suka-suka jek...

Dear postgraduates,

Perhaps I should let you know that I feel wonderful daily when I meet you at workplace. A man, no matter how tough he/she can be, is still a living creature that needs relationship. Don’t get me wrong, I am not referring to a specific one as they are many types of relationships and loves. Be it parental, friend, teacher-student or boss-employee, all of us do need a little, I guess.

At the point of 40 years old, I see life as a journey. Many faces appear before my eyes when I try to sleep everynite. I think that one can never achieve anything without someone. I thank you for being with me, besides my parent and friends. I have never thought of what I can gain when I was a secondary school student in Malacca or during my undergraduate days in National University of Singapore. I began to think about it when I first worked as post-doctoral fellow and at my last stage of PhD study. Thinking of gain-loss component tends to make myself losing the sense of humanity. Coming back to Malaysia, in one way or another, has salvaged me. I do learn a lot from you and some of my existing staff/friends on way to sail the life. The feelings are indeed great!

I have a strong urge to write this letter as I wish to share my thought, not propaganda of course, with you. I hope that you can learn as much as you can during your postgraduate days. The only challenge in learning is that all of us need to publish substantial and if possible good quality data in thesis and journals. Running research is not easy. However, I believe help among each others and proper guidance from me will ease the process. Hope you can relax and feel happy on every move that you are taking in research. About myself, I am too trying to relax my mind and look at things at a broader range. It is also my responsibility to make sure that you are in good condition from day to day, at least financially, and supply of chemicals and equipment.

I want to share some secrets/experience of research which I faced in my PhD days. First of all, you will face toughness when you wish to first start a project. However, continuing thinking/discussion/moving/solving problems will put the toughness to an end. When you first get your dosage form, you are happy but feel stress when you start characterisation. Results seem not reproducible or hard to obtain. It is good to relax and discuss consistently if you wish to solve this problem. You need to identify possible root of problems, at least the major one, tackle it and run many runs of experiments to get to the final destination. Do discuss from time to time if you wish to save time. Discussion can be at nite. Thinking can be 24 hours a day. Reading, when possible, can be done at gaps of time. When you have one goal to target, move towards the goal without stopping. In fact, you can never stop till you finish it. There is always risk of poor data reproducility when you repeat one year or two years later as materials can older, animals get weaker, weather can be different, your experience can change with time, your sense of judgement differs etc. This is a worldwide problems. The only solution is to focusly running one goal without stopping unless needed.

When I share my experience as above, what flashing in my mind is Jaya and Zab. They are pregnant. They then need good rest and less stress. Rules are not universal. They need to be instilled with humanity. In short, all things in life can be achieved. What we need is understanding, patience, enthusiasm and goal oriented mindset. To achieve what we need, discussion and exchange of opinion is imperative.

I should stop here. I am moving to do my work for me and for you.

Have a nice holiday!

Rgds.

TW