My Haj Status

Assalamu'laikum,
I'm very sorry that I could not update this blog on my progress of my Haj. How ever I have been updating my FB status from time to time as I progressed. Those friends who are not my FB freinds may request to be one at my FB page, KHAIRILTITOV'S FB

Masjidil Haram, Makkatul Mukarramah

Around Al Madinatul Munawwarah

Some photos around Al Madinatul Munawwarah (TB updated).

Al Madinatul Munawwarah

Dear all, Assalamu'laikum,

We arrived at about 11.15 am Saudi time, after 8 hrs of flight from KLIA. Alhamdullillah, all was well. I've uploaded some of the photos in Madinah at my Picasa. 
Or you can check my album at http://picasaweb.google.com/khairiltitov/MyHaj2010?feat=directlink

Al Madinatul Munawwarah

The Masjidun Nabawi (the Prophet's pbuh Mosque), in Al Madinah. My flight tomorrow morning will be going to Al Madinah first, insya Allah. We will be at Madinah for 8 days before going to Makkatul Mukarramah. I'm not sure where we will be staying at Madinah.

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The map of Al Madinah (Location: 24.468,39.6115)

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Click "Earth" above for 3D Google Earth view.

Makkah in Google 3D.


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Makkatul Mukarramah (Map)

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My Haj Travel Log

Insya Allah, I'll be performing my Haj this year to the House of Allah, Baitullahil Haram in Makkatul Mukarramah. So, starting from tomorrow the blog theme will be Haj, the fifth piller of Islam. Insya Allah my flight to Madinah will be on the October 18, Monday early morning.

I'm planning to bring along my Macbook & my D90 together in this trip. I hope I can capture this grand occation on my D90 (videos & pictures), to be share with my blog readers, from my MacBook. May Allah make it easy for me.

August 10, 2010. Pensiangan, Sabah. 
My visit to a school at the interior Sabah (Pensiangan), SK Penontomon.

What is happening to this society?

If I'm not terribly busy I would like to write about something that very much disturbing my heart that seem to be going on almost every week now here.  This shows how bad and sick our society now in this beloved country we call Malaysia.  Why must they die?  Why must they be abandon without feeling any sympathy or love.  Yes, where is the love, that suppose to come naturally from someone called mother.  Even a cat or chicken would protect their young ones without being told to do so.  These **** cannot even deserve to be called a beast.  Because even a beast would love and protect their youngs.  I'm having my Competency Assessment Test (PTK) tomorrow.  I still need to get the individual paper test to be completed by tonite.  I'll write more about this tomorrow, insya Allah.  But, in the meant time if any of you have something to share on this issue, you are most welcome to do so.  Wish me the best for tomorrow exam.
Regards.




 

A busy day

We, the Center of Technology Management IAB, had a 3 day course for IAB's lecturer starting yesterday (14/4) till Friday 16.  It's on the use of our Elearning portal at IAB.  Everyone in the center are involved.  Not all of the participants that we expected came.  Many replaced their heads or colleagues who have other commitments and not able to attend.  So, many come not prepared.  I had my presentation on the portal management and learning element that all course manager and lecturer should know.  Some issues arises during the course.  I'll discuss mere later.  BTW, we had 16 new visitor since last 2 days. That good.     

Commemorating 100 visitors

Thank you to my respected visitors.  As of this moment, I'm happy to announce that we have 100 unique visitors of this blog.  Yes, sure I'm happy for this.  But it is still a one way traffic flow of information.  I'm looking for  a more social type of online relationship.  At this moment I have only replies from HH Choy (thank you brother Choy for the support).  So, all my dear friends, do drops some notes if you guys pass by this page.  It sure will make me happy.  Just click the comment link at the bottom of each post.

(I'll start recording my visitor as of today - just for my interest)

Anak manggis

Anak means baby, so by "anak manggis", I'm referring to the baby plant of the manggis tree.  Oh, "manggis" of course mangosteen.  We found a nursery that sells the anak manggis last weekend near Karak,(view in Google map), a small town in the district of Bentong, Pahang. The nursery doen't have many of the baby plants. I bought 4 plants.  Not sure where to plant them yet.  The nursery owner said, the plant could grow and bear fruits in 3 years.  I really hope so. They are really grafted plants.



Unfortunately, one of them "died", dried up probably due to the hot weather, few days ago.     Sob, sob. Now I need to find a place for the three to grow.

Fruits I love

These are the some of the fruits I love.

I got them this morning.

Notice anything special? Yes, avocados. I found them at Giant Supermarket, here at Setiawangsa selling at 1.99/each. I bought 6 pieces. That cheap you know. Jusco selling them at RM4.99 (larger size probably). Anything else? The mangoes. There are 3 different types. I love mangoes. But I only buy them if they are below RM3/kg. This is RM5/2kg. Cannot resist, must buy. And you can choose from any of the three variant. I don't know the names, but I don't care. The last of the three, is a of course banana. I always have it at home. You never know, sometime you don't have anything to eat. So I eat the banana. These fruits are know to have special nutrients and good for you.

Some photos to share

Just sharing some photos of our NZ trip last November (2009).



Hope you enjoy it. Be a follower of this blog.

Dear QRAM (Qualitative Research Association of Malaysia)

We had our follow-up AGM today's morning, after the AGM on the 4th has to be postponed because of the quorum. However, only 8 turn up including me. Total proxies were 28. All together we have 35 maximum votes (1 of us was newly registered, Mr Peter Wong who came all the way from Kuala Terengganu, salute to him). I chaired the election process. Alhamdulillah everything when well even though with the small number of delegates, and the meeting was carried out accordingly following the constitution of QRAM (Pendaftar Pertubuhan, Sjil Bil. 1189, 2002). I was elected as the 2nd VP. Another new experiences to come for this next two years.

The great 8 of QRAM (10 April, 2010)

Location: UM City Campus, KL.

QRAM AGM 2010

From At QRAM meeting

We were unable to hold the Election (& AGM) due to insufficient quorum. There were only 20 members present.

From At QRAM meeting

We were fortunate to have Prof Sharan B Merriam and Prof Marohaini, who were there with us. We decided to have the AGM on the coming Saturday, 10th April at the Institute of Principalship, UM City Campus. All QRAM members are invited. Please come.
QRAM Website.

Prof Merriam is either an adjunct or a visiting Prof at UPM now.  She is with IPSAS.  She will be here 'till August 2010.  I think we, the qualitative research students, should take this opportunity of her presence here in Malaysia.  I regard her equally prominent with Prof Creswell, whose work are very much sited by qualitative research students.  Some might not agree with me but I think she's better.

From At QRAM meeting

Qualitative Research Association of Malaysia (QRAM)

Salam. May peace be upon you. I'm attending the QRAM lecture series at UPM (Institut Pengajian Sosial, IPSAS) this morning. QRAM will be having it Annual General Meeting and election today. I'm being invited to chair the election process. They also having a talk on Phenomenology by Dr Jamilah Othman from UPM and the second talk on Case Studies by Dr Shamsuddin Ahmad also from IPSAS.

Preparing the Mangosteen Juice

Check this site for a video and some references on the benefit of mangosteen.  
http://livingbyheart.tripod.com/xresearch/id71.html  Though, this site sound like an advertisement for the commercial product, I do found a lot of scientific research papers about this fruit.  Just google "mangosteen diabetic" for example with Google Scholar, you get hundreds of resources. 
Below are the slide show of the pictures in the process of making the juice from the fruit skin or the pericarp by me.


I'm not a good narrator, so I hope the pictures will help. What I did was just boil the pericarp (after eating the white sweet & sour inside part of the fruit) for about 2 hours. And, you know, the seed taste good too. Very crunchy. I ate them all.
After boiling, I left it for the night for the suspended particles to settle down. The juice was sieved then transferred into a bottle (not in the photos). (TBC)

About mangosteen

Dear friends,
I would like to share with you what I know and doing with this great fruit.

From Wikipedia, "The Purple Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), colloquially known simply as "the mangosteen", is a tropical evergreen tree, believed to have originated in the Sunda Islands and the Moluccas of Indonesia. The tree grows from 7 to 25 m (20–80 ft) tall. The rind (exocarp) of the edible fruit is deep reddish purple when ripe. Botanically an aril, the fragrant edible flesh can be described as sweet and tangy, citrusy with peach flavor and texture. "

I would add more information to this post in a few days. I'm taking this fruits for my diabetic alternative treatment. I'm a bad diabetic. I was introduce to this, by my uncle who was a fruit seller at Shah Alam. I'll share with you, how I make this fruit into my daily drinks. So, stay on.

First, this fruit is not cheap.  I just bought a kilo last nite for RM9.  I got hardly 12-15 small fruits for that.  If you really want to eat it and enjoy eating it, you need to find a tree.  There are many you can find in a malay kampong.  I use to climb this tree and eat the fruits right on the branches.  Really missed the time.  Last Saturday I bought 4 baby plants.  I'm planning to plant them somewhere, don't know where yet.

Reference from Wikipedia
1) Mangostin is a natural organic compound ...

Heal the World - MJ

The Earth Song - MJ

I'll be there

I love this song.

The meaning of LOVE to you

To love X (a person) is:
1) to care for X,
2) to protect X,
3) to do what is best for X (even if you have to leave X)
4) to remember X when X is away
5) to miss X when X is not around
6) hoping for the best for X (not you)
7) to make X happy even if it cost your happiness ('cause X happiness is your happiness even if your heart hurts very much)
8) .... (please add, dear friends)

As a muslim, loving any other muslim (male or female) is part of Islam. As they are your brothers & sisters in faith. Loving other human should be so too, as we are all children of the Prophet Adam & Great Mother Hawa. (TBC)

Almost 4 month, still adjusting

I have been hear at IAB for more than 3 month (almost 4). I feel that I'm well accepted at this "prestigious" place, where the future school leaders come for training, and the current school leaders come for their CPD. I do have some fairly important role I can play here, to improve the state of our public schools, through the school heads & principals. But I'm still exploring and sometime wondering if I'm in the right place (at the right time). This wasn't not my earlier plan I had for my career path. The traveling cost is also quite high (especially the toll). It is a totally new experience. I hope I can continue to grow and be wiser. I hope this place could satisfy my zeal for knowledge and action, with less politics.

Some of the sceneries we collected (Nov 2009)

In November 2009, we (my wife and I), spent the whole month in New Zealand. We manage to go to the South Island for 5 days. Here are some of the photos (scenery) that we captured. I created a blog for our trip.

My first class

This is my first class at IAB. I'm teaching than how to use Google Apps as collaborative technology for collaborative online editing. I'm team teaching in the Digital Editing in Case Study course.

March 3 & 4, 2010.

Check their work at http://sites.google.com/a/ilmu.iab.edu.my/digital-case-study/

Books I'm reading now.

I bought 3 books this month. 1) Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other powerfool Web Tools for Classrooms (Richardson, 2009: Corwin Press), 2) No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog (Margaret Mason, 2007: Peachpit Press), and 3) 10 Steps to Successful Training (Elaine Biech, 2009: ASTD Press). You might able to predict why I bought them. You can also check out the books at my online Google bookshelf (Reading Now). I'll share my reading with you shortly. So, I have spent about RM200+ this month for books.  How 'bout you?

Institut Aminuddin Baki, Ministry of Education Malaysia at Genting Highlands, Pahang.

My new working place, the Institut Aminuddin Baki (IAB), the national institute of education leadership & management of Malaysia. Under the Malaysian MOE, IAB is the only institution which trains the school leaders of Malaysia.

Click inside the frame above to view the larger picture in my Picasa web album.

I'm welcoming all head teachers who will be coming to IAB this year. See you all there.

Updating

Salam to all,
Just updating this blog. I see that my last post was on May 27, last year. Almost 10 months. Huh, am I writing this as an annual activity or what? May I should reflect on this blogging activity. "Why I'm doing it." I had deactivated my FB, a few weeks ago, for some reason, very personal reason that vary hard to share it with you out there. Maybe the FBs made blogging not as the top priorities for our web activity. That could be a reason for the low blogging activity. So, now with the FB temporary shut down, probably I have more time with this blog.