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!

Prayers for All

Dear all,

I wish to share the following message I obtained from this link: http://sufi-london-meditation.blogspot.com/search/label/prayersforhelp

InsyaAllah a reminder to myself and to you my dear friends.

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You may find this message a timely reminder for us all.
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Prayer for All

Allah Almighty always has three replies to our Dua/Prayers

1) 'Yes'
2) 'Yes, but not now'
3) 'I have a better plan for you'

There's never a 'NO'....just have faith and keep praying.
This is an awesome prayer .

Believe it and you shall be blessed even more.

The problem with many of us is that we don't believe that God will open a window and pour out blessings that we won't have room to receive them. I dare anyone to try God. He is true to His word. God does not lie and His promises are sure. Three things will happen to you this coming week, Insha'Allah:

(1) You will find favour with someone you don't expect;
(2) You will be too relevant to be ignored;
(3) You will encounter God and you will never remain the same again.

Prayer for you today:

The eyes beholding this message shall not behold evil, the hands that send this message to others shall not labor in vain, the mouth saying 'Ameen' to this prayer shall know laughter. Remain in God's love as you send this prayer to everybody on your list. Have a lovely journey of life! Trust in Allah with all your heart and He will never fail you because He is the Greatest, Most Generous, Most Merciful.

If you truly need a blessing, continue reading this email:

Allah Huma Salle Ala Muhammdin Wa-Ale Alihi Wa Sahibihi Wa Sal-lam (SWS)

Ya Allah, most Gracious and Loving God, I pray to You that You abundantly bless my family and me. I know that you recognize, that a family is more than just a mother, father, sister, brother, husband and wife, but all who believe and trust in you. Oh Allah, I send up a prayer request for Your blessings not only on the person who sent this message to me, but for all those whom I have forwarded this message on to and myself. I am also aware that the power of joint prayers by those who believe and trust in You is more powerful than anything. I thank you always for Your blessings.

Almighty Allah, deliver the person reading this right now from sickness both from spiritual and physical being, oppression, from wickedness and any evil plotted against them, anxiety, debt and debt's burdens. Release Your Godly wisdom that we may be good stewards over all that You have given us Ya Allah, for I know how wonderful and Almighty You are.

Ya Rabbul Alameen, I am also fully conscious of the fact that if we just obey You and walk in Your way, that You have shown to us, you will pour out your endless blessings on us. I thank you now Allah for the recent blessings I have received and for the blessings yet to come because I know you have not closed your favours to me. In your name I pray,

Innaka Alaa Kulle Shay-in Kadeer. Ameen .

Take 60 Seconds and send this on quickly and within hours, you will have caused a multitude of people to pray to God for each other. Then sit back and watch the power of Allah work in your life for doing the thing that you know He loves.

May Allah bless the person and whoever forwards this message. AMEEN


Salaams

'MWC'

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Selamat Hari Raya 1430H

Dah berbulan tak jenguk blog ni.. mujur masih ingat lagi password . haru sungguh! too many things happened.. but now here I am, hope it is not too late to wish every muslim a blessed and wonderful 'Eid-ul Fitri. Maaf zahir batin. "Semoga Allah menerima amalan (amalan dan ibadat di bulan Ramadhan) kami dan kamu". Ameen.

Let us make a prayer that we will meet with next year's Ramadhan insyaAllah. ameen.

Aku, demam, dan kantor..

Hari ni genap seminggu aku tidak ke kantor. Bukan sengaja, tapi aku sarat demam.. hari ni baru ada baiknya sedikit. Alhamdulillah, syukur aku panjatkan pada Ilahi.. selalunya aku jarang demam, namun jika demam, makaan ia lambat sungguh reda-nya.. Trimas pada teman2 yg sudi hulurkan bantuan, ada yg datang memasak, dan meng-antarin makanan segala.. hanya Tuhan yg mampu membalas jasa baik kalian.. aku rasa terharu, kerana tinggal jauh dari keluarga, namun teman2 yg baik ini umpama saudara kandung sendiri.. pantas saja bilamana menghulurkan bantuan.. Teman serumah ku jua byk membantuku..dialah yg masak utk ku ketika mula2 demam kelmarin, dan dialah juga yg byk nolong ketika aku jatuh pengsan di luar sadar. Aku sndiri nggak menyangka jadi begitu, nyaris2 aja aku diantarin ke rumah sakit. Aku takut skali tinggal di hospital!

itu dulu bicaranya utk kali ini.. aku harus solat ya.. nnt ketemu lagi.

The Spark of New Knowledge

Today I attended a Doctoral Forum organized by the Student Learning Center of the University. Its central theme was around the issue of originality, and few sharing sessions with some of the panel experts from the exam committee, and recent graduates who won the best thesis award.
Well, according to one of the speakers, "originality is hard to define". There is always a problem when it comes to define whether certain work being carried out is really original. Dr Barry mentioned that somehow our work is a kind of replication. We replicated unintentionally. Yes, I agree with that very much. Our research is usually based on work that previous people have done, and we might investigate the same thing but from different perspective or perhaps applying different methodology for measuring something. He also stressed that, its okay to have negative results or outcomes from the experiments. It simply because the negative outcomes can also be something very valuable. So do not perceive negative results as a failure.
He also said that its important to ensure our work is something publishable. One of things that examiners like to ask is the value of our research work. In other words, what are the significant contribution or outcomes we had discovered or found from the studies.

To recall back the advice given by the panel of experts from the exam committee, Assoc Prof Mavis Haigh stressed that what she really expect from a thesis or dissertation is the "clarity of arguments". She said that "do not let the examiners struggle try to understand the arguments in the thesis". Thus, I presume this is very important piece of advice I received and learned today, that it is very very critical to make sure that we organized the whole idea of the thesis. My head started to thinking the action that should be taken before engage into writing up a thesis. The whole story of the thesis must be clear enough, thus providing linking in between of chapters is significantly important. Put the story all together in a coherent manner. She mentioned many times that the "organization of ideas" is very very important. The examiner would like to see the whole thing of the thesis like a story that have a clear background and purpose, and that the author has presented critical analysis of what have been done before. Prof Ross adding by mentioning that the studies should open up a new questions for future exploration. That is really interesting. It reflects back to my experiment in the previous semester where the results we obtained did not support the projected alternative hypotheses. It was quite sad, but when I rationalized back the whole thing, I understand the possibility of some intervening factors that might somehow have rather greater influence as compared with the factor we're investigating. So, the first experiment rather than giving only the results, at the same time, it open up a few more useful aspects for future investigation, which is indeed sound interesting to the researcher :-)

Well, those are the things I captured from the sessions. There was also a discussion about turning a thesis into books. The speaker are editors from recognized publisher in NZ. They mentioned that if you're interested in producing a book from the thesis, make sure we clear about who will be the "audience". The audience is the target reader of our book. So that once we clear about that, we can be sure of the use of style, the structure, and expectation of knowlegde of the author. Its always important to talk or communicate with the publisher at the early stage (It can be as simple as just sending them an email! mentioning your intention and possibility of publication) It doesnt need you to prepare the whole lot of thing because if they;re interested then only you will know what is the expectation, and the target submission of manuscript, and everything will be detailed in a contract. Writing a book is more into engaging into finding who will read your book when it get published? Therefore you really need to know your market!

Hmm at this point of time, I personally haven't given serious thought about it. Maklumlah..Phd pun lum abis.. but it;s really a good thing for promotion or recognition purposes. But I think at this stage, first things first. Get this Phd done first, and later when you got your title in front of your name you perhaps will consider an opportunity for writing a book! InsyaAllaah.

Wish you all (& me) the best of luck!

Coromandel in May

Sempena kedatangan kak lili from Sydney, we all bawak dia gi Coromandel. yay..! What a beautiful place, amazingly beautiful. SubhanaAllah!

Qasida Burda