Competition Junkie?

When I was a kid, the first time I remember actually entering a competition voluntarily was way back when I was 9 years old in Standard Three. I remember it very well, it was a storytelling competition. At the time I didn't know anything about using gestures and intonations, so what I did was bring the book in to show the pictures. This was the book:

Not sure if I have it anymore, but I came in second. I doubt there was any quality in my storytelling, heck I didn't even finish telling it, but I guess maybe there weren't that many English storytellling participants at the time.

Fast forward to today, where I take part in different competitions on and off, some just to get movie tickets, others to try to win hotel stays, trips, cash, etc. There's many mechanisms, from the simple "Be the 9th caller, call now!" style often used in radio, to the more complicated ones like Sudoku, or the old The Star's crossword puzzles where we have to collect the pieces every weekday and submit them once completed. It also meant I ended up with a lot of otherwise useless general knowledge :p.  For instance, a male giraffe is called a bull. Now go look up what a female giraffe is. Go on. You'd be surprised.

I must admit to being a bit of a lazy bum with the complicated ones, there were times where I would collect the crossword puzzle pieces but fail to submit it in time.

It made me wonder, was it the storytelling competition that kick-started me into my competition fever. As I grew older in school I moved on to public speaking and inevitably debating, which I also did in Uni. But looking back, those activities were for two reasons really: 1. It gave me an opportunity to socialise and get to know a lot more people  2. I got to travel! and 3. It would look good in resumes.

I think the real catalyst was a radio competition in Melbourne in 1999. It was really simple: The DJs would play the Top Ten songs of the day, and people were asked to call in once the No. 1 song was played, and tell the DJ what the Top Ten songs are. The ninth caller would get through, and if he got it correct he would win.

I got 3 full CDs, and 4 singles, one of which was Blur's Song 2.

(That CD ONLY had that song, so just 2 minutes worth of listening lol). From there I was hooked, I felt that it was actually possible to win such competitions.

Some of the mechanisms have changed over the years especially with the Internet. Treasure hunts are fun, but quite exhausting, I still do radio a lot, and I even appeared on TV once: The Money Drop Malaysian edition, to disastrous results. Yes, all my money dropped ha ha...

I wouldn't call myself a competition junkie though. I do have a friend who fits the definition, and he's a true psycho. Seems like almost every week he's off watching preview screenings of movies. Pretty much every year he goes on a trip. Yeap, most from competitions. It's good to have a friend into these things though, especially when doing competitions like hunting the hitz.fm Fugitive.

One of the highlights throughout the years was a walking treasure hunt in conjunction with the first Star Trek remake. It was the first time I participated in a competition with Raudha, and we finished first, while our friends Suresh and Sue finished second (we helped each other out of course!) It was also good fun! The Star's article is still around in the archives, check it out:

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/5/2/nation/3820743&sec=nation

Raudha loved the fact that they mentioned her name first! We did get mildly annoyed at not having our faces published, I guess we didn't look like real Trekkers (which we admittedly weren't, not really).

Don't get me wrong though. I do get frustrated when I don't win sometimes. A couple of days ago I found out that I didn't win a trip to Taiwan. I get dejected, demoralised and end up staying away for a while. But just like in life, I try not to let it get me down. I'll just try again.

Now if I can only win a car... My cousin's done it before, so why not!