2010 is coming

Another year will come just a few days more. So elsewhere we'll be hearing people talking about new resolution(s). For me, initiating a new resolution is not difficult but executing it is the hard part.

So why do people have to initiate new resolutions despite the fact that they (resolutions) are only pieces of thoughts in their mind? I listened to IKIM radio station on my way home after visiting my father yesterday. It was a talk for teenagers; they were the audience. One of the contents of the speech that strucked my mind was about CONSISTENCY in anyone's resolution. He said that ones who initiated resolution needed to have consitency or else it is nothing, just like our previous actions we've done so far. He was definitely right about it..

Mahkota Hotel Melaka

We had the chance to stay at Mahkota Hotel when I presented ICELT's paper. Since I was not used staying in the hotel, I thought when the person at the reservation counter said that one apartment costs RM168, it meant that would be all. I knew there was always ++ but I didn't realised when I did the booking. I only knew that it was RM198 per night when I wanted to pay for 2 nights stay in the hotel during check-out. Well, it was worth it though since the kids had a great time there. Here's a picture taken when we had breakfast at the hotel, rather apartment. The food was OK. Similar to the ones that we had in other hotels. Sitting arrangements were not really friendly, perhaps because of limited spaces. As long as there's 'sunny side up', breakfast it's satisfying for me.

This was a picture taken after Haziq and Hadif swam in the pool the second day we stayed in the hotel. The apartment was not so big but it was quite pleasant to accomodate five people. There is a kitche , one bedroom, a balcony and a bathroom. There is also two-room apartment at RM2oo++.

The first swimming experience for Hakim. I let him played with the water for half an hour. Back to the apartment, he was quite tired. After taken bath, I let him go to sleep. But it was just an afternoon nap and he got up at night. Fed him until I felt asleep.. I guess both of us were exhausted!

Bila ada byk kerja ...

Bila ada byk kerja and plan musim cuti skolah ni and my proposal has not yet finished, I feel torn. Whether to just agree with my husband's decision or to get the proposal done. I'm writing Literature Review at the moment, however, my pre and post tests are also not completed yet. Intro + Methodology seem to be OK (I guess). I thought I've done with the pre-test but I realised that the one that I did was wrong. I used immediate level in Vocabulary Workshop (Tell Me More) for the pre-test. I only realised that I made the mistake before I presented the paper for ICELT 2009. I don't want to be upset but to set my goal in developing questions for the pre-test for advance plus in Tell Me More Version 7. So, this Monday, I'll be going to UMP and start all over again. Typing the questions to be given as lessons to potential students. Back home, I'll be developing the pre and post tests. I guess I'm always unlucky...

Hopefully with God's permission I'll be able to complete it before the year end. To be exact, I want to submit the proposal to Dr. Jaya in the second week of Dec. Biiznillah.

ICELT 2009

I will be presenting a paper the day after tomorrow. The paper entitles, "Multimedia Resouce for Self Access: What Students Benefit from It?". It is a paper about Tell Me More, a learning software for second language learners. The paper was written after I delivered Hakim. This is the first paper I will be presenting since I further my study. The conference will be at Equatorial Hotel, Melaka. However, me and my family will be staying at Mahkota Hotel. The former hotel is fully booked.

Fourth Syawal n barbeque

Since almost all of my husband's siblings 'balik kampung' to their inlaws for eid celebration on the first day, my husband decided to have barbeque on the fourth of syawal. We prepared chicken, coleslaw, rice and others. I was not able to join them from the start .. need to take the baby to sleep (finally I felt asleep as well). I didn't eat much because I was quite full.. had early dinner at 7pm. Here's one of the pictures taken that night. That's Fakhrul's hand I supposed

A reply from my supervisor

I read the email received from Assoc. Prof Dr. xxxxxx on my new PhD topic. He gave me encouragement to just start on with my proposal - we (committee) want the hard copy as written in the email. I gave myself until the end of this year to give one to him and hopefully I can proceed with defending the proposal. At this moment it is difficult to tell whether I am happy to have such encouragement from him. I didn't want to have 'bad' thoughts about what he wrote but to just concentrate on writing the proposal

Proposing New topics

Finally, I am done with writing two synopsis of the studies that I'm going to conduct. One is on speaking and the other one is vocabulary. I prefer the study on speaking because of high reliability of its instruments.

It seemed that study on vocabulary is more for primary or secondary school learning. I'll be sending these synopsis to Hafiz to let her read them- to examine the clarity of the writing. Moreover, she needs my help today for her research i.e. actual one and I am tooooo far to reach at her stage :(

new beginning

I started to read theses on Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) since last Friday. But it was on and off due to classes and others. I want to share my disspointment of having to change the topic for my research with my friends. Thus, I called Chiam to ask how she is progressing with her research. To my amaze, she said she also had to change her topic. She was in her fifth semester now.

Come to think about how she handles the situation makes me realises that there are others out there who 'suffer' more than me. Like me, I was tested only a little by Allah as compared to her. I said to myself that I cannot dwelled on the matter for too long since she strived to complete her proposal within 3 weeks only after her former topic was rejected. Where did she get all the motivation, courage, enthusiasim?

New Topic

Again I have to find another topic for my phd.. and this is the third time. The first was something on mobile learning but it was not agreed by the main supervisor. The second was something to do with multimedia as requested by him. However, it was also rejected. So now I'm finding a new topic..a new topic that is a topic of a near replication to a study that has been done by other researcher(s). I have to start all over again... I will try my very best to find a new one so that this time it will be 'the topic' he agrees with (ultimate?).