False Facade

Since I was absent for a family get together yesterday at my grandmother’s place, Mom took the liberty to fill me in on what is going on with my cousin Eilese (not her real name) who everyone had not met for a long time. Eilese is one year my junior, was from college and is applying for a place in the Life Sciences faculty in the National University of Singapore. Apparently, her dad who is my uncle was trying to explain to everyone else why she did not make it to the Optometry course in the school and instead ended up with another (unimpressive in my humble opinion :P) science course. According to Mom, this is what he said.

“When they interview her for a possible place in Optometry, they asked her, ‘Why do you choose to study this particular course?’, and she said, ‘I don’t know..’ and that is how they decided against puting her through.. haha.”

Honestly, how many people bought his cover? I have absolute grounds to question his defense. How could someone not prepare before hand before going for an interview? Even if you are not familiar with the profession or course outline, the most basic question you would have prepared an answer would be a question that is directly in regards to why you select the job offer or course to study in the first place! It is like asking a medic trainee why he is considering a career working in the hospital as a doctor and he got so stumped and replies, “I don’t know lei?” instead of the more appropriate (and always conventional) “I would like to save precious lives and cure the ill” answer.

I wonder, how far will people go to whip up an overpowering excuse to save their reputation and change another person’s judgment? In this case, I can only conclude that if whatever my relatives said was true, then my cousin Eilese must have been one dumb freak who has never gone for an interview her entire life OR she thinks she’s an ultra student such that offers come to her naturally and interviews are like bonus get-to-talk-to-the-directors sessions OR simply that she did not have enough EQ to see that “I don’t know” is really a thank-you-that-will-be-about-it immediate response rejection. I wonder if two years of college life taught her anything about reality.

And if they are making up the whole pretext, they should buy a new life for wasting our time with the previous one. How “kiasu” will they go in terms of repute desperation? With folks like them, I can only imagine.