I went to Disneyland!!

Last month, I had the chance to present my work at the ESEM09 conference (Empirical Software Engineering & Measurement) which was held between 13th - 16th Oct. at the Lake Buena Vista, Florida. That was my first visit to the States, so obviously I felt so excited and nervous at the same time especially when thinknig about presenting my papers in front of other peers and the experts. But Alhamdulillah, everything went well. Thanks to my family members, and my dear friends for making dua.

The trip was a very long one! The flight departed from Auckland at 10.30pm and reached LA after 12 hours. Then, I have to wait for the next flight to Washington (another 6 hours in a plane), on the next day, I took another flight from Washington direct to Orlando. I was surprised that the weather there was almost exactly like the weather in my home country. huhu...panas lor....!. Finally, I reached the conference venue at the Hilton Walt Disney Hotel, at Disney Downtown. I was sooo tired, plus jet-lag. But then I had a good sleep at the hotel :-D

The next day, I joined the Doctoral Symposium. I highly recommend those who are still newbie in your PhD research to participate in this kind of event (altho I am not considered newbie but my sup. asked me to send my work, so kena present lor..)During the doctoral symposium, you'll be assigned with an advisor who will give a very critical feedback on your work, and it also gives you experience in defending your research. Supervisor is not allowed to speak or to defend on behalf of students. Panels will ask you lots of questions and they would like to know how are you going to tackle those questions in your research. The good thing is, it gives you something to ponder or to think about, and students also encourage not to take the comments personally. After all, their advices are important, and that's what we want to learn, aye? Alhamdulillah, I was lucky enough that the panels are happy with my presentation and agreed with the contribution and remaining work that I suppose to do. Yea, I was soo relief... definitely all praise is due to HIM.

On Thursday, 15th Oct I attended the ESEM opening ceremony. The keynote address was given by Fred Brooks, the author of the famous book "The Mythical Man-Month". After the opening, my supervisor introduced me to her ring of research mates, and advisors. What a lucky day! I've been longing to meet some of these famous people like Prof Barbara Kitchenham, and few others :-D So, I really feel like meeting superstars, hahaa.. its because all these while I have been reading, and citing lots of their work, and suddenly I met them in person!! How wonderful...!
On Friday morning, 16th Oct. I finally presented our full referred paper to the conference. I was sooo gabra initially but Alhamdulillah after went up to the stage, all the butterflies gone! magic betul. Lega tak terkire rasanya lepas present tu! Happy lor.. :-D

Another exciting moment was the time we spent at the Disney Magic Kingdom. Below are some of our photos:

To go to Magic Kingdom we can use either monorail or ferry boat. We picked up the fastest one :)


This one was taken at the Downtown area, the day before..

Overall, it was really a great conference and I think Florida is a great place to be visited - If you have kids, they will definitely enjoy! I don;t get the chance to visit other theme park, I've heard people recommend to visit the Animal Kingdom and Epcot too. InsyaAllah, next time!