Flying Times

Time really flies. September is slipping away from my hands. There's just too many things occurring at the same time that I couldn't even manage to sit down and update some of the events that have been going on in the past couple of weeks.

Alhamdulillah, the rest of the clan have recovered from the flu bug recently. In between them not being well, I manage to attend a couple of seminars, one including meeting Professor Andrew Harding, an expert on South East Asian law, speaking on Malaysian 'Social Contract'. Nothing that controversial, but he did view that the idea of Malaysia never being colonized as being 'absurd'! :-)

With Prof Harding after his talk @ Uni Melbourne 
{a snap that took hours to 'touch', I think I need a new mobile phone ;-)}

In the middle of September, we had the chance to join the LTUMSA's celebration of Malaysian Day at the AGORA. It was interesting to see how the locals 'interact' with our 'diversity' and also see how we are being seen by others. Anyway, it was a fun day, lounging around in the middle of the AGORA, which truth be told, I have never done before. Well, come to think of it, I have never celebrate Malaysia Day before he..he.he..  

The boys trying out 'congkak'

Then I needed to finalise my paper for a Law Conference in Seoul and decide whether to present another paper at a Law Postgraduate Conference in Sydney next month. As I was trying to speed up my overall writing, so I always plan to present different aspect of my thesis, instead of presenting a somewhat 'similar' paper in different conferences. But of course, writing takes a considerable amount of time.  All my weekends in September were  filled up with Open Houses invitations. Even with one house a week, I found myself exhausted. I couldn't fathom how some of my friends can 'deal' with 5 houses in a day! I guess, by the time they reach the third house, they would have to 'ambil bau' only ;-P. So regardless, there goes my weekend working hours. I am definitely pressed for time. And home is not a very conducive place to work. I'd rather play with the children :-P 

I have also had to squeeze in interviews and site visit to two Family Relationship Centres, as a way to corroborate some of my online data. With that out of the way, I needed to prepare an outline of the conclusion chapter for my monthly meeting and prepare for my trip to Seoul. In between those preparations, I have to meet my other supervisor at least a couple of minutes every other day to discuss my discussion chapter reviews because he's so busy that he would just called for a meeting whenever he had some spare time to sit with me. Luckily, the school is out this week, so I had some leeway to maneuver my working hours and lengthen them. This is also important, since I also need to express some milk for Luqman considering I will be away for 5 days. In order to gain a sufficient amount of milk reserves, I need to 'built' them up by being away for 'quite' a while. {Mana mungkin  ditinggakan begitu aja. Nanti bisa dipersoalkan dan mempersoalkan mengapa anakanda tidak disusukan kerna ibundanya di dalam kesibukan dan kejauhan ;-)}

Anyway, up till today, my powerpoint slides are not ready, I have another meeting in a couple of minutes and all my bags are not packed, and I am travelling to a non-English speaking country and my itinerary is not yet ready..... ooooo ok whoosa...whooosa... Allahumma Yasirli....and I will see you all in Seoul, Insya Allah. :-D