Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Decisions for 2009

Decision. We do it almost 24/7. Well, except when we sleep! And how many of us (I mean those who read this write up, I'm not asking the rest ... ) realise the importance of HOW we make decisions?

We've been learning about so many things for so long, and probably for so many times from so many people/sources. Still, learning has not much meaning unless we use the knowledge for making decisions, consciously, or subconsciously, to proceed with our life. But then, what is the odd that we don't decide rightly? We may know the implications only when something goes not according to our expectations.

Is decision making an important task? Yes, very, I believe. If we notice that we need to make conscious decisions at almost every juncture of our life, then its importance must not be underestimated. It is like a T-junction, we have to choose whether to turn left or right. Once decided and taken, the route is our life forever, and reversing may not be a cheap option.

Year 2008 is closing within hours from the time this article is published. It is a traffic junction of life, and we have to decide which way to go: straight on, left, or right, for 2009!

So, do take care to learn how to make good and positive decisions effectively.

Happy new year!

Monday, December 29, 2008

Welcome to change . . . . the Hijrah of 1430th.

Hijrah is change. And now it is 1430th year since the day Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) changed his base from Makkah to Madinah.

About two months ago, I did a small 'research' and came up with snapshots of the process of the Treaty of Hudaibiyyah. It was written in Malay, and a few pages long, hence a bit inappropriate for me to paste it here.

Probably the most important thing that I would like to highlight in sharing the 'findings' here is that, the treaty emphasised peace. The treaty was hailed as the turning point of Islamic rising to world power, and it started with peace. It was during this peaceful time that Islam spread much faster and wider than during the enmity period 13 plus 7 years before that; thirteen years in Makkah, and the first 7 years in Madinah. There were only about 1500 muslims at the time the treaty was sealed in the month of Zulkaedah, 6th year of Hijrah. The number grew to about 10,000 when the Prophet declared the Fath al-Makkah, or the conquest of Makkah about two years later.

Yes, Islam spread much faster during peace. For that, I pray for more peace for the whole year of 1430H.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Our lecturers . . . .

Last night I was with close to 10 friends from the same school that we attended decades ago. A few from Shah Alam, entertaining friends from Kelantan and Langkawi. There we were, from 10.30pm, with one or two excused themselves earlier, the rest stayed till about 2.30am. The conversation varied from asking about the missing years, since some never meet since more than 30 years ago, to current happenings in the country. But there was nothing about politics. Were they not interested? Or plain fed up!

I sat longer with one, till 2.30am, an experienced lecturer. He shared his 'philosophies' about being a 'professional lecturer', which grossly meant, forget about being 'a professor' and all those 'mundane' tags of being a lecturer. He told me he is focused on being a lecturer who contends with teaching the right things and concentrate on research. He shared that he has the biggest chunk of the research grant, bent on making the real cut to the world of real research. He is not into producing 'graduate salesmen', who tend to focus on appearance and presentation skills, but hollow with content.

He confided his doubt on the selection to 'professorship'. 50% of the lecturers in his department are at least holding "Associate Professor" status, but only 10% of them secured research grants, and only about half of these are credible research.

I have no further comment.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

PLKN Master Trainer

I was fortunate to be one of the Master Trainers - to train the trainers of PLKN (Program Latihan Khidmat Negara) - well, only for one module. It gave me the chance to look deeper into the program, and sense the content of the program which is supposed to build our future generation.

The program (PLKN) itself is very good, I believe. Nevertheless, any human development training program will achieve its objective only if it fulfills at least three criteria: the content (begin with the objective), the trainers, and how it was conducted. The participants are raw (well, not very raw anyway, at 17 ...) and may be coloured by the trainers and its training content.

I'm looking forward to meet the trainers, and share .. .. ..

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Where was me . . . . .

It was such a long time since May that I wrote here. Between then and now, I had borrowed more than 40 books about entrepreneurship and decision making from MMU library. Did I scourge them all? Oh, no!

Well, I did scan all, but chose to read only a few of them.

I did not pay much attention to this blog since I was more active on my other blogs. The past few months were basically my trial at finding the dearest area for me to focus on blogging. I spent most of the time on political discussions, just to my dismay that things never change since decades ago.

Yes. I was involved actively in politics since the early eighties, both sides. My concern on people just could not break me away from giving attention to political issues. I read, I hear, I comment. But the response, more than 95% (I never really measure anyway ...... ) has always being defensive, or attacking. Almost never did I receive "on the issue" responses. Well, almost.

Politicians are but politicians. Probably, after nearly three decades, I may have to admit that I am not cut to be one of them.

Truth is nearer to me, not winning. Faith is closer to me, not position. The afterlife is dearer to me, not those mundanes.

Come 2009, would I be a different person?

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Books

Yesterday, I went to Multimedia University at Cyberjaya, and listened to a lecture on Research Methods. Very informative. Then I went to the univ's library, or Tun Hasmah Library they call it, and borrowed 7 books on entrepreneurship.

If anyone ask, why 7? Well, I wanted more if there were any more relevant titles with what I want to know.

Meanwhile, I am reading a book which I bought last week, "A Monk Who Sold His Ferrari", now midway. I should say I can tear off the first thirty pages without losing anything....

My friend Abedib, aka The Reader should be delighted with this development, I think.

Monday, May 05, 2008

A visit to the Land of the Prophets

It was my first time visit to Egypt. I'm not a seasoned traveler, but what I saw in Egypt amazed me and hope to go there again for more.

I was there for about two weeks in April and recorded my travel on my canon 20D. I had uploaded some of the pictures on my Flickr pages and linked it to this page. Happy viewing.

Slow starter

I am a slow starter to blogging. The postings here are proves.....

BTW, I am increasing the frequency of updating my blog. Hope so....

I have another blog which I started later than this one, but it is in Malay, and concerns more on the Malaysian politics.

The content of this blog would be left to what my mynd feels about life, not just politics, but beyond it as well. Politics is but only a portion of life that we must take care of.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Early education for our youngs

About a week ago, I gave a very short introduction speech to a group of my friends regarding the importance of early education, emphasizing the socio-economic impact. Research done at the dawn of the third millennium by socio-economists confirms earlier findings by psychologists of the last century. Yes, we must educate our next generation early so as to increase education effectiveness and reduce later burden on expenditures to correct them at older ages. As early as 3 years old. Spendings for education at early ages (3-6) is up to 17:1 better than spending it for post school ages.

How I wish .....