The result of the Lee Kuan Yew Business Plan Writing Competition was released last week. Unfortunately, my team was not short-listed for the semi-finals. JC and I would check for the results every day, but it was Ailene who got first word about it among us three. Sure, I could say that I'm alright that we didn't win, but I would be lying. See, even if I told you that I had even just the tiniest inkling of defeat looming over us, I would never succumb to its faint possibility.

After all my myriad experiences on losing, I never learned how to be graceful in the middle of failure. And so I raged over our loss on the phone with JC on the other line. Drama queen, I called myself. Ha! Up until now, I'm still bitter about the entire thing. To think I spent my summer in the university just for that. Even my work for Guilder and UP Soccsksargen got compromised, all for what? A lousy email from the Singapore Management University saying thank you for joining, feigning an apology for us not making the cut.

So, during my unhappy days last week, when I was extra sensitive than usual to the little annoyances around our house, I took refuge in work. As was suggested by—who else?—JC, my colleague. At first, I returned to my writings, hoping that my nursed, self-exaggerated depression would jumpstart my fictions back to life, but every time I took up my pen, my thoughts turned back to our EnviMotes, the product we marketed in our business plan. The Business Plan, and its reduction of writing to facts, figures and charts depressed me still.

What are we to do now? Is this the end of iEM Solutions, Inc? Perhaps what I feel now is but a small taste of what the great CEOs of Starbucks, Citibank, and hell yes, even Enron felt at the brink of decline, at the fall itself and finally, at the dissolution of their multinational corporations. The JCI results are still to come and both my colleagues expressed their high hopes and anticipation. Engineer de Dios even expressed a rather light take on his future plans to incorporate. So maybe, just maybe, the LKY result is only a minor setback. All is not lost.