Professor Nick’s Visit to Malaysia

Only after more than a year that I managed to find the time and the mood to write on my PhD main supervisor – Professor Nick’s visit to Malaysia. He visited me at Malaysia from 20/11/2011 to 26/11/2011 as part of the Malaysia-Imperial Doctorate Program (MIDP). I did write the activities that we planned, but just to recap:

 

Alhamdulillah, most of the activities that we planned ran smoothly, accept a few things that out of our control. My PhD co-supervisor from UPM – Associate Professor Dr.Norzima Zulkifli was unable to join us at the conference at Sarawak, and Nick was having stomachache the night we arrived at Kuching. The food he ate during our flight might be too hot for him. I wasn’t able to taste the ‘nasi lemak’ before he ate them because our seats were separated quite a distance. Poor him. 

 

Pictures above were taken during our visit to Sarawak Cultural Village. Everything else ran smoothly. We chatted on my PhD studies in between this visit. We stayed at Pullman Kuching, Sarawak, different rooms of course. We went back on Wednesday evening and Iman picked us up at LCCT.

 

I delivered a presentation on my progress to Nick and Dr.Norzima on Thursday evening at UPM. This is the first time ever that them and myself sat in 1 room, face to face. I was so shaken during this time because Nick seemed enthusiastic on the data that I presented. In fact, I nearly cried. I think he noticed that too and started to lower down his voice. Owh, what to do? I am such a sensitive woman. The data was actually chaotic, I do having troubles to sort them out during that time.

Dr.Norzima did pop up a question of why I didn’t get my own data instead of using a pool of data that has been extracted by others. This is one question that I dreaded the most. But, I did explained that what I am trying to look at is the trend and I can’t do this if I just have data from 1 project only. Besides, I am doing my PhD under the Centre for Environmental Policy (CEP), so I have to look at the bigger picture. Nick indeed back me up. Thank God for that. I finished the presentation after an hour and half or so. Me and Nick had a chat afterwards on how to improve my progress. I can’t concentrate because I was too tired, but I tried my best. 

 

The next day, we headed to Petronas Towers. I think Nick did enjoy the panoramic view of these towers. He said that the next time he visits Malaysia, he will stay at around this place, which I think he quite regretted saying that 2 hours later…hehehe…

It was my fault actually. I should have known better to take LRT instead of driving to this place especially during peak hours. I had also taken the wrong exit to Suria KLCC from Putrajaya, even I know these places quite well. I think this may be because I was too enthusiastic telling Nick my ideas while driving. Besides, I thought the more time I spent with Nick discussing on issues I am having in my PhD, the better. So, getting lost is one good excuse. 

We arrived at Suria KLCC 2-3 hours later than we should be. We had lunch afterwards and we ate at Kenny Rogers. He seemed to be at ease with the surroundings he was in. He said that this is more ‘real’ than Putrajaya. He later on shopped for his clothes in one of the shops here. 

I wanted to introduce him to our King of Fruits – Durian but he had already tried to eat the fruit during his visit to China and mentioned that he didn’t like them, or any other slimy foods. He enjoyed the ice-cream version instead.

 

We then spent quite a time at Starbuck KLCC, discussing my data. The place was too crowded and noisy – a location that doesn’t support positive discussions. I am happy at first as I can show him what I did on my data after our discussions yesterday. But may be because of the location, the discussion wasn’t as effective as I wanted it to be. Besides, I was drown in my own ideas until what he said doesn’t at all make any sense. I got fed-up and asked him whether we can proceed to go back. He noticed my swift change of mood and said ok. 

I walked as fast as I can to the parking lot with a thought to call it a day as soon as I can. Little that I know that we are going to face a horrible traffic jam that lasted for 2-3 hours. It was like my car can only move a mm a minute. Even Nick can get off the car to go to the toilet at one of the shops nearby the road and came back, and my car had only moved 2 meters ahead. Nick mentioned that no wonder Malaysia’s government moved to Putrajaya as the  traffic congestion is so massive. But we managed to arrive at the hotel, safe and sound, albeit 5 hours delay. I too safely arrived  at my sister’s house, hour an half away from Nick’s hotel. 

He did mentioned that he will take a taxi to KLIA the next morning so I don’t have to pick him up. But I can’t do that, he is my supervisor and he came a very long way to make sure that I am ok with my PhD, he even suffered from backache due to long hours of sitting to come and meet me here. So, the next day, he did take a taxi but I asked my sister to drive me to KLIA, regardless of what he said, to see him off to London. He seemed not to like this idea when I met him at the airport. He can see that I am too tired, but I don’t know. I am a Malaysian so I guess it is our culture or ‘budi bahasa dengan tetamu’ to properly greet and send our visitors away. Besides, I have already bought a batik shirt as a gift for him, so I have a good reason to sent him off that day. 

My sister had a chance to meet him and had a brief chat before he went back to London. Iman did too when he send me and Nick off to Kuching and picked us at the airport a day after. But as he is a shy boy, he didn’t say a thing to him. As the visit was very short, many plans have to be set aside. Poor Nick, he has to suffer from a very long hours of sitting and jet-lagged and here I was, setting too many activities in too little time. I did plan to have a casual meeting between myself, Nick, Ir.Eddy and Ir.Juzailan (my ex-bosses) but Nick was too tired from the 13 hours journey. I know that feeling very well, so we need to cancel that meeting. Dr.Norzima also planned for me and Nick to meet the Head of Civil and Environmental Department, UPM but we have to cancel that as well. Dr.Norzima did as well plan to book a room for Nick to give his presentation at Faculty of Engineering on PhD relevant issues including publication and expectation of external examiners but I think Nick was too tired and he wanted to focus on discussions relevant to my PhD issues, so we had to take a rain check on all of these. I hope the rain check gave him the reason to come again in the future.

I learned that if I want to receive guests who came a very long way to Malaysia, I should make sure that the activities we plan suit to the time that we have. I also learned that I should ask one of my friends or Iman to drive us to places in order to make our discussions a bit more relax.