Young, and Spiky

Remember how I've always been complaining about work lately? And remember how, when you read me complaining, you might have this question deeeeep inside your tiny little heart: "enough talking, you wuzz, stand up and quit already!?"

Well. The answer is simple: I feel like I still need to prove myself.

Yea, it's about me and my own ambition. C'mon, spare me a little, I'm young, and I want to sharpen my spikes! I want to make my brands matter -lol bullshyt?- I want to win more pitch so I can decorate my portfolio with even prettier stuff -well now it's a genuine one- and, I want awards.

So this year, after making it to Top 10 last year in Daun Muda, I got into another award competition. This time it's a bit more international.

Young Spikes Award.

Well, alright alright, it's my boss again. He dragged me into this, once again. It wasn't my intention at the first place but after some considerations, I felt like I had to redeem for not making it into Top 3 last year so there I was, once again 'trapped' in the rollercoaster advertising award ride.

The process was basically the same. We worked in a group of two, received the brief, spent weekend at the office to crack the idea, and just wait in vein. Only this time, the deadline was only 24 hours -which oh for God's sake, was much better than 48 hours because SPENDING THE WHOLE WEEKEND AT THE OFFICE IS SO STRESSFUL! and, I had a new partner.

Remember about my old squad at the office? Well yea most of them are gone now, but as time went by and I moved on -lol wth- I found myself in yet another awesome circle. The boss is still the same, but my playmates are new. A girl and a guy, and let's call them Masha and The Bear. And all three of us, Masha, The Bear, and me, we were kinda forced by our boss to join Young Spikes.

I was partnered with The Bear. Oh God. Lol did I make it sound like I can't stand The Bear? Nooo, we're good. Too good in fact, that we tend to mock each other and jape a lot. Way too lot.

But then the 24 hours we spent at the office was quiet effective and fruitful, though the new big boss kinda questioned our idea, but then, just the next day, when we were expected to wait for a phone call should our idea proceeded to the presentation stage, well,

WE GOT THAT CALL!

I couldn't believe it. AT. ALL. Two years in a row, in two different, but equally prestigious advertising award event, I made it into the shortlist! This time was Top 7, a slightly much MUCH better result, which it alone got me all proud of myself already!

We got to present our idea the next day. God, I don't need to explain how nervous we were for that. Plus, this was The Bear's first time making it through as a finalist after joining the competitions for some years so, it's a big thing for us!

The presentation went smooth, though we were the last one to present. The idea was clever, the slides were on-point and not full of words, the speaking was clear, the answers to the unexpected questions were unexpectedly delivered in a very very satisfying quality. So then came the announcement and

We lost.

Lol do you expect this to turn out to be a super sweet dreams-do-come-true blog post where I won the award and that's why I posted it? No, I lost. They said that our presentation was top notch, and the judges were having a difficulty in deciding whether it should be us or the other team to win, so yea they claimed that if there were a second place, it should be us, but no. No second place, and no, we weren't the winner no matter what.

Still I'm writing about this as a token of appreciation to myself, and, most importantly, as a reminder that I could do anything and go as far as I wish if I want.

I started working at this industry knowing nothing -but stories from our lecturers back at the university, lacking of skills, having no experiences, needing times and times to grow and up my level, even several weeks prior me doing the competition, a stupid Malay expat at my office made fun of me and told me that I couldn't go far -well she was drunk, so she probably didn't mean it but wait, alcohol usually make someone talk what they really think of, no? and look at me now: it took me only 24 hours to show that I am worthy of a brilliant ad man, for the second consecutive year.

No, of course I'm not doing this award to show that woman that I can achieve something. She's not worth the back of my mind.

This is totally my way to show that I'm capable of doing anything I want.

I'm young, full of spikes

Ready to pop your balloon