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Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try!

At the point of writing this post, I am preparing my OBE report.  Alhamdulillah.  One course is finished.  Another two more to go.   In sha Allah I will try to finish everything before Eid.  

When I look at the students performance (i.e. marks), I could not help from wondering, do they study smart before the exam because apparently, some of them are not able to get good marks.  I know that I cannot assume their understanding based on the marks alone but it seems that some of them are not brave enough to challenge themselves to do better.  Perhaps I am wrong in this matter.  I have been wondering if it has something to do with reading (how much they read to make themselves understand certain concepts).

Language of depression

A friend of mine posted this on her FB.  An article about depression.  More often than not, people who are depressed show many signs such as the way they use certain words (i.e. language).  They speak “the language of depression”.  To untrained eyes, such things can go unnoticed.  

The two aspects that worth to be noted are content and style.  Content consists of emotion expressions, use of pronoun, rumination and social state (i.e. in the case of depression, social isolation).  Style relates to how one express oneself.  It relates to the former aspect, content.  For example, the use of absolutist words (e.g. never, always, nothing, absolutely etc.) might indicate how a person views certain situation.  A sentence like “There is nothing that I do matters” indicates how a person is using self-handicapping note in the language with reference to oneself (i.e. the use of the word “I”).  

So, please be aware of our own language or others to detect any sign of depression.  Indeed.  Mind your (and our) language, please!

Concept maps_Part 1

One of the juniors asked me if giving students a concept map assignment is appropriate to measure cognitive skills (the code C6 – creating level).  I asked him back what makes him think otherwise because to produce a concept map is not easy.  It is not simply cut-copy-paste thingy (unless one copies other’s concept map).  To produce one as your own, you need to have a good understanding about a concept and how it relates to other sub-concepts.  It is not easy to produce a good and meaningful concept-map.  I guess, this junior rarely uses concept maps to be articulated and reflective.  Apparently from his question, it does resonate with that parts that he seems to be lacking of.  

While doing my PhD, I did many concept maps like this.  But, I find it difficult to draw a concept map in a white A4 paper.  So, I changed the medium.  I wrote on brown paper napkins that I could find inside any toilet in my school and it is FOC.  It did help me to stay focused on what I want to write and organise my thoughts.  In fact, a concept map is one of the ways that self-regulated learners will use to be reflective in a pictorial form.  There are research about this.   

So, when I crafted the assignments that I want to assign to my students taking SPPP1012 Educational Psychology, I want to them to be reflective.  Being reflective demands a person to have a certain routine and habit.  In this case, to produce a concept map for every topic learned also means helping students to develop a routine which I hope will turn into a habit.  2 in 1 thingy.  Students will learn how to produce concept maps and hopefully they could teach it to others.  Secondly, students might also develop good habits to summarise their thoughts in different forms i.e. pictorial format.  

What a heck!  As a teacher later on, the students will have to teach their secondary students how to illustrate points using I-think note (I-think note is a form of concept map).  How can they teach the students if they never had any experience to draw concept map before?   As an instructor, I ask the students to submit the concept map on regular basis because I would have a look at their concept maps and give my feedback so that their concept maps would be useful and more meaningful.  This is an example that I “show” real example to my students so that when they become teachers, they would make it as part of their habits to give feedback to students.  

For more information about I-think, check it out on KPM website.

Salivary duct stone

The year was 2010.  It was February.  I felt really stressful at this moment to finalise my PhD thesis.  Due to that, I didn’t take care of myself really well.  What happened then?  

I started to have a bit of swelling on my right cheek.  I had that for a week or two.  I didn’t think too much about it.  Then, on one morning, I started to feel a painful throbbing.  When I looked myself in the mirror, my right cheek was swollen.   I started to feel something hard on the inside of my right cheek using my tongue.   I didn’t know what the thing is.  I brave myself to endure the late winter chill to go to school to edit some of my work.  

I googled the symptoms and I came across this term “Salivary Duct Stone”.  I know what causes it.  It was my fault of not drinking enough water.  I neglected my health.  It was not a time for me to panic.  So, I googled more information on how to get rid of the stone naturally.  Going to the doctor was the last thing on my mind.   I tried several ways to flush the stone out naturally.  I did it!  My salivary duct was a little bit infected because there was yellowish /reddish puss coming out with the stone.  The puss didn’t stop for a while.  Once it stopped, there was a hole inside my cheek and my cheek was still swelling and the throbbing still persisted.  This was when things became unbearable.  

So, I went to the nearby clinic.  The doctor gave me a referral letter and asked me to go to Sunderland Hospital which would take me around 1 hour journey from Durham.  I called K Ila and she sent me to the hospital.  I packed some clothes just in case I have to be warded even though that would be the last thing that I want.  Alhamdulillah, it was just a salivary duct stone.   I showed the doctor the stone and he told me the stone was out and he couldn’t see any stone left.  With that, he gave me a prescription to reduce the swelling and I didn’t need to be warded.  It took me an hour and half to reach home.   

This serves as a lesson for me: I need to drink enough water everyday to keep myself hydrated and avoid of having a stone inside my mouth.  Alhamdulillah, I don’t have any recurrent swelling until now.  

A creative friend of mine

I had a chance once to visit my friend who was studying at Nottingham back in 2010.  We went to Nottingham Castle and whatsnot.  We came across Robin Hood’s statue at the hill of Nottingham Castle.  If I were the photographer, I would not have any idea to give instruction to make this pose. 

But, my friend said “Dij, why don’t you make it this way?  Take a peek under Robin’s shirt”  and then while I was peeking under the shirt, she took this picture.  She is creative indeed.  Now, she holds important position in UTM who in charge of the branding and rebranding of UTM.  Zac, thanks for taking this picture and memorable moment when I was in Nottingham visiting you.  I will treasure it for the rest of my life In sha Allah

Once upon a time…..

It has been a while since I cooked lasagna.  But it was my staple food when I was in Durham.  I looked up at an old posting from FB.  I found this recipe.

P.S:  I never cook lasagna since I came back to Malaysia for good in 2011.  Yup, it has been nearly 10 years since the last time I cooked lasagna.

Lasagna…

I have tried it couples of time. This is the best, so far

Mince meat (depends on how many people to eat but for a tray like in the picture, I use 500-800gram of mince meat)

Lasagna sauce (I use Dolmio’s – the most cheap brand here, not sure how much it is cost in Malaysia)

White sauce (I use Dolmio’s too but I improvise it)

Mozzarella cheese (around 300gram)

Cheddar cheese (around 100gram)
*can be replaced with slice cheese – 4-5 slices

Black pepper, white pepper, Tabasco sauce, tomato sauce and salt (for seasoning)

Fresh Milk

Olive oil for frying onions (tumis sikit – I use half of indian onion)

Oregano (for the smell – just a dash or two)…

Lasagna (in a box usually)

————————————————————–
1) For the meat sauce.

Fry the chopped onions. Then mix it with meat (make sure it is half cooked so it is still tender. Add Lasagna sauce (put other ingredients for the seasoning as well according to your preference). Let it simmer well.

2) For the white sauce

You can just use it without improvising. For better result, improvise it.

Simmer a bottle of white sauce in a pan. Add milk (accordingly) and melt the cheddar cheese and 100gram of mozzarella cheese)… if it is thick, add more milk (a dash or two of black pepper/white pepper)…. Let it simmer.

Then for the layering

First layer, meat sauce. Then white sauce. Lasagna. Repeat the process. Make sure the top layer is lasagna and pour all the white sauce (make sure the lasagna is completely sunk – tenggelam tak nampak) and then just put all over on top of the white sauce and the mozzarella cheese…

Bake it in the oven for 30 minutes or so with 170 degrees

Finally, it was the last final examination for this semester

I had my last paper today (MPPU1024).  There were 77 students taking this course for this semester.  For my section (Section 2), there were 24 registered students but there were only 23 took this exam.  I had never seen the other one attended my class before.  I  guess she forgot to withdraw from this course.

While invigilating, I took the chance to grade the UG paper.   I have finished marking but have not keyed in the marks yet.  One thing at a time.  I think I would focus on grading before key in the marks on AIMS and OBE system.  I aim to finish doing that before Eid In sha Allah

One of the modern malaise? Gadget addiction

As I evaluate the assignments of my UG students, I could not help from thinking about why some of them have difficulty to write articulately.  My initial thought was perhaps due to stress and time constraint during the final examination, some might have difficulty to construct sentences properly.  Some used points-form writing.  It is acceptable but I think it is less proper than full sentences.  

What went wrong? 

Is it due to gadget addiction?  They seem to have shorter attention span and have difficulty to stay focused to construct appropriate sentences.  Studies have shown that gadget addiction has detrimental effects on students and their learning.  In this case, how are we going to find a balance between using technology and at the same time not losing touch with the reality.  Of course, gadget like smartphone and whatsnot is being used as a child-minding tool i.e. to help children to be preoccupied in an “activity” that makes them quiet for certain periods of time.  But, how to strike a balance would remain the biggest challenge that any parent has to face regardless of the social status.  

Burn out or depression? Which is which?

A recent message about burn out that was shared by a colleague makes me think about my friend.  What makes her to be depressed?  Is it triggered by burn out that she experience but go unnoticed?  Now, she has to take medication twice a day to regulate her state of well-being.  She has become medically dependent person.  I asked her, “How do you feel if you forget taking the medication once?”  She would say the effect would be immediate.  She won’t be able to fall asleep (stay awake more than 24 hours) and has difficulty to focus (due to sleep deprivation).  She said “I cannot ‘function’ and I will start to imagine things“.  That’s serious.  Since she was professionally diagnosed as having a depression, she was on medical leave for undisclosed period of time.  

But to tell the truth, it is not easy to distinguish between burn out and depression or to differentiate between burn out and stress unless we get someone who are clinically trained to do the diagnosis.  No one is immune of depression.  There are many cases of people who seem to have everything succumb to the bout of depression.  Some even inflict harm towards others or themselves. 

So, in this matter, one has to be vigilant and aware about one’s well-being.  Also, administrators too play important role to support and be emphatic to those who have started to show some “symptoms”.  Sometime, we overlook the physical symptoms that indicate underlying psychological problems that we might have.   

Of course, one can easily use depression, burn out and stress as an excuse of being less productive.  But, if we look at the person from different angle, does he/she display any symptom that indicate psychological problems that we should be aware of?  Is it fair to “punish” this person as being less productive and thus he/she is given low evaluation for the yearly appraisal even though he/she could not perform well due to undiagnosed psychological problems?  

It is an paradoxical phenomenon.  But perhaps in this rat race world, we need to be more emphatic towards each other, especially towards our own self.  Sometimes, we are more concerned about others and thus, we tend to overlook in taking care of ourselves.