email from SV

yes, early in the morning, i received an email from my respectable SVs! normally i am the one who send email to them. what does it mean? i've been pretty quiet for some time, that's why. but that doesn't mean i did not do any work. i do. ;)

ok in the email, of course, the important message is that i have to work on something for a forthcoming conference - deadline for abstract - 7th December! can make it or not? a week from now. fuhhh....!!!

'Ya Allah, tidak ada kemudahan kecuali sesuatu yang Engkau permudahkan, Engkau menjadikan kedukaan itu mudah sekiranya Engkau kehendaki.'

Amin.

the SILVER, that is!

i participated in the respectful research & innovation competition (R&I Compete 2011) organised by the Office of Research, Innovation, & Commercialisation (oricc) of my workplace (23rd-24th Nov). my poster was under the category of research, sub-discipline of Humanities, Social science, and mathematics. there were about 20 entries for this category. i presented about my research, funded by the short-grant given by the university, here's my poster:

panel no. 61

and here's what i won:

silver medal

and hamper - the larger one

silver is mine, bronze in my husband's

presented by Dato' VC, and Deputy VC of R&D

my husband also participated, his was under innovation category, sub-discipline of fundamental science. he won bronze, but, there was no silver or gold winner in that category. in my case, there was no winner for gold, which implied, (i could have been the gold winner, instead!).

this is my first time joining such event, and i was thrilled. and the most memorable part is i won!. i will surely do much better next time, and congratulations to my hubby too!!

self-managed teams

this is the topic that my partner & i must present for our leadership class. it went well, we had group activities for about half an hour, and another half an hour we reflected and gave some theories underpinning the activities. i personally was impressed with the groups' commitment and they showed high competitive level to complete the task within the limited time. here are some photos of the event.

team 5 - the 'top management'

team 4 - the 'research group'

team 3 - the 'writing centre'

team 1 - the 'technical group'

our respectable lecturer - Prof Dr Ismail Kailani

team 2 - the 'postgraduate committee members'

those photos were during meetings that they have to conduct. the following photos were during presentation: (note: the photo upload did not work at the moment, so i may insert the photos later).

and i also ordered breakfast for the whole class! happy faces!

important dates

the latest information from FP (miss Herda) is that the deadline for the SV to submit progress report will be on 15th January 2012, which means I have to submit it earlier to my svs.
on 14-15th December, i need to attend EDUPRESS, the faculty of Education postgraduate research seminar. on the 7th is the deadline to register.
on 23rd December, i have to give a short talk about leadership.
by 3rd January 2012, i have to submit portfolio for leadership course.
hmmmmm.......

almost there!

alhamdulillah, i've finally almost completed chapter 2 (draft only, though). but at least, there is some kind of 'skeleton' to it. so, i hope, insyaAllah, i can submit all the three this Friday. come on! i can do it!

log book

ok, today i borrowed the psm log book from mr norihan (he's a kind man). it contains all the information about psm - regulations, objectives, daily activities, assessment, but it doesn't mention about writing the report. i need to get hold of the university's thesis writing guideline elsewhere.

on the other hand, i still haven't found time to scan the psm that i borrowed earlier. i was quite occupied drafting review of literature. at this point i just managed to write 2 pages only. 2 pages only???. My next deadline is wednesday next week, i have to submit the first draft to my SVs.

while browsing the conference alerts (www.conferencealerts.com) just now, i found some interesting conferences coming ahead. i'm eyeing on the one organised by UPM, called MICOLLAC from this site: http://www.fbmk.upm.edu.my/micollac/. i'm attracted to its keynote speaker, Prof Bhatia (whose work I cite a lot in mine), i hope i get the chance to meet him in-person. But, of course, i need to write something first!

ok, till then, i need to work more...

progress

alhamdulillah i have completed the first draft of chapter 1 & 3 today. next, i must work on literature review. in the mean time, let's celebrate eidul adha first!

earlier this morning i attended the second workshop by dr sheila on 'writing for publication'. one of the things i was inspired about is that, she wanted us to write on daily basis, try to write 500 words a day. it will become a good habit and that we'll be more proficient in the skill and be a much confident writer.

(well, blogging is a good start, right?).

fkmp pusat sumber

it wasn't really fruitful day today...heavy head, backache, were 2 major reasons i stayed in bed. only after noon that i managed to get up, after hot shower and felt fresh again, i started working. i visited the faculty's resource room again, this time, hunting for more psms and focus on the 'thick' ones. there were some students in that room and they were not allowed to borrow the theses since next week is their semester break. when i heard the technician said that, i was a bit down (because i badly need those to bring home). when all the students were out, i asked politely, and he said, that rule is meant for students only, but not to academic staff, and i was relief!

i spent 3 hours in there, from one shelf to another, picked one, skimmed and scanned, then put it back if it did not match my criteria, and picked another one, skimmed and scanned again and the process went on until i was quite satisfied with my 7 choices. i 'stick-the highlighters-on' each page that i want to focus.

later at night, i checked on the university's calendar, only to find that 28th November is the deadline for progress report submission!!! (puff puff puff... i must work harder...)

dr sheila's talk

as planned i attended the talk entitled 'narrative inquiry research' by dr sheila trahar of GSoE, UoBristol UK today. i recorded the lecture and used my IrisNotes for the first time to jot down the main points. It looks good until i upload the files, i did not realise that i must push that little button everytime i write on the new page! so the result was, my 6 pages written notes were actually only in 1 page of the IrisNotes!! what a waste, it could not convert my handwriting to text as everything was overlapping. ok, that is a lesson for me, next time around, make sure to push that little button, must remember that. nevertheless, the voice recording was brilliant, i have successfully uploaded the audio file and listen to it over.

narrative inquiry is when a researcher is interested in stories with a purpose, and how the stories are influenced by the socio-cultural context, historical background, and it provides rich, in-depth data acquired from series of conversations between the researcher and the participants.

it feels good when opportunity like this comes as today i feel like i am really a student. the special impact it has when someone from the university i used to study and the place i used to live for 4 years talks about research. (now i wish i could study abroad, oh come on, don't start it). on friday, i will attend another talk by her, entitled 'writing for publication' at 9-10.30. i actually have a class at the same time, but i'm sure prof ismail will be ok if i come to his class a bit later (fingers-crossed).

after the session, i had some chats with her, and with dr mahani, her x-phd student in bristol. dr sheila gave some helpful insights about what i intend to do, and most importantly, i must read more and more and more (i'm now in the 2nd month of this journey, mind you).

well, that was a lovely day i had. and tonight, i feel much motivated to do some more work, and plan for tomorrow. :)

as on the 1st Nov 2011 (1.11.11)

at this point, i don't think i progress that well. yes my EndNote's list has multiplied, my printed articles to be read have grown, but not so much readings have been done yet. it took me ages to finish and understand a single paper. and i'm due to hand in the first draft of the 3 chapters to my supervisors mid of this month.
and yes, tomorrow i'm attending a talk by Dr Sheila Trahar of University of Bristol, who is the visiting professor of the faculty where i study. i really look forward to it, hoping that i will learn something new and that it will motivate me to do my work faster!