A bitter sweet moment

It is always a bitter sweet moment for me every time I got Dunelm Magazine.  Why?  The salutation that they use i.e. “Dr Jaffri”.  It would always remind me of my late dad, my family sacrifices, my mom’s illness during my absent and my own struggle that I had to face when I was in Durham.   Getting this magazine would always bring tears to my eyes.  But, enough of crying for me now.  I got new idea to adapt one of the articles for my MUET reading comprehension questions that I can use for the Academic Camp.  

ELPPT and Webometric

Marking scheme for Webometric in your ELLPT bonus marks is based on webometric presence/visibility rating *people.utm.my/* which is indexed by Google search engine.  For more information, you can go this this link.

You must make sure that anything that you post either in your page or normal post is abide by the policy and guideline of UTM 

Webometric presence rating ELLPT bonus marks (%)
2000 and above 5
1000 – 1999 4
500 – 999 3
250 – 499 2
100 – 249 1
100 and below 0

 

Self-assess to know your mental health

Most of the time, we have the symptoms of psychological distress but unlike physical health like flu, fever and such, we overlook the psychological symptoms that indicate we are not ok.  Perhaps, it is easier to “see” physical symptoms as compared to psychological symptoms.  But, the thing when it comes to psychological symptoms, it can be manifested through physical expression.  So, in this case, we can self-assess ourselves as a preliminary attempt to get help from professional people who are trained to help us with psychological distress. 

I find useful website with various self-tests for FREE (only some of the tests are FREE such as mental health assessment, anger, attention span, mental speed, romantic personality, procrastination, blood pressure quiz, and menopause quiz ) .  

UTM webometrics assessment [Penilaian Webometrik UTM]

I am “super” slow when it comes to using this webpage.  I am only recently learning about how they calculate  marks for webometrik for ELPPT.  I know some of you are rolling your eyes.  You can roll your eyes as you wish.  But I am learning.  I learn from others slowly.  I need time to digest this new thing (new for me, not for others).  One of the things that I pick up from others’ webpage and Nihra’s note is about how to know your webpage presence rating.  

There are the steps as follow:

  1. Open www.google.com as usual
  2. At google search column (the middle one), type “https://people.utm.my/hadijahjafrri” (site:your webpage url)
  3. Then, google will give your webpage search result.

Note: My webpage present rating is not much as compared to those who have won Citra Karisma award for Webometric.  But, like Dr Seuss once said “It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become.”

As I have admitted, I am a slow academician who strongly believe in the slow professor principles and I am “in” with the slow professor movement.  

“Slow professors “advocate deliberation over acceleration” because they “need time to think, and so do our students. Time for reflection and open-ended inquiry is not a luxury but is crucial to what we do.”  [excerpt from Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy (University of Toronto Press). 

Puppy love? Monkey love?

I had a quick chat with Ita yesterday.  I asked her about what’s new and what’s not about school.  She told me about some teenage angst among the form 5 students.  Yup.  Among the students who she mentioned was in my class.  When they caught the form four student last April due to “energy booster” stuff, I wrote to all my former form 4 students a letter.  

I am a bit busy off lately.  I don’t think I would have enough time to write each and every one of them a letter.  But I will meet some of them this Friday for our tuition class in sha Allah.  So, I would have a pep talk with them.  There are various issues that teachers are worried about.  Among the issues are coupling, same gender close relationship, a minor brawl (this one is due to minor misunderstanding between a senior and a junior relating to defending one’s girlfriend) and lack of motivation in their study.  Some of the issues are part and parcel of life.  As teenagers, they are exploring their identity and thus they need to learn to negotiate with others.  It is not easy to do that.  They need guidance and lots of patience from other adults.  

But the thing is, when it comes to opposite gender relationship, for some teachers, it is too early for them to explore in that area.  For me, it is ok as long as they know the boundary that they have to abide according to Islam.  A normal note from one to another is common.  To meet or hang out at the mall is normal (of course this is not right if you don’t observe “the” guideline).  Some of them might say that their parents met when they were at school.  They were high school sweet hearts.  So sweet right?  Yeah right.  Now, their children are following their parents footsteps.  Of course, this makes thing a bit challenging for the teachers because on one hand. the parents are ok with that and on the other hand, the teachers don’t want it to become a culture at school.

Some people can balance their act when it comes to studying and coupling.  But if you have string of Cs and Ds, it clearly indicates that you need to focus on one aspect more than trying to focus on both.  But again, it is choice.  At the end of the day, the students need to decide and be accountable towards their decision.  

iHadir

Since its implementation in April 2019, iHadir has been used as a means to slide in attendance.  Personally, I find that it is convenient to use especially if I am “outside” of the faculty where I can slide in my attendance using my phone or laptop (with internet connection).   I remember there was a time I was at the Perdana College to evaluate students’ projects on 23 April 2019 (Tuesday) and Dr Amirmuddin was there as one of the judges.  He offered me to use his smartphone to slide in my attendance after he did his.  He showed me how to use iHadir using our smartphone.  Unfortunately, my smartphone is a bit outdated so there are times when I have difficulty to log in to iHadir.  😀 

Link here to get to iHadir or log on to http://ihadir.utm.my/