Alhamdulillah...Malaysia 50 tahun merdeka!!

Syukur Alhamdulillah negara kita telah mencapai kemerdekaan yang ke-50 malam tadi. Semoga Malaysia terus aman dan makmur serta sejahtera sehingga hari kiamat. Sebagai rakyat Malaysia, sudah pastinya saya mendoakan yang terbaik untuk tanahair kita yang tercinta. Walaupun jasad berada jauh di perantauan, tetapi hati dan sanubari tetap mengenang dan mengingati bumi Malaysia. Pastinya suasana sambutan hari kemerdekaan di Malaysia meriah dengan berbagai jenis acara dan letupan mercun warna warni di sana sini. Namun demikian, sebagai orang Islam, seharusnya kita menyedari bahawa acara sambutan seharusnya disambut secara sederhana tetapi bermakna dan tidak membazir keterlaluan. Marilah kita mendoakan agar negara kita terus dilimpahi dengan keamanan dan kesejahteraan dan cuba menunaikan tanggungjawab kita sebagai rakyat mithali yang boleh dicontohi oleh generasi yang akan datang. Mudah-mudahan Allah memudahkan liku-liku perjalanan hidup kita di perantauan ini sehingga pulang suatu hari nanti membawa sebuah kejayaan. Ameen.

IIUM 25th Convocation::Congratulations to all my students

IIUM had their 25th Convocation starting last Sunday. This time, our first batch of students from Computer Science Dept, KICT graduated after completing their 4 years of studies. Congratulations to all of you. I can't recall all the names, but I remember your bright faces. Anyways, I got the chance to chat with Faheem on last monday and he promised to send me a DVD of their convo. I missed the opportunity to see the live webcast during the convocation day because I was away to Akoranga last weekend. When I was at IIUM, I attended the convocation ceremony almost every year. It was indeed boring because you had to wait for the VVIP to arrive and then seeing the students receiving their scroll. That was previous years. This time is different because my first batch of students is graduating and as their teacher, I felt so proud and happy to see they succeed.

PhD Progress and Cats

Baru lepas meeting dgn supervisor. Alhamdulillah, dah siap keja2 menapis (screening titles & abstract) utk SR selection. Ada lebih kurang 140 papers from 12 online databases, yg relevant to be included during Data extraction stage. Pening lak aku tgk articles byk2 tuh. Btw Emilia dah tak sabo2 nak suh aku start Data Extraction Sept. ni. Hehe yg best tuh dia pun akan sama extract data and we will compare our works later on. Another thing, she will be away for a month, starting from this saturday and will be back early October. So, satu bulan la takde meeting ni. hmm tak best la. Mula2 dulu rase segan n takut jer nak jumpa dia, tapi dah lama2, seronok sebenarnye borak2 dgn dia..sbb meeting tu bukan setakat diskusi ilmiah jer, selalu gak kitoang borak2 pasal mende lain, especially psl animals, psl kucing n anjing. Tuh la satu benda yg aku rase best, kitoang sama2 minat kucing. Nama kucing dia "Harry". hahaa cam nama orang. Comeey giler kucing dia..
Bila dah sebut psl kucing nih teringat aku kat Salwa, kucing si Azhar. Kucing tuh sekor lagi adeiii dah la gemok, perut buncit lak tuh, comeeyyy!! nanti laa klu siap gambo salwa bleh display kat sini (jannah, mane gambo salwa??)
ok lah back to cerita tadi, so bulan sept and october nih aku kena allocate utk keja2 meng'extract' data tuh. Hasil analisa (to synthesize/summarize all evidence) insyaAllah plan nak buat by middle of October. Mase tuh dah raye ek?? Cepat betul mase berlalu..dah 3 bulan aku kat sini..rase mmg semput jgk la buat SR nih..It really takes a lot of courage to do it. May God bless me.

The importance of Being Clear

Lama dah tak update blog..bukan malas, tp busy..mmg manjang busy...hehe alasan paling senang.ada cerita nak cerita, tp bukan semua cerita tu penting. Cuma kali ni nak ingatkan diri sendiri kejadian yg berlaku hari ni.. morale of the story: Dptkan maklumat sebenar dan jelas untuk elak salah faham drpd berlaku. Kadang2 kita suka take things for granted, tak kire lah apa pun.. Sebenarnya tak susah pun nak "being clear". It is just a matter of an explanation. Kalau tak sure tentang sesuatu perkara, tanye lah. Ask. Just Ask. Never make an assumption!! Lagi satu perkara, rasenya lebih elok kalau kita ni jenis 'structured' or organized dlm mengurus sesuatu perkara. Tak pun, sekurang2nye ada perancangan (planning). Bukan ape, ada sesetengah perkara, kita suka buat last minute dan expect benda tu boleh setel. Kalau perkara tu tak melibatkan orang lain rasenya tak lah jadi complicated. Tp klu melibatkan org lain selain dari diri sendiri, kita tak patut expect that masalah tu patut/boleh selesai ikut cara kita; sbb lain orang lain cara pikirnye..lain ragamnye..betul tak? Tu lah payah tuh..mmg betul la kita nih rambut sama hitam, tp hati dan perangai lain2.. (proverb ni tak include omputih laa..hahaa..sbb rambut diorang tak itam)
ok lah saje nak tulis untuk pengajaran buat diri sendiri. Yang baik boleh jadikan contoh, klu yg salah jgn ikut laa

Life really has to move on (Part 2)

What people normally do when they feel sad? What people normally do when they feel so down, when thing isn't going the way that it should be? We used to cry isn't it? Some people cannot cry, but to some people, crying can make them feel relief. Relief from the painful or any hurtful thing. So, it is normal to cry. Just release it out so that it won't hurt you badly or make you feel sick of it. You can even share your sadness with your close friends or colleagues. But not everyone will listen to you, rite? Just remember that God is there and HE is always listening. So crying to HIM is the best thing to do because HE knows what's happening and the reason why. Whatever things happen in our daily life and for whatever reason, is all happened within HIS knowledge. Therefore, we got to be patience and ask for the strength. We got to believe that HE has planned for everything...

“Dan apabila hamba-hambaKu bertanya kepadamu mengenai Aku maka (beritahu kepada mereka): Sesungguhnya Aku (Allah) sentiasa hampir (kepada mereka); “Aku perkenankan permohonan orang yang berdoa apabila ia berdoa kepadaKu.”

(Surah al-Baqarah : ayat 186)

Life really has to move on

It has been quite a while that I haven't update this blog. Well, things are progressing but not at usual pace. Since the task that I'm doing for the previous couple of weeks was more on searching and reviewing literature, thus it was indeed a tedious and tiring process.
Btw, a friend of mine, Vince Barany is going back to Germany today. He has been here for visiting purposes since early of this month and now he gtg.. To Vince, "Auf wiedersehan...", till we meet again next time.. and good luck also for your coming presentation. Thanks a lot for all the advices given, for the thought and sharing, while you are here. I appreciate that very much. We'll keep in touch.

Starting to write (Some tips)

I've attended a workshop on "Starting to Write" organized by SLC (Student Learning Centre) yesterday. I learned few tips and strategies to keep writing and keep on improving writing:
Robert Barrass suggested that:
1) we should practice to record all of our practical work. Write it at all time and keep a good note. Where possible, we can make something like TOC to summarize the work. Towards the end, there will be a hierarchies of facts accumulated.
2) Write a progress reports as an aid to thinking and the development of ideas.
3) Use writing as an aid to observation: practice to describing research and results.

An advice by Robert Boice: "establish social skills as a writer". In addition, he said "Writing is a social skill: It demands a sense of audience, and profits from collaboration and social networking". Urm.. I guess we can be an official blogger as a starting point ;)

more to write next time insyaAllah.. Akma is waiting down there to go to Tai Ping.. gtg!

After a while..

It has been almost a week that I have not getting chances to update my blog. I have been busy with packing and moving up things to the new apartment and Alhamdulillah finally things get settle down slowly. I wish to acknowledge those who help me, especially Zakiah, Akma & Din for helping me carry the "unexpectedly-quite a lot of" stuffs. Thank you so much for the help. I really appreciate it. Quite a number of items are inherited at the last minute before the departure of my previous flatmate. Thanks to my ex-flatmate for being generous to me...hehe..
Well..I received quite a number of queries about invitation for a "house-warming party"..hahaa..Sharon & Shita, you are the first one visited us. Thanks for coming and we really enjoyed the dinner..To the rest of my friend, you are always welcome and please let me know in advance if you're coming, so that I can prepare something for you..hehe but if you look for a very special menu, pls bring over the recipe and the items, and we can cook together...sounds good eii?? hehehe..
Of course I never forget my family, relatives and friends in Msia. I wish to offer an accommodation for your stay if any of you happen to come to Auckland. I'm happy to help:)

Sayonara...Princeton

I will say good bye to Princeton the day after tomorrow. InsyaAllah will officially move in to the Beach rd apt on Friday morning. Hope that everythings going on smoothly as planned. Yea..I’m going to miss the Mt Eden which I’ve seen everyday from my room. .
I will for sure remember the moments I stayed here though only for a short while. The significance of moment is not necessarily due to the time you spend but more from the things you learn while you are here..