Tabik Untuk Mantan Penghulu Northshore

Being elected as the Penghulu of MAPSA Northshore certainly wasn't what I wanted as a welcome-back present (for me to give to myself) after a 3-months holiday in Malaya. After all, the plan was to put Wan Hasnee as the new Penghulu replacing Azwan Iskandar Azmi aka AIA aka Tok Wan. Allah is the ultimate Planner!

Dengan berat dan rendah hati saya menerima tanggungjawab ini. Moga dapat menjalankan tugas sebaik Mantan Penghulu AIA.

As one of the seniors among Malaysian students in Northshore, I adore the maturity shown by the previous Penghulu (and wife)in handling issues presented to him (them). They've both executed their official and unofficial tasks most gracefully and made decisions beyond their fairly young age. Several other senior Bros in Northshore share this opinion on them. Being a PG student, everyone need to balance their family needs and their academic needs. Tok AIA accepted his job as the Penghulu given the fact that his wife is also a PhD student (in a different uni from him) and he had to travel several hours a day to and from his home. Given all these, who am I to say that I don't have enough time to accept the responsibilities given to me. If Tok AIA could put aside his personal responsibilities juggling it with his social commitments in MAPSA, and could still be a Champion Penghulu as well as a Loving Hubby and Daddy ... who is also a competent PhD student... Mate you deserve my Salute!

To all my MAPSA friends, Brothers and Sisters, children on the Shore, lets make MAPSA a Wadah bagi mengasah minda, memantapkan ukhuwwah, mendidik anak2, memper-erat silaturrahmi, mendokong aspirasi, saling membantu menegur dan memperkuatkan satu sama lain. Bagaikan kata perpatah ... Bersatu kita teguh Bercerai kita roboh. Persatuan ini bukan milik individu tapi milik kita bersama dan saya (& isteri) hanyalah pemudahcara (& koordinator).

Tabik Tok AIA.

Salam Ukhuwwah.
Suhaimi sekeluarga

I made it!

I received an email from the GRS saying that "the Graduate Research School has received all three examiners’ assessment reports". That was on Friday 27th November 2009. I immediately reply the email and requested the oral exams to be done before 8th December as I will be leaving NZ on that date. GRS admnistrators quickly responded to my email saying that they will try to organize the exams soonest possible. On the following Monday I received an official email informing me that my oral exams will be on Wednesday 2nd December 2009. In this email names of the Convernor and Examiners were revealed. Very excited but nervous. I got 4 versions of the MS Powerpoint slides ready, each carrying around 30pages of explainations. Late Monday afternoon I received an email from the Convernor telling me to prepare a 10minute verbal-only presentation. He even gave me his mobile number in case I need to contact him afterhours. So I did txt him just to confirm about the 10 minutes presentation. I was a bit worried cause if I were to downsize my 30minutes MSPowerpoint presentation to 10minutes, I will have to drop some of the slides. I received a reply txt soon after, he wrote that I had only to prepare 10 minutes verbal-only, no slides as a PC will not be made available to me on that day. Arggh, I have to talk for 10 minutes then. That few hundred pages of Thesis in 10 mere minutes. That is quite a challenge in itself. My lovely wife told me to put points on small pieces of paper and practice it out so that I wont go beyond my 10 minutes mark. And I did just that.

Come Wednesday ...very nervous. Nerve recking. It was drizzling. My wife and Sara accompanied me to the venue. It was in IIMS room 3.32. I am pretty familiar with the building as I used to have an office there when our department was under IIMS back in 2005. It was 30minutes to 11am, the door was locked. I told my 2 girls to wait for a minute while I go to the receptionist to get the door open. When I arrived at the reception counter I saw Prof. Merrick the convernor. He immediately recognized me as I took my hand out to shake his. Very jovial man he is. We went up to the room where my lovely girls were waiting.

The convernor briefed me a bit about hour the viva will be conducted. Soon after that I heard my supervisor's voice down the corridor followed by the 2 examiners. At that moment only Allah knows how i felt. I felt like my knees almost gave way. LOL. Here, I would say that I appreciated the kind motivating words by the converner. It helped me build my confidence and strength to see this true. After hugs and kisses from my lovely girls I went in the room to start my Viva Voce.

As expected, I barely looked at the pieces of paper I prepared for my 10 minutes verbal-only presentation. Words just went gushing out of my mouth keeping eye contact with the 2 examiners. They looked very focused with occassional glimpse of tiredness (or maybe boredom) on their faces.

"With that point .. I thank you". That was the last thing I said before I looked at the Convenor indicating I finished my speech. He said "Well done Suhaimi, 10 minutes exactly!".
He then gave full control of the exams to the examiners and the "shooting" began. They concentrated on the Mathematical that I have adopted from someone else. Pin-pointing the fact that I've only taken it and extended it a bit. One of the examiners even said that it is too little a contribution for a PhD award. At that moment I managed to make a 2 second glance at my Advisor, he was calmly writing something on the piece of paper in front of him. I remembered his and the convernor's advice to remain calm and professional in aswering the examiners' questions. The examiners are there to find "holes" in the research. They even tried to doubt the results obtained and models used. But I told myself that I had to stand my grounds. The convernor told me before the viva began "The viva is also called a defense for the obvious reasons .. ". So I did just that. Almost one hour was dedicated to that Mathematical model ... and what more ... the model is only one of the many (3 other) contributions I have in this research. I think I managed to get the message across and they agreed after making sure that I will make necessary changes and addition to explain the model a bit more. That was the only major point that we "argued" about. The rest are explainations of the results, traffic and application types, and typo/grammatical errors. The convernor concluded the examination and asked me and my advisor to leave the room so that the could discuss on the outcome of the exams.

I was pretty upset at that time, thinking that I might be asked to make major emendations and present my results and findings again. However, my advisor told me that the examiners are just doing their jobs to provoke and see if we confident enought to defend what we have presented in the thesis. He also said that Phd Award and the report (thesis) are 2 different things. They can pass you for the PhD but still ask you to make emendations for the thesis. And the fact that they only concentrated on one particular thing in thesis shows that they agree with all the other contributions I've made in my research. About 10 minutes after we were called back into the room.

The convernor started by saying, "Ok Suhaimi you have to make all the necessary emendations stated in the reports by the examiners ontop of all the suggestions made during the oral examination. Oh I forgot to say Congratulations you passed!" and he stood up and shook my hand. And so did the others. Its surreal... teringat pengorbanan isteri dan anak, airmata, keringat, masa .. senyum, tawa,... Ya Allah Tundukkan hati ini, Moga Aku menjadi Hamba yg merendah diri .. Ameen."

After the handshakes and congratulations the convernor took us to the Mossimo Cafe for lunch. I had cuppacino and went back to my 2 lovely girls who were waiting for me at Norazlina's office.

I made it .. Alhamdulillah.

Salam friends .. been ages since I wrote on here. Mostly been updating info on facebook. Asiah has defended her proposal yesterday, Monday 19th October 2009. Her supervisor said she did very well. Alhamdulillah all the efforts she put in, the sleepless nights the perseverance while in confinement (after birth). Sara was so cooperative yesterday. Asiah fed her at home and Sara went to sleep from 10am right through 1.30pm. I took Sara outside on Queen street in her buggy where she slept quietly. So proud of these 2 girls in my life (Asiah & Sara). What more can a man ask for than these blessings. Oh my other girl Humaira just turned 5 a couple of days ago and we made a celebration for her (together with Anis) at Azhar's get-together. This morning, Mrs Sauders, Humaira's teacher showed me her writing book. Her teacher said that she is so impressed of Humaira's capability and intelligence. I went thru the book and saw her very clean precise handwritting. Ya Allah ku syukuri nikmat mu. Of course I am ever proud of my boys too ... they're mischieveous but obidient. Signing off now taking a break from my ppt and postdoc proposal. Later ya all. wslm.

26 Sha'aban 1403

Assalamu'alaikum.
Just a couple more days till we meet Ramadhan again. NZ will be looking out for the cresent (hilal) on Friday 21st August. I can still remember last year's 1st Ramadhan when I fell sick. Wasn't too of what caused the illness but I reckon it was sugar(glucose) withrawal coupled with lack of sleep. We had guests on that day and I had to excuse myself to take a rest while they continued with iftar and tarawikh after. I pray that my family and I have good health this Ramadhan and could complete the ibadah with the best way possible, InsyaAllah.

Best wishes to all. May this month of blessings be a rewarding one. Ramadhan Mubarak!

Submitted!

3pm today all the 4 copies required by GRS were bounded. My supervisor signed the relevant forms and submitted them together with my theses. All done! My 3 years of work encapsulated in that 130page thesis. Hope the examiners find it sufficient enough to award me with a PhD. We will know 1-3 month(s) from today.

"O Allah open my chest, make my task easy for me and untie the knot in my tongue so that they may understand me."

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious Most Mercifull ...

Been abit since i wrote anything on here. Got my hands full with stuff from studies to families. I have to admit, I have been taking many quiet moments to myself as of late perhaps to keep my sanity and patience. As my age approaches 40 I noticed that I have to struggle more to keep my health. The body succumbs to the forces of nature so does the soul. Constant reflections about life is essential for me to remind myself what I really look for in life. My children growing our lifestyle will change. Their needs and our needs will evolve. Practices and family culture will change. God willing we will cope and evolve accordingly.

Recently I have lost the person that I respect and loved much. He has touched my life and that of my family so much that this lost seemed unbearable. I try my very best to endure and let him rest in peace. My next concern is my Mum. And for that matter I decided to bring her here to stay with us in NZ. Thats the least that I could do. She means too much to me to see her live her life alone. I am gratefull to my wife and family for allowing me to share our home with mum. InsyaAllah we will make her stay beneficial to all. One thing for sure is food will be in abundance when she is around. NB. not that we dont have enough now but well you know ... wink wink at my wife.

I hope to submit my thesis to the examiners by 1 July 2009. Its long overdue. I have got it completed some 2 months ago but its only lately that it got reviewed by my supervisor. Its all good, no major editing to be done. Hope the examiners would not disagree too much with it. Please make du'a for me.

Till my next entry. Wassalam.

First time ever I saw your face (today @ Horizon)