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Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

It has been a while since my last post here. One thing I realized, more busy I am, more frequent I will post something on the blog. I think this is one way of reducing stress, at least I write something and release the pressure, rather than keeping it alone and could drive me crazy.

The last post was about the seminar that I organised 3 weeks ago. After the seminar, I was busy with claims for the seminar and etc. Then I took a week off from work, to go back kampung. Because I miss my mum and also my hometown. A week in Kelantan really soothe me, and keep me calm and not thinking about work. I didn't disengage from the work completely. I still do my work, completing my proposal for masters and also managed to go to HUSM to interview the Ustaz regarding medical tourism research.

It is quite sad for me to not qualify for masters by full research. I went to meet the Dean to discuss about my application for masters, after I went back from Kelate. He then told me to check with the office, since he has no problem in supervising me, but I must be qualified for the masters by research mode. The requirement is quite high though that with my final result, I didn't meet the requirement. :( Now I am planning to do mix-mode masters - 30% coursework, 70% dissertation. I hope the UM will accept my application.

Back to story, last week, I went to SPAD but I couldn't meet with the person in charge for the data that we request. Its hard to get stakeholders to collaborate and cooperate in the research. This week, my colleague and I went to Port Klang to interview the company regarding the depot competition assessment. We managed to get to discuss with the Managing Director of the company. He was quite friendly and he talked so much that we couldn't stop him from telling stories about the depots. Some of those which are not related, and kind of wasting our time since we need to go back to UM. After listening to his story about 2 hours, we went back to UM and reach there around 6pm. What a day!

Yesterday I just sit in the office and do some literature review - managed to get 50 articles downloaded - will need more, at least 100s of those related article, which then I need to summarize. Banyak kan?! 1 article could be as short as 10 pages, or can be as long as 70 pages. But mostly, the recent arrticle is not really long since the publisher already put some word limit for the authors. Usually publisher requires the author to not exceed 10k words including reference.

Today, I went to World Halal Conference 2014 held at KLCC. My boss asked me to stay at the program, and I am still deciding whether to join the conference tomorrow or not. I still need to contact PIC from SPAD and Rapid KL to arrange for interviews, and some hospitals for data collection.

Currently, I am handling these programs:
1) Competition assessment of land public transport - 3 years project
2) Islamic Medical Tourism
3) Halal Supply Chain; and helping out my colleague with project Competition assessment of depots in Malaysia.

For future researcher, just to give overview about research: the hardest part in research is neither writing paper nor analysing the data, but to get data itself. The data collection could take months, especially if it requires to get some approval from government offices or companies. Just what I am facing right now, I am dealing with government offices and agencies; Department of Statistics Malaysia, Prasarana (Rapid KL), SPAD, private hospitals, government hospitals. To arrange for an interview sessions could take a minute, or even months!

Now, I am still stuck and not getting the form completed for the ethics approval from the KKM. We need to get ethics clearance from the Ministry of Health since the research requires us to interview the staffs of MOH. What a very tedious process I could tell. No wonder we're called developing country, and I believe Wawasan 2020 of becoming a developed nation would not be achieved, with this kind of system that we have currently.

Luahan perasaan jugak, tapi tanpa pahitnya hempedu, takkan terasa manisnya madu! I can't wait to be a lecturer one day, and have my own flexible and sweet time. hehe