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..

My supervisor is back!

I came to office today to do some online stuffs..actually plan to do pilot searching on online databases..but half way doing it, I checked emails and there was email from emilia. Urmm alamak..she is now back to work after long leave to oz. As expected, she suggested for a meeting, well..next Tuesday seems to be good to her (but not to me!) huhu I've yet to revise and finalize the write up on protocol review before submitting it to her. Alamakk im running out of time now..huhu need to chio!

Finally…203/155 Beach Rd

I have been very busy and headache lately thinking about choosing an apartment to be rented. My contract with Princeton end by 4^th August and Zaidah (my flatmate-to-be) is coming back here to Auckland pretty soon. Last week, I have viewed 3 apartments, which located at the Beach Rd, Kingston Rd and Symonds St. Of course there are pros and cons on each of the apt. If you want it perfect in terms of location + beautiful view + fully furnished + large living hall + free use of gym, sauna and pool, then you must ready to spend more money J The rate for such apt is approximately range between $360-$400pw.

After think and think and think deeply, finally I decided to choose the apt at the Beach Rd. I hope Zaidah will like it too. Yea.. of course after Istikharah too, I called Andrew (the agent) to confirm my application. My justification to Zaidah, if this one is not her preferences, then we can have a try for about a few months. Later, we can move to other apartment of better facilities and view. Hehehe..

Another thing about renting apartment in the city is that, you must be ready with the so many type of fees incur. It is normal to spend almost about $2k or even some apt may require 2k++ which inclusive the bonding fee + advance rental fee + letting fee + GST some more as part of the move-in cost. Hmm..mmg cekik darah la diorang nih..Tensen jer bila enquiry psl move-in cost. Jarang jumpa yg takde letting fee or gst etc. but that is the fact living in Auckland.

Why I choose that apt? As I said, ada pros and cons… Major thing is the living hall + kitchen. The living hall is quite big, with tv, sofa and dining table. Memang menawan. Hehehe Tapi slack dia..jeng jeng jeng… tak surprise lah klu citer sume, hmm korang kena dtg sendiri tgk klu nak tau..eekkekek. Overall, the condition is great, comes partly furnished with fridge, oven, washing machine, dryer and dishwasher. Ape2pun…bersyukurlah dgn apa yg ada..Syukur Alhamdulillah akhirnya jumpa jugak apartment harap2ny ok lah duk situ. So, InsyaAllah I’m moving next week!

Statistical Power and the First meeting with co-supervisor 

It was a rainy day, so I decided not to go to the office early in the morning. I remember that today I have a meeting with Prof John Grundy at 2.30pm, so it would be just nice to come to the office after the zuhur prayer and have lunch there. The whole morning I sat down spend time on reading this article “A systematic review of statistical power in software engineering experiments” by Tora Dyba et. al (2005). The result of the study is really surprising to me as a new researcher. It shows that statistical power of SE experiments falls substantially below the acceptable level. Statistical power here refers to the probability that a statistical test will correctly reject the null hypothesis (Cohen, 1988). According to Dyba et al. (2006), “A test without sufficient statistical power will not be able to provide the researcher with enough information to draw conclusions regarding the acceptance or rejection of the null hypothesis”.
Therefore, I was thinking that all SE researchers in the world should look into this matter seriously or at least to have a standard convention of statistical power on SE empirical research. One of the implication highlighted in the review was that the importance of the statistical power is seems to be underemphasized in experimental SE research. InsyaAllah, this will be one of the major aspects in the coming experiment next year. I am indeed grateful to have study this review at early stage before I come up with the design of the experiments.
Oh..sorry dear the original story is accidentally deviated.. hehe..Too much excited about statistics. Back to the meeting with John, hmm…John is a very nice Professor, humble and talkative..ehehe I even have to interrupt him whenever necessary ..hahaha.. He suggested having a meeting together with Emilia when she comes back from OZ. And, not only that, he also invited me to attend the supervision meeting with his other postgrad students which is conducted on every Monday. Huuhu… boleh tak klu tak pegi?? Isk..isk… malaih nye aku nak present report kat group tuh..I know their research stuffs are related to visualization and tools, none is empirical stuffs. Huh mcmne nak jawab nih….
He asked me to email him about my decision whether to join or not. He seems very much interested in the Pair Programming and other Agile stuffs. Lega jgk la aku dia suka proposal tu and the hypothesis I proposed. Alhamdulillah.. I also told him that I was doing the SR now, specifically on the review protocol development. He has a lot of brilliant ideas, and he look forward that I will be developing certain tools besides the experiments. Of course I do interested in tools development since my interest lies very much on programming. But then, my limitation is that, to put the priority on the design and running of the experiments which should have proper planning and strategy. I never do any of this before what more to conduct an empirical research, but yeah “there is always the first time for everything!”. May Allah makes this ride easy for me till the day of the viva exam. Ameen.

Half day tour @ Auckland Domain/City

I am happy yesterday to accompany a couple from Albany (Chea and hubby) for a visit to several interesting park/place in this central AucklandJ. We firstly went to the Auckland Domain where the famous (urm femes ker?) War memorial is located. It was interesting though to take some photos around with the naked trees as background. I just noticed that there was a Wintergarden inside the domain. Huh quite funny why they named it so. Yeah everyone knows that winter is a common season here. Since now itself is winter, the scenery there was quite plain. Chea suggested that we should come again during the spring. InsyaAllah if there is opportunity to have one, I would love to visit and of course the one at Botanical Garden. We passed thru the Duck pond (I’ve been here before as well) but this time we’re lucky to take photos with the many pigeons fed by a family of Maori. Of course, we also took picture of those beautiful-fatty white Swan. hehe cute dan gemuk betul angsa2 tuh..yg si gemuk kaler putih tuh comey abis….eheh
Since the admission to the museum is not free, so we decided not to enter the building. It costs you a five dollar fees per adult (written there for donation), but still we’re thinking may be we will have it later, at least once before going back home for good hehe.
However, it is a must to take some pictures with the museum as background. It looks really nice like the one you see in the postcard. The museum building is really huge and its surrounding view was stupendous to be seen from the green grass:
We proceed to the Parnell village next just after the domain. At Parnel, you can see various classic and antique shops lot such as Chocolate boutique. Yeah, the price is also beautiful hehe.. tengok saja lah...huhuu.
“Kak Ema, what else to see??” Chea keep on asking me this question. Huhuu..yeah of course there is nothing much interesting to be seen here in the city. But not to disappoint them, we went to the Sky City tower just to have a look what is being offered there. The Sky Jump activity is indeed amazing but crazyy man..ya lahhh you gotta pay 200 bugs just to make yourself jump all the way down for the distance of 192 meters from the top of the tower. Keja giler jgk la..huhu.. menakutkan tgk aksi sorang mamat tuh...kitorang yg excited lebih2…huh jerit beriya kat bawah tuh, as if rase macam org tuh bakal jatuh atas kepala kitoang..hahaha..lawak la plak. (Sorry deh.. x smpat amik gamba. Next time ok!) Again we also did not enter the tower since the admission fees is 50 dollars. Mahai lahh… tak perlah…next time..huhu
Since we already had our lunch at Albert Park before came to the sky city, so next, we plan to walk to the ferry building to see sailing boats there. It was actually not far from the Britomart Transport Center. Finally after taking some photos, we sat down for a cup of coffee and hot choc at one of the café inside the downtown Westfield.
To end the tour, we took a free bus (this is the best and only “free” thing in city huhu) to the University. Penat dah tulis. That’s all reporting from the 18G2. Below pic is me at the Domain area :)

:)