Still on statistics and still with En Zainal, we touched on variance and dispersion.

And yes, half day only.

Tomorrow will be going to KL.

Now the serious stuff has started. Fortunately, we have an irreverent, sometimes over the top lecturer in En Zainal Sait.

Today’s about intro to statistics: for me who’ve never gone thru it - need to fully concentrate, even tho I consider myself good at maths.

Nice surprise: the whole thing only took half a day.

Today is registration and icebreaking day.

Upon registration, one has to pay RM100, then it’s off to the other room for online registration.

At 9.30am, the icebreaking session started which lasted all day.

There were 76 of us, 4 from Sabah. Apparently there’s a fifth Sabahan, but at the time of writing, he hasn’t showed up yet. Among those from Sabah, predictably, I was the only one from the state civil service.

The other 3 are: Zamzam a.k.a. Zam (Tawau), Halizah Hanafiah (Tawau), an Information Systems Officer and Rohiman Rahia (Sandakan), an Admin & Diplomatic Officer.

There are 2 guys from Sarawak: Jabu anak Dugu (a town planner) and Setebin @ Roslan.

There were 2 icebreaking games in the morning.

The common self-introductions, where we were divided into groups of 10. Then the whole group made a big circle, and each small group goes into the centre, facing the big circle then introduce themselves. Once in a while the 2 very polite session facilitators (Imran and Bet) would do a “memory test”, asking a random participant to recite the names of the persons who’ve just introduced themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

I will be in INTAN Bukit Kiara, Kuala Lumpur 27th March till 10th May for a Quantitative Analysis Course, a compulsory course for recipients of JPA’s Hadiah Latihan dlm Perkhidmatan (HLD).

My flight from KK was on 27th March. Arrived at KLIA 12.30pm. Took a taxi (cost RM66.60), arrived at INTAN Bukit Kiara 1.30pm. Traffic was light.

Accomodation

There are 2 Asramas/Hostels – Asrama Anggerik and Melur. I got the impression that Anggerik is for foreigners, and Melur, locals.I have since found out that actually there are some foreigners staying at Melur and that Anggerik is also open to locals if rooms are available. Most, if not all, of the foreigners are participants of the Malaysian Technical Cooperation Program (MTCP), which have been in existence since 1980. Shame on me for not knowing that. So, we do have something like JICA I suppose. The MTCP program will go on till end of April, so I suppose I can move to Anggerik after that, if I wanted to.

I was put up in Melur - there are a total of 200 rooms there.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been a part-time tutor for OUM for 4 years (since January 2003). Every year there are 3 semesters, but I’m only involved in semester 1 (January-March) and 3 (September-November). There’s a short semester (May, 3 tutorials only instead of the usual 5) but I was never asked to work there until earlier this week where they asked me whether I’m available then - I’ve asked another friend to handle it since I think I’d be preoccupied with other things in May & June.

I’ve handled tutorials for 2 semesters every year except the September 2006 semester where I took a break - had another project to do.

So this is my 8th semester doing tutorials for OUM. For the last 3 semesters, including this one, they’ve been holding the tutorials at Universiti Malaysia Sabah’s campus. They’re planning to have their own building but there needs to be certain number of students before it will be approved by their HQ. I can’t remember the exact number, but something like 8,000 students. At the current rate, OUM should have that number of students in the very near future, more than any other university offering distance learning like Unitar and UiTM.

I will be heading to INTAN Bukit Kiara again on 27th March for the above course.

Updates and sharings to come.

Watch this space.

I’m in the process of applying to MMU, UTM and USM.

The most troublesome is contacting my ex professor at the University of Sheffield for references. Last time I contacted him was almost 5 years ago when I tried for the Chevening Scholarships (didn’t make it).

Lucky he still remembered me then.

While at it, I discovered some weaknesses in our IPTA websites:

- lack of updates, some info is severely outdated
-  link do not work eg, UTM’s online application  at http://ledang.sps.utm.my:7778/pengambilan/apply/index.jsp

Looks like a strange way to enable a site - why the port?

Update 2nd March 2007:

Arrived at KK 7pm last night on MH2662 on a B737. When I went to KL, the flight number was also 4 digits, but the plane was an A330. All these while I thought that the big planes have small flight numbers - how I was proven wrong.

Taxis do not like to go to INTAN Bukit Kiara because of the lack of opportunity to get passengers on the way out. How I did it: I struck a deal with the taxi driver (En Ismail Rahman) I met on the morning of the first day. Got his handphone number. Had to pay a few ringgit extra in fare, but since it’s claimable it’s still worth it, rather than agonising over how to get a taxi. I did ask around for people with whom I might be able to tag along, but did not get anyone suitable.

While at PJ I had the opportunity to try Bukhara Briyani at Syed’s restaurant. I spent quite some time at the nearby MMORPG cybercafe. It was one of the best cybercafe’s I’ve ever used - spacious, well-managed, clean, nice design, nice chair, nice earphones, big LCD screen. Worth the RM2 per hour charge.

The nearest LRT (Putra) to PJ is Taman Jaya, which is about 20 minutes leisurely walk to PJ De Inn. KL Sentral is a quick 5 stations away and costs RM1.60 one way. Very fast, no fuss, no jam. My only grouse is that the walkway from Taman Jaya to PJ De Inn is not properly done - at some stretches the kerb is nonexistent or uneven.

More trivia: If I heard it correctly, JPA spends a total of RM900 million a year on training. This includes pre-service and post-service trainings.
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I have just completed the above. It was held at INTAN Bukit Kiara, near Petaling Jaya. The speakers, mostly local academicians, focused mainly on statistical methods in conducting research.

I attended it as part of the requirements for JPA Master’s course scholarship recipients.

For 2007, there are about 300 scholarship recipients for Masters level courses, and 60 for PhD level. I did not manage to find any other Sabahan

During breaktimes, I asked around and found that as expected, most of the recipients will be doing their courses locally, but those choosing courses not available in Malaysia will be selected to go overseas. For example, this one guy who’ll be doing some kind of Veterinary Management in Australia. Also I met some guys who just came back from the UK after doing their PhDs on rubber matters, their scholarship provided by the Malaysian Rubber Board. As for IT-related course, I only managed to find one guy: he’s planning to go for an Information Security course at a local uni.

In my case, I applied for overseas but was given local. Definitely the course I was thinking about is widely available in the country. I was wondering, what kind of justification do I need to give if I really wanted to go overseas. What kind of IT/Comp Sc courses are not available in Malaysia?

As for the local universities, all local public universities are accepted by JPA, but 3 private universities are also accepted:

* Multimedia University (MMU)
* Universiti Tenaga Nasional (Uniten); and
* Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP): this one not suitable for me cos all are related to petroleum engineering;

I am targeting at least one of these local private universities, and of course several IPTAs, including UTM, USM and UMS.

Next month I have to be back there again for a month and half for a Quantitative Analysis course.

Will be going back to KK tomorrow.

Valentine’s Day 2007: after a nerve-racking wait on the third and final day of our compliance audit, where we had to wait from 10.30am to 1.30pm for them to do their report, the closing meeting was finally held at 2pm. The result was that we’re recommended to get the certification, on condition that action on the five minor nonconformances (NCs) and several observations are taken within 2 months. Then they are coming back here within a year to followup.

So, in the meantime, we could heave a sigh of relief and high-five each other. No thinking of the followup meeting first, that can come after CNY.

All those months of hard work from the team had been worth it.

Our department is currently on its 2nd day of compliance audit, conducted by 2 gentlemen from SIRIM, En Rahim  and YM Tengku Aidil.

I as Lead Internal Auditor was audited this morning for 90 minutes. I like to see things in a positive light, so I would describe my audit session simply as a great learning experience.

Our internal auditing team, comprising of 13 people are allowed, even encouraged to observe how these experienced external auditors do their work. Myself and 2 other colleagues followed them in most of the audit sessions involving several divisions and 2 KSITs.

Tomorrow, the last day, will be D-Day: we will know whether we’re getting the certification or not.

Even if we do get it, celebration time is only temporary for they’re going to come back within one year to do surveillance audit. Later, in 2009, they’ll come back again for reassessment.