I have a friend who I've known since primary school. Nice guy, light-hearted, always laughing, and although we were only classmates for a few months, he was definitely a class clown. Came from a well-off family, too.
After early in Form One, we brought our different ways. He enrolled in this state boarding school and I stayed at our old school, and eventually went to ASiS. Not tooting my own horns, but I was mostly a better student than him. In SPM, I scored straight A's and he got a fraction of that.
Fate had it that we would be classmates again in UIA, where I ended up being after a clueless mess in my UPU application. I was by then already set on doing engineering, and the UPU website had a few choices for undergraduate studies. Due to my laid-back behaviour, I never learnt the path to become an engineer other than taking up foundation studies and later, degree. So I chose foundation engineering studies at UIA as my first choice, and Dip in Mechanical Engineering at UTM as second choice. Little did I know that most of my peers who had results similar with me, would pick a foundation in science at UM instead, and foundation at UiTM as second choice. Turned out UIA back then had lower intake requirements and unless I had mediocre SPM results, I should go for UM. During my orientation week, the MC in this event I forgot asked who among the students, about 1000 of us, asked for other 'better' schools, and ended up being placed at UIA - almost all raised their hands. Which meant I was basically in a 'feeder school'.
Anyway, I was actually waiting for a few other offers so I wasn't feeling so sore but still a bit dejected. One of them was to do aircraft engineering licence at MAS, and this friend was also an applicant like me. Of course, I finally got the call, and he didn't. He was quite sad and depressed, and I was there to help cheer him up, taking over as the cheery one among us to lift his mood. Being himself, he didn't take too long to mourn and pulled himself together, primarily because he had another offer to wait for - pilot training. I knew it could be hard to get and even if he did, the job market back then was hostile towards any aspiring pilot. I read that we had about 2000 pilots unemployed and these guys were all licensed. So anyway, he got the call. I was already at MAS but I congratulated him for the success, albeit hollow, I thought. Oh how patronising could I be.
Fast forward to now, that friend is now a cadet pilot at MAS. He had a snag a few months back when MAS grounded his batch, but he's back flying early this year and would be flying his first passenger B738 as a pilot in some time. While I'm struggling to get my basic licence, and even if I get it, MAS wouldn't say if they would give me a job, even as a technician. I met him on many occasions since then, and everytime he met me, he thanked me for being there for him when he was feeling sad and down back at UIA. And when knowing about my predicament with my training right now - no job guarantee and all - we reverse our roles. He's the one giving me encouragement words now. Heh funny.
Now I get it why some people say life's a joke. It is! Although I'm not laughing.
