Free lunch?

Something I like about my institution is that since I joined last August, I have had attended quite a number of "dos". The lunches, dinners celebrating colleagues' retirements, mostly (this however does not mean we are an old folk home, haha!) Of course, I also went out with colleagues for meals, so I do have "get togethers" and a "social life" and today, we have a thank you lunches for a colleague who stepped down recently as an acting position. So, we have free lunch today. Of course, who won't like a free lunch, but when they start to serve red wine, white wine during lunch, it gets a bit strange, perhaps this is to raise to the occasions, but having wine in the afternoon, are we promoting alcoholism here?

I remembered the last time we had an afternoon lunch event, I drank some white wine, forgetting that I had to meet students after that and this made me feel really strange in front of my student.

Furthermore, such free lunch comes only once in a while and when this happens you tend to spoil yourselves and ate a bit more than normal, which then made you sleepy afterward, and which is even worst when you have to attend meeting afterward. And this happened today. I was sleepy and tired, and the meeting, fair enough, was productive and quick in resolving issues, but I was still tired and sleepy.

When the meeting finished, and I got back to my office, it took me so long to pick myself up from where I stopped before the lunch event, to carry on what I was doing. At the end of the day, it looks as if the lunch is FREE, but there is really a price to pay here.

You decide what is best for YOU!

"... if it affects me, it affects you MORE!"

So I told them off today, yes I did. "I know you all getting nervous, exam drawing near and you are all attending the lecture, but you are too noisy. This affects me, but you know what? it affects you MORE! I cannot tell you a lot more than I wanted to, and I am not here to get angry, I am here to teach and give a lecture. So, if I got affected, then there is only so much you would get from me. You got to help me to help, if it affects me, it affects you MORE! so it up to you, you decide what is best for you to do."

At that instance, everyone remains silent, and even the late comer to the lecture sense something wrong and seemingly apologise. I thought it costs me so little just to get the simple message across. I am an old hand after all, but they are just 18 19 yo kids. D said just have to deal with them the kids' way, but they need to grow up.

I like the lecture today because I had used some real life cases like the Greek's bonds downgrade and effects on the financial markets as example. I learnt that as lecturers we must at least convince ourselves what we are teaching, and then we can deliver it well. I had enjoyed today's session, despite my "speech" and I later began to feel a little sorry to some of the students, because I truly believed some among them are hard workers, they probably understand where I come from.

Before the end of the lecture, noise gets a bit much, but I just can't be bothered. Next week will be my last lecture, I just felt so relaxed. Well, next week they are going to give me their evaluations, it will be interesting to see how they viewed me, but I got a lot to think about for next year, now that I know what to expect from these students.

Best movie moms

"Moms also made mistakes, and they are also learning all the time, not an easy job, just like those who are their children.."

A lot of Hollywood movies have interesting and moving mother's characters. Strong mother, weak mother, happy mother, sad mother, etc. I came across this interesting site, best movie moms, that put together 9 movies about moms and put in one sentence, what make those moms so great in the movies they are being played. Here's three of the interesting and/or thought-provoking ones:

1) Forrest Gump—You can redefine your kid’s limitations
Forrest's mom insisted that Forrest Gump should be schooled and treated like a “regular” kid despite his learning disability. This mother helped foster the perception that Forrest Gump was just as capable as anyone else. No wonder, beginning of the movie, we heard Forrest Gump saying, "my mama said life is a box of chocolate".

2) Stepmom—Letting others be there for your children is part of really loving them
Stepmom is a real heartbreak and tear jerking movie. Susan Sarandon not only finds out she is dying of cancer, but her husband was divorcing her, and she has to come to terms with her anger at her kids’ stepmom. I think in this movie, it tells you that, GREAT moms need to learn to "let go" too.

3) The Blind Side—You can be a mother to anyone you open your heart to
I have not watched this movie. But the statement already made me feel so over-the-top, as fi to say, I am a supermom, I choose who I want to open my heart to. Sandra Bullock who played the main lead in the movie won an Oscar for her performance.

Moms are just human, it is their characters that made them. Moms also made mistakes, and they are also learning all the time, not an easy job, just like those who are their children. The movies showed moms to be close-to-perfect, sometimes it does give you ideas how to become a great mom, if you know what you want and which models to follow. Good luck to you! :D

The quest continues..

"I am still doing the same thing, but for different reason now"

Today I carried on my quest to "position myself" and was surfing the web most of my day. I found who my potential competitors were and also looked at some similar research papers in my area. The search process reminded me of my early days while doing my PhD, when I was doing my PhD literature searches. At this stage, doing these searches are entirely different experience. I am still doing the same thing, but for different reason now. Doing the search and reading the papers are good training to the mind, it helps you remains perceptive and sharp.

I also quite keen looking at some early work produced in my research area of interest. Latest work in the same area obviously are more invaluable, but earlier work pointed out good research areas and potential gaps overlooked by much later researches. Earlier papers are also good because they tend to be "more organic", and brings out main idea and argument clearer, that way it helps you build up the knowledge, by going back to early and alternative sources.

As I am not doing my PhD now, the main intended outcome of using these material and resource is to produce academic research paper, the time and effort invested are no longer expected to be as massive as those in my PhD day, and the more one must be aware of one's weaknesses and strength in pursuing work like this, which explain why collaborations are very important. However, I am still keen to look into few areas that I find "within reach" from where I stopped and believe that given times, I should be able to sort them out. Perhaps I should be more flexible about this, a read on other areas of similar areas should help me decide how I want to do this in the end.

We must know where we stand

".... if not we would be in the loser's end...."

It's a jungle out there, even WF said so. In the world of academia, where others seen as "Ivory Tower", it has a ecosystem of its own, there are "food chains", "food webs", we MUST know where we stand, if not we would be in the loser's end. There are competitors, there are "old hands", there are "new birds".

One of my hobbies in my leisure time is to surf the web and look up other Universities websites for people doing similar research as mine. Sometimes, they post their CVs, and you can trace that to see if they made any progress over the past few years, and whether they change their areas of interest too. And if you see someone with a list of publications you wish to have you papers published in and if they are of similar research as you, they might be a good role model to follow.

One can also look for "new birds", the new academics who are in the same stage as you, and you can see what they published in. More importantly, you can judge their "potential" by how they published their work, whether they do joint research or single authored their research. One would tend not to be so sure about joint work as the reason for inclusion of the names on the journal article can be mixed.

The best judge of potential is looking at the single authored journal article, one would then be sure that the whole of the research is done by the single person alone, so what reflected on the paper will be 100% the level of knowledge of the single author one can assume. One strategy I learnt is to have a portfolio of them, so that you can assure of your own expertise being utilised (as in the case of single authored paper) or never lack of new ideas (as in the case of joint work).

Interestingly, today I have had good findings about my search on the web of my "competitors". I had managed to find some academics embarking on similar areas and I see possible "positioning" of my areas I like to pursue for future research, that way, one can better justify one's contribution if it materialise in the end. We all worked hard, but we want this to get paid off, and therefore, the more we have to know our "positions" as we don't want to be in the losers' ends.