a step forward

i have just finished graduation duty for the 1st time (this year! last year was 5 and the year before that was 3). A lot of us dread graduation especially the lot of us who play a larger role than others. i unfortunately am one of the larger role personnel. therefore here is the story of how i got into this larger but unwanted role.

2007
i was still a bit part player in graduations, occasionally handling door duties or mainly just security. However i had been given a walkie for no apparent reason; well the reason was they had no one to give to. So i did what everyone with a walkie did, pretend to be on "call" and look busy. during the ceremony graduation video, i had a radio call - "make them clap. CLAPPPPPPP". i looked around and thought "shit, no one is doing anything" so i just pretended nothing happened. on the floor, silence from the graduating batch. Then the call came in again "MAKE THEM CLAP!!!" i look around and tell myself to relax, just blend in. "JULIAN!! MAKE THEM CLAP" fuck this is what i hated, on the airwaves, they had just called my name asking me to perform a cheerleading duty. i thought to myself it can go 2 ways - i fucking ignore it or i act like a fucking fool waving my arms round. i chose the latter and lived to regret it. i jumped on the center aisle, ran up to the student waving my arms like a fucking clown only for them to muster a tiny clap. i went back and thought to myself i should have fuckin ignored it.

2008
This is pinnacle to what i have done. Earlier last year i was told to go to Botswana for moderation. i thought to myself, fuck man it's a chance of a lifetime to go to afrika. so i did. little did i know there was going to be a graduation for them. oh fuck this shit. we finished moderation in record 2 days 9how on fucking earth do you finish moderation in 2 days) and spent the 3 days rehearsing. this was when i got the BIGGEST fucking shock of my entire career. i thought it was all botswana team event, no it's a malaysian team event. wait wait wait, you mean a team of 7 malaysian are supposed to handle graduation? how the fuck. the killer news yet to come.

i got news i was going to do entertaining - percussion team in and out of the hall. sure easy peasy. then i get this chilling news, the boss wants you backstage because he needs a calm person to handle stuff. oh fuck my sideways and from all sides. i have never done backstage, i've looked at the chaos backstage and i know nothing about how backstage works. So i train the tray bearers,looked high & low for trays and prep the flow up. only me and siti. the day is upon us, i line up the awards and discover im missing one. then i get a load of diva wannabes in the choir asking me for hot water. do i look like your babysitter? they kept opening the door and this let the light in and i kept closing it. here comes the clincher, i was not given a communicative device at all, so i just ran with the flow. and for my first time as backstage, i FUCKED UP so bad i didn't even know where my testicles were. the awards were wrong,the scrolls were wrong etc.

fast forward to the next one, i thought since i fucked up so badly i would be backstage for the next one. hold and behold, julian - backstage. here i was thinking how fucking stupid are these guys, the previous backstage manager is laughing her arse off thinking this dude fucked up the botswana graduation what do you think he will do to this one. yes ladies and gentlemen, i fucked it up as well. So on more, i keep wondering why they picked me for the later graduations, the glorious answer? i have been trained by the president in botswana.


retort you mean the president taught me to fail miserably in my duties? what kind of fucking reason is that? he hardly showed me anything, most of which i had to learn by myself. you called that trained by the president? nevertheless i don't like to fail in my tasks, so i learnt the hard way and implement a system to backstage for the later dates. i started get things right and from then on, i'm happy to say no mistakes until i got fucked for letting the tray-bearers dress too casually. for which i stick with my decision - it's a all muslim graduation, do you really expect me to send a girl out in a tube? but i got fucked for it and learnt there is no perfect for the boss because only what he does is perfect and what everybody else does in mediocre. that is ego for you.

2009 this will be my last graduation as backstage manager; pending me signing on for another university in the coming days. i dont enjoy the backstage but at the end of the day i made it count and i did what my task asked of me and beyond. to that i am proud of myself and hope my successor learns the easier way than i did.