1. In November, I received a call to inform me that my essay, which I submitted in June, won one of the top three prizes. I was asked to be present at the prize-giving ceremony. The nationwide competition is part of a huge annual event organized by the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Association (FOMCA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Education.
Apart from essay-writing, there were also drawing, coloring, public speaking, scrapbooking, blogging and graphic design competitions. Each of them was split into several categories (primary school students, high school students, university students, and lastly the general public), and each category offered three main prizes, plus a few consolation prizes. Last year, their 17th-year running, they were giving away cash prizes amounting to RM300,000.
For the essay-writing competitions, we had three topics to choose from. I wrote about wise spending and saving. Definitely my forte.
On the day of the prize-giving ceremony, we were still not told of our placing beyond the fact that we were the top three in our category. But based on our seating arrangement, we had a rough guess. I was seated at the end of the row of three, so I would either win first place or third. The one in the middle was quite resigned to the fact that she'd win second place. I tried not to get my hopes up too high, since I didn't really know who I was competing against. The other two winners could be professional writers, or journalists, or language teachers. It was only when our names were called up on stage that we knew for certain. I came in first... just like old times.
Yes, technically it wasn't the first contest I had won in my life. I frequently won essay-writing competitions and best-student awards at school, but this was the first one I won at national level. So, that--and the RM2500 prize--was quite something to me.
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2. In December, Big Bad Wolf Books once again had their massive 24-hour book fair for 11 days in KL, where books were discounted for up to 95%. This time around, they held a contest in which participants had to post a selfie or a photo of their book haul onto social media platforms and use the hashtags given. Twenty most creatives entries would be selected everyday to win RM50 vouchers (to buy more books!)Naturally, I went on the first day of the event, and just to try my luck, posted a selfie on Facebook.
The next day, they announced the winners on their Facebook page, and I was one of them! I got myself 6 more books with the voucher 😄
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3. Exactly one week later, I participated in a race walk competition in Kajang. Although I had sworn not to participate in any more races after my full marathon, I made an exception for this one, because I figured I'd have a pretty good chance of winning. First of all, it was out of KL, so I assumed there wouldn't be too many people who were willing to make the journey just for a 'walking' competition. Secondly, this sport was usually dominated by older people (40 and above), because again, it was a walking competition. Younger people prefer running. So that means there would be fewer people in my category, and therefore less competition. And thirdly, I thought I was pretty good at it. The previous year I scored the 21st place overall, out of a several hundred contenders.Still, 600 participants turned up on that day. I kept glancing around me as I walked to see if there were ladies my age participating. I didn't see many, and that was a good sign. I reached the finish line in 46 minutes, which wasn't very impressive for a 5-km walk. But then I hadn't worked out for months since quitting running.
Nobody told me what my placing was or if I'd won anything, but I stayed anyway for the prize-giving ceremony, just in case. That was the first time I stayed on after finishing a race. As they announced the winners for my category, my name was announced first. I wasn't even ready yet! My hair was still in a sloppy lopsided bun. I had won 5th place. And that was also the first time in the 29 years of my existence that I had won anything in sports.
