Selamat hari raya Aidil Adha

Wednesday, 19^th December 2007 – Malaysian Muslims in Australia celebrated Eiduladha today. All Malaysian Muslims including some from the Arabic countries gathered as early as 7 O’clock in the morning at Malaysia Hall to perform the Takbir Raya and solat sunat Eiduladha. Right after that, we had some jamuan, which the main menu was nasi lemak, ha ha..typical Malaysians huh? Not as many attendees as Eidulfitri celebration but the scene was still quite happening with takbir raya and salam bersalaman.

We didn’t prepare much for this eiduladha but Sal did cook somethings, though. Nasi himpit, kuah lodeh (her specialty), sambal tumis sotong and daging dendeng goreng. But the truth story underneath that was she wanted to keep herself busy so that she didn’t have to think so much about how deeply she misses everyone back at home. Luckily, we had two special guests from Malaysia coming over today…DR MASITAH and her father! But not for long as they were actually heading to Adelaide in the afternoon. So, at least their presences added on some sweets to our eiduladha celebration this year.

We managed to visit a couple of friends’ houses and might be the best thing was we’ve been proudly parading our baju raya all day. Some Aussies who happened to walk passed by us looked at us as if we were wearing something very very weird, but some did give complement.. ha ha… didn’t care actually!

So Muslims in Malaysia will be celebrating Eiduladha tomorrow. We would like to wish everybody selamat hari raya aidiladha and enjoy the day to the fullest! See ya in the next entry…bubye!

Selamat Hari Lahir ke-3 sayang

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to Iman Nuryasmin,
Happy birthday to you...

Hari ni (12/12/07), genap 3 tahun Iman Nuryasmin dilahirkan. Syukur Alhamdulillah, kami dikurniakan Allah dengan anak gadis yang cantik dan sempurna sifat.

To our dearest baby girl,
maafkan mama and papa, for not be able to throw a big bash birthday celebration as always this time for you. But we still managed to get you a yummy birthday mud cake, though and we can see that you really liked it..good! And Yasmin, we are very sorry and regret so much as we didn't get you any birthday present like we always do this year. We just want you to know that, we will always pray for your success, well-being and your happiness!

This year celebration, there is no Atuk, Opah, Uncle or Aunty, or friends to join in together. There is only four of us, Papa, Mama, Abang Iman and you, Yasmin. Papa and Mama try so hard to make you happy here. We really hope you can remember this day forever, as how we have to live in hard a way in order to achieve what we want in our life. Almost all nights, we've been crying and thinking about all the families and friends back in Malaysia. So sad...Allahuakbar, harini tak jemu-jemu papa and mama cium Yasmin, our birthday girl.

Don't worry sayang, just bear this in mind...apa yang papa n mama buat, semuanya untuk yasmin and abg iman. You two are the most precious gift and we promise, we'll do anything to make you happy, always!

Happy 3rd birthday darling...

What a torturing week

This week... ayoyo... My supervisor (sv) seems to be the most hardworking human being on earth I've ever met! He expects me to come and see him almost everyday. Hari-hari kene bagi report ape progress. It is totally not cool and torturing! If I were to miss my presence at my workstation even only for a day, he will definitely email and ask me why...what the @#*&? Plus, he'll never miss to flood me in with piles and piles of research papers to read. Adushhhh! Aren't this insane? Is doing PhD this insane? Btw, my sv is actually the deputy dean of the School of Computer Science & Engineering (CSE) in UNSW :-(.

The most happening thing for me is that I've just received my PC yesterday (Jumaat). A CSE PhD student will automatically be allocated with an amount of money from the school to buy PC or laptop. I was thinking about buying a laptop but my sv disagreed. He already knew that if I'm using a laptop, surely selalu hilang takdak kat school. Hohoho... Anyway, my PC seems to be the most advance and powerful machine among all the other PCs in CSE. The spec:

Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Quad Processor Q6600
2GB (2X1GB) NECC Dual Channel DDR2 667MHz SD RAM Memory
320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
bla bla bla... check out the website:
http://www.dell.com.au

It was shipped from PENANG, MALAYSIA. Wah wah wah... proud to be Malaysian.

Right now, we are still waiting for the laptop ordered by Sal. laptop tu warna pink lagi;-) shipping from Penang gak...haiiii..rindunya kat tanahair...... Maybe by Monday dpt la kut....

One problem though, and a big one I think. The OS of my PC is Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, but my sv asked me to use Linux. And here, you have to configure your own PC. Hahaha, never used linux before. Who can help me to give a tutorial in how to install the linux. Do I have to reformat the PC? Help! Help!

What do they know?

Hi again. there is nothing much to put in this latest post, since we are busy with the study. However, trying not to disappoint our blog reader out there, we try to put something at least so that everybody have something to read and see. Here is some of the latest update about me and my family. If you think this post is little bit boring, just send us yr comment. Trust me, yr comment will surely cheer us up a lot (at least we know that we aren't talking to ourselves)!

My wife Sal, she has already got a temporary pc to work on and a permanent workstation at NICTA. She's still waiting for the notebook though. The spec of the notebook is quite advance and its pink! About her research progress, well I think she is in good condition. Her supervisor helps her a lot. She knows what to do, what to read, and what to write. Imagine all that is done in just a month here...

For me, I'm still struggling to find a topic and area of research. I've been doing so much reading on the area of Parallel programming and multi-core processing, as well as the real-time scheduling, however at the end i've had to give up thinking about that since the area is beyond my capability...duh! Right now, after get consulted with my supervisor, he suggested me to read and try to get a problem on the area of "program analysis". Well, I only know that it is the program that analyze the behavior of the programming. So if somebody can help me with that, I'm so pleased to hear from you.

Our kids, we assume that they are always excited to be here. Both of us trying to give them everything so that they will always happy and enjoy living in such a different environment from what they've used to. Iman is looking forward to go to Kindy early next year. And so we are doing the best we can to prepare him for that matter...language, making friends.. and whats important, the school fees. AUD4500.00 per year is a lot of money since he will not be sponsored by anybody, except FAMA. However, whatever happens, we will make sure that they will experience the best education ever and will become somebody in the future, insyaAllah!

Salfarina's current vs ex-Supervisor...

Hi again...

This time entry is going to be all about my research supervisors (sv). The first one is Prof. Ross Jeffery who is known as the manager of the project and is widely recognized researcher in empirical software engineering as the head of the ESE research group at NICTA, Australian Technology Park at Redfern. He is also a Professor at the School of Computer Science (CSE), UNSW.

The second one is actually my main sv and appear to be my favorite sv (see picture). His name is Dr. Paul Bannerman and currently an active researcher in business IT related management and Knowledge Management of course.

The third one is actually my co-sv, Dr. Mark Staples. All I can say is that I m fortunate to get to know them and to work with them..

Last Saturday (18/11/07) we were very lucky to have our very first guess, PM Hasan Selamat (Assoc. Prof) from UPM who is also my head of dept and happened to be my ex-sv during my master studies. What really touches us was that his willingness to visit us in Sydney when he was supposed to go straight to Melbourne to attend the APMC 2007 on 19th morning. Thank you very much, Prof! Your presence had cheered us up...especially my kids who had been calling him ATOK ;-) during his overnight stay at our place in Sydney.

"Place to stay and a car to ride"

After just a couple of days staying at Malaysia Hall, finally we managed to find a place to stay. The rent is quite expensive though, but to us it is still worth renting. So, to families and friends who are thinking about coming to Sydney, this is the place where we are staying, well for at least the first 6 months since the lease contract is only for that period of time. Come and join us, all of you are always welcomed!!!

Unit 7, Block 31, Doncaster Avenue, Kensington, NSW 2033, AUSTRALIA.

The rent has actually limits our expenses where eating outside is a preferably to be avoided ;-) But thats not a problem... Everybody knows Sal is a good cook... emmm yum yum yum!!!

After the end of this period, we are thinking about moving to other place that can offer cheaper rent such as in Eastlakes, Alexandria, Mascott or maybe Redfern. But it will all depends on the availability next year.

Ohh... we also managed to get ourselves a car. We bought it for a price of AUD3000. Its a Mazda 626 Estate Wagon with 7-seater. Easier for us to travel especially when family members or friends come to visit since according to the law here, seat belt is compulsory even for the back passenger. Now, traveling is not a problem for us.

The car is in good condition even though it was manufactured back in 1991. Who cares as long as it can drives us to wherever we want to...

Since we already have a "place to stay and a car to ride", there's no more excuse to delay the studying process!!!

Sydney: My first impression...

As soon as we step our feet at Sydney airport, we experienced windy and breezy climate. Just a couple of minutes after checking out our luggages Faizah (fellow from UPM), Kak Ruhaya, Abg Azlan (President of Malaysian Postgraduate Student Association, NSW (MyPSA)) and his wife Kak Zurin arrived to welcome us all to Sydney and drove us to the Sydney Malaysia Hall. We were lucky to be able to borrow Abg Din and Kak Khaz car since they weren't at Sydney at that time. The whole family went to celebrate Idul Fitri away at their home town in Malaysia. Many many thanks to everybody that have kindly lend their helps and spared their time assisting me and my family on our very first day in Sydney.

The Aussies are very friendly, but too straight forward, i guess. Not like we Malaysian, we kind of always has this "bunga-bunga" when we want to talk to someone or give remarks. One thing that I noticed, the people here really abide with the law and so well mannered at what they are doing. Things that you cannot see so often in Malaysia.

Even though my first impression about Australia is a thumb up, deep down in my heart, Malaysia is still the best country ever.

Hujan emas di negeri orang
Hujan batu di negeri sendiri
Lebih baik di negeri sendiri...

At this point, there are many things to be done. Looking for a house, car, seeing supervisor, finding a school for Iman Raziq (he's turning 5 years old next year and is required to enter school by this age), touring around UNSW... So many things to do and so many time to spend. Hopefully everything will be settled as soon as possible so that we can begin our studies with no worries!.

Happy and sad...

16th October 2007, the date my family and I got into the MAS airplane and flew to Sydney, Australia. We will spend around 4 years here doing our PhDs at the University of New South Wales. Happy and sad, deeply immersed down in our hearts.

Happy since finally, we'll get the chance to gain knowledge from outside Malaysia... to experience things that others won't... We've done our undergrad studies and Master level at UPM, guess now is our time to see beyond Malaysia.

Sad because we have to leave our family back in Malaysia for four years. Sad because we have to leave our friends back in UPM, especially Farid, Azri, Azlan, ET, Noris, Zaihisma... Sad because we know that there will be no Hari Raya celebration like what we used to have in Malaysia... Only God knows how much we're going to miss all that.

Family at the airport

Friends - Farid, Dila, Azlan n wife

NEW COMERS

Finally, a new chapter is created! People said blogger is a person who always "syok sendiri". They just write anything that come out from their mind/heart. For me, blogging is a way to express my true feeling towards anything. It is like a medium for me and my family to honestly describe how we greatly, truly n deeply miss Malaysia...