About two weeks before SPM, there was a little rigmarole in my class on the types of "additional health benefit" supplements we would be taking on the exam mornings. The idea was that, we needed stamina and energy to continuously vomit out vast amounts of information in a limited time span- and unless we SPMers suddenly discovered new found powers to break the space-time continuum and bend time to our advantage, stamina was not coming the cheap way.
There were talks of Power Bars, Liquid Carbohydrates, Nutrilite Double X, Ginseng Extract, Birds Nest Soup, my mummy's secret recipe cordycep soup, and even drinking glucose (not advisable). But the most popular of them all, was Brands Chicken Essence.
Yes, you've heard about it. Heck, 99% of you out there have tasted it at least once in your life. However, I was never a stickler for these types of fuss- I never did Brands Chicken Essence for UPSR or PMR. It was eggs in the morning, and period. I imagine I was quite proud for the fact that "I do not need any commercialized antics to keep me awake during exam."
Then, I became a little worried. About everyone in my class had agreed on Brands. Brands suddenly became their number one idol. Hold on, let me rephrase that. It was like a religion and they hailed that tiny bottle of black fluids as the water of life.
I did a little internet research, then, on what exactly Brands was about. Friends kept on commenting about how AWAKE and ALIVE and ENERGETIC they felt after drinking the potion. It wasn't that I did not believe them, I did. But after watching too much of House and his psychological dependence of Vicodin I was, lets say, a bit of a skeptic.
Total number of students sitting for public exam:
SPM: 439,255
PMR: 400,000 (not exact)
UPSR: 400,000 (not exact)
Being generous, I imagine 25% of this number took Brands. So its 309813 students. A case of Brands costs RM30. So Brands makes an estimate of RM9,214,412 (thats nine million) a year, on exam students only. And were not even talking about those who drink it on a regular basis for... health reasons.
Then I combed the internet for health benefits. I got absolutely nothing other that the fact that its made of chicken. So what does chicken have to do with my metabolism and stamina? Maybe Proton should come up with the concept of the Brands Chicken Essence Car. No, now i'm just talking nonsense.
So peer pressure kicked in, even without evidence to support much. I decided to add a little bit to that statistic of students donating to Brands annual profit. But I didn't know how I was going to ask my mum... like I said, I never did potions.
I trotted off to my mum and asked her "Erh.. mum.. for SPM can I drink Brands in the morning or not?"
My mum stared at me, and said "Where are your eyes? I bought two cases three weeks ago already and its been sitting on the dining room table ever since. You think I dont care about you, issit?"
Swt.
So does anyone here take Brands for examinations?