no progress

no progress at all this week. what i did was only photocopying some of materials and samples of psm, that's all. i am down with 'headache' that prevented me from reading and doing any work at all.

EndNote

masyaAllah... this is really testing my patience... i should've started doing this a long time ago. but, taking it positively, better do it now before it is too late... just that i need to be consistent with that. remember, everytime i  find new articles or books, include them in EndNote.

progress

after the meeting on wednesday, i've started to work hard again (with fresh ideas in mind). but i guess i am rather slow when i realised i managed to read only 2 articles by Bhatia & Hyland & Tse and came up with a paragraph of significance of my research on thursday nite.

got to work harder after this.

3rd meeting

alhamdulillah the meeting today was a fruitful one. firstly, i handed a file each for my both SVs that contain my mapping of what i plan to do, a sample form of psm proposal, together with 7 sample of psm2. then, we had further discussions about what i want to do for this research. i refer to the mapping as well as the previous diagram that i emailed to them earlier. it could be said that all three of us have finally 'aligned' our thinking for this research, which i feel is a great relief. of course i must work hard for this. i was also given a book about literature review & conceptual framework, and also a very recent phd thesis whom the supervisors are bhatia & flowerdew. and again i have to read those as well. we also resolved the research questions issues and the scope of the study.
now i'm given a month to read further and write up something too - the basic components of a proposal.
please pray for my endurance in doing this :)

postpone

early this morning i received a text from my main SV, saying that the meeting scheduled later in the afternoon would be postponed to another date. she was on her way to Perak to attend HRH Raja Zarith Sofia's mom's funeral. Al-fatihah... my condolence to the university's chancellor.

and me - i promised to send my prepared work to my 2nd sv. But, that is still pending, will do it tomorrow.

words of courage

i came across this from a professor while surfing, it says something like this, i can't remember the exact phrase;

"every morning we have 2 choices: to wake up and chase our dreams, or to continue sleeping and dreaming; the choice is ours"

my progress

i managed to discuss with the psm coordinator and also visited the faculty resource room to have clearer perspectives on psm. both persons-in-charge are very helpful in providing information and very cooperative at this initial stage. i seriously hope that they will permit my further 'nosy business' in the near future to their job. i've also prepared a summary of my findings to both my SVs, but i still havent got their reply till today. so, i have to proceed with what i have in mind now, and i hope i'm on the right track. my SVs said, it's my research after all and i have to live with it for the next 3 years.
at this stage, i must read a lot and i'd say it is a daunting job to do. really it is. i salute those who could produce 20 pages of references in their thesis or research articles as such how do they find time to read. is there any tip for speed reading? do they skim and scan?

on the other side of my field journey, i also have to attend dynamics of leadership class. it's a 3 credits course, but good news, there is no final exam for this course. it's beyond my imagination if i were to sit for an exam, i haven't done that for such a long long time... last Friday was the 2nd week of this course. i met new faces, majority of them are very young, some just graduated from their degree the previous weekend. they were curious about me (as i'm the eldest in the class). they asked questions about my age, my marital status, my children, my study, my job, which made me feel awkward. ok, i must not think them as my students, but they are my classmates, that's the fact!. another interesting part is that, the professor teaching this class is my mom's schoolmate!

ok, come back to my progress. at this point, i have read about 12 articles, in which i have summarized them all in a table containing authors' names, what the research is about, methodology, participants, and significant findings. but, i don't know how to do conceptual framework. where could i find conceptual framework? is it from reading the articles? is it from theories of teaching & learning, or from research methodology perspectives? i don't know. i have yet to find out.

as for today, i did not do any serious reading. i just browsed and searched for more information about the topic i'm investigating. but my husband always says this: 'kalau buku banyak atas meja & journals belambak dlm pendrive, tp tak baca, pun tak guna juga. biarlah tak banyak, tapi baca dan fahamkan betul2 apa yang ditulis, dan sangat2 berguna utk kajian kita'. ok, he is right!.