I opened my room, it was like an apartment! There was 3 separate bedrooms, 2 shower rooms, 2 toilet rooms, 2 sinks, and 2 big mirrors. Fully air-conditioned! The only bummer was that the room was facing a Chinese cemetery and could clearly be seen from the room. Luckily, my room was the farthest from the window compared to my two apartment-mates.

During the welcoming and briefing session, we negotiated with the secretariat not to take our handphones and turns out they didn't like keeping our handphones anyway but made us promise not to use it throughout the 5 days 4 nights stay... never let them see us holding a handphone. There were 88 of us; 50 women and 33 men. 14 sub-specialist (medical doctors), 5 post-doctorate, 14 JPA scholars. Most of them were lecturers. If the secretariat had to keep our handphones, they would be keeping a minimum worth of RM132,000 if the hp average was rm1,500, and that was just too dangerous.

The first two days was filled with talks by prominent speakers and I felt that I was so lucky to have an opportunity to hear them talk. Seriuosly. Bukan calang-calang orang. They talked with passion and handled questions really tactfully. The only downside to it was during night session, most of these intelligent audiences start to shut-down by 10.30pm and so there would rarely be any Q&A by 11pm. All of them that I asked say they usually sleep around 10.30pm... is it because intelligent people think too much during the day that they can only last up to 10.30pm? Hmmm... And suddenly I laughed at myself remembering someone called me "kepala otak yang kosong..."

The activities started as early as Subuh. So, that means I had to wake up at around 5.30am and take a bath under the COLD shower. That (cold shower), I can't seem to get used too. After praying Subuh, there was kuliah pagi till 7am. Then, morning exercise and breakfast. There's also evening exercise and kuliah Marghrib. The Ustaz was really full of knowledge, he had stayed in Makkah and Madinah for more than 14 years and other parts of the world. Hebat, kan?

The next two days were discussions in groups of approx. 11. Again, I was lucky coz our instructor or facilitator, Ir. Zawawi was very diplomatic and tactful in voicing his opinion and building his point. Unlike some of the groups that I asked where they were called traitors if they did certain things. In my group of 11 people, I was the only JPA scholar. The others were lecturers from university and another two was MARA's. Most of them were going to do their pHD.

• One was a history lecturer and he made history sound really fascinating. 
• One was born in Scotland,  educated in France, married an american student, and hoping to have a France-born child. His parents are Kelantanese. Melayu glokal (the topic of my PTD PAC BM impromptu speech back in 2005).
• One was our BTN Penghulu and always started his sentence with "saya bukanlah seorang yang pandai berkata-kata".
• One hardly said more than 20 words but was an engineer at an international oil company and traveled the world.
• One was a true outdoor person, barely 25 but doing her pHD in Colorado. I promised her I'd go paragliding one day IF time permits (coz she told me to live life to the fullest...whatever made her think I wasn't).
• One was barely 25 too, but laughed off when someone said she looks so much older than me. True maturity.
• Two were the most senior in our group, but just about 5 years older than me. They have also traveled the world and were very articulate.
• One was so innocent-looking you wouldn't believe her age.
• One told me he saw me during the IELTS exam. He has written countless books but published only two, a few people at BTN have read his book but I haven't. With a science actuary background, you can guess how brilliant this guy is.

When a few guys commented on how I was not sharing much of my work experience (the dirty things they were dying to know), I purposely asked the facilitator on Akta Rahsia Rasmi and he understood. Later, I asked an MTN and a KPT piTeeDee and they said they didn't say much in their groups either about their work and the issues around them. Just the positive things. 

The last night, we had to do a performance and my group sang "Buruh, nelayan dan juga petani..." (don't remember the title). My group won, to everyone's annoyance. Even I was surprised coz I know we did not deserve to win. Our facilitator was the head judge. The morale was when you surrender the power to someone (the head judge) and to the wrong people at that, it would be too late for you to question the decisions they make. True.

On the fifth day, the last day, there was an open book exam of 60 questions. There was only 5 questions I was not sure of the answers so I'm quite confident I could pass the exam. We also received the profile of the 88 participants and more than 70% of them were going to  Australia. Sangat la common. Secondly UK. Other countries were Japan, US, Korea, Ireland and Canada.

Used the last strength I had to drive myself home. The secretariate - Cik Badariah, Mak Jah, Pak Zaini, Pak Basiron, Pak Jep... were really cool. They made the stay there so much fun. BTN turned out to be so much better and interesting than I expected.