The closure - 2nd semester

The courses

I was prescribed to take three types of research methods courses namely Research Seminar in Marketing, Business Research Methods and Data Analysis. Although I have studied research methods during my degree years, these are more detailed and thorough courses pertaining to methods. On average, there is 1 paper critique to hand in every week for each course and that means I handed in 3 critiques per week. I was also given on average 4 related research articles based on topics that we need to critique and that means for 3 courses, I basically read 12 compulsory articles where all these compulsory articles were debated and opined by all of us. As I think I am pretty slow in doing the critique thingy, so I normally searched and read at least 3 other related articles to support my critique for all 3 courses. So all in all, total number of articles that I digested came close to 21 articles per week. Just imagine how stressed and tensed I got every single week this semester. And these are only course-related materials, not my research-related articles.. I would categorize myself as a moderate student in terms of result as compared to others because in most cases my marks came somewhere in between the lowest and highest. Jack’s class was the most stressful and tense-ful for me as it is so very conceptual but Jennifer’s class was more relax probably because I have always loved learning the analysis techniques. It made me wide awake doing the analysis than reading an article hehehehe. I liked John’s class too as he often brought in his experience of so many years being a marketing consultant to many companies.

The research progress

If it is not for major assignments, I would not have the time to progress with my own research proposal. Luckily for two of the courses, students are encouraged to work closely with their intended research in their major assignments and that’s what I did and I would say, with this, at least my research proposal has advanced slightly as compared to last semester. Otherwise, I guess with the huge workload, the work-in-progress proposal would not bulge from the last time I put a full-stop to it. Some useful feedbacks were received during the presentations and I expect more to come after I get back the written work. These constructive feedbacks provide me with the direction for further enhancement in my research proposal. I would say, to date, the ones that I value most were those feedbacks I got from Mark in the presentation. His suggestions have broadened and deepened the scope of my research.

The life

Ahh…of course.. my life has been hectic too! To me, the days throughout this semester were really a quick day-in, day-out I would say. Every single day was filled with worry that I might not be able to finish up all the readings and hence the critique. *..but I managed*. This is the semester that I mostly had dinner outside @ Taste of Thai as compared to last semester. In other words, this semester, more money is spent eating out and mostly for dinner. This is also the semester that I experienced cooking as early as 4.30am and as late as 11.30pm but most of the time will be in the morning….and I have to admit, this is out of responsibility…I have put limitation to my social activity temporarily. Throughout the semester, I seldom meet friends, seldom go to get together, seldom go to shopping outlets for window shopping except for groceries, seldom go sightseeing and also did not go to Malaysia Hall for yassin at all as compared to last semester. As such, Amran’s social activity is affected as well. Basically, my life has been school and home, school and home all the time. So terperuk occay! Luckily Amran is such an understanding person where he has helped so much with the house chores and also he understands the need for me to work late on assignments. Sexitivity juga banyak diposponkan… but worry not.. we will make up for the loss dan sexitivity warm up telah pon bermula hahahaha!! Gaduh and perang dingin?? Hehhe the least this semester coz I got no time to think of such topic to quarrel with him hahaha. Too busy to be the cheeky me this semester.

The support

This is also the semester that I received so much support in terms of emotionally coping up with the stress from the workload and mostly came from my blog readers. You know who you are and with that, I thank you so much.

Hrm.. what else?? That sums about all, I think.