Confusion in PhD

Confusion always exists in PhD, but at different levels. For people who are fresh or they have a clear and well-defined problem statement, it would be easier. For me it was very tough because I changed my field unintentionally. My BS was software engineering, for MS I shifted to IT management and my Dissertation subject was about ERP Implementation in Steel Company. I wanted to continue my PhD in IT management as well. I applied for some American universities. However, Business is very competitive field in the US, especially at PhD level. My GMAT score was not that much high to compete with other candidates probably. Anyway, I did not have any other options but Malaysia. In Malaysia, after one year and half and changing a supervisor, the condition forced me to change the subject as well. Suddenly, I end up in Data Mining area! Because the new supervisor belonged to AI department! OMG, what am I doing here? It was late. However, there were not other way! If I wanted to move to another university, it was costly and time consuming process. Nevertheless, I liked this new area more than ERP that I was working on it before. So, I decided to learn everything from scratch. The most difficult part was that nobody was here to help me!

Sometime I get a headache. I have some papers that are speaking in advance level and I even do not know the terminology of the new area. It was a nightmare at the beginning. SVM? What is it? Threshold! OMG. It is very, very complicated sometimes. You think that you are a moron in the Neverhood. But, I am thankful that we are living in the world with the Internet. I should confess my teachers were the YouTube, Google and online courses. I do not know what did I do if there was no internet!

I do not know, maybe you that reading this post have such condition and you are in confusion. My advice as a person who was in high pressure and very long confusion is to use the Internet to teach yourself and be patient. I know sometime you are thinking of leaving the PhD and come back to your ex-life. However, I promise you, if you remain strong and patient, gradually this confusion will disappear. I agree it is very difficult, but all of us for a reason stared the PhD. Where there is a will, there is a way. Communicate with other scholar around the world, use the power of the cyber world. We can do it. I am sure.

We should be happy for who we are

Today I went to visit one of my friends. He is doing his PhD as well in KL. At the morning I met him in Yahoo Messenger and he asked what is my plan for today. Because today was a holiday, I decided to go to the swimming pool. He proposed me to join him and swim in their condo's pool. I thought it can be cool and accepted.

My friend was luckier than me and his supervisor had a well-defined proposal and he started to work with her with RA instantly. I always thought he was a fortunate guy. His PhD way was very smooth, he was a married guy and he had the chance to work in Singapore as well.

Finally, I get to his home. An old condo with long and dark vestibule. It reminded me the basement of Gestapo during the second world war that I had seen in the movies. With a row of opaque lights at the center. I saw someone at the end of the darkness is waving his hand. "Yeap it is here". His apartment was sweet apartment without bedroom and very dark. You could smell the dampness in the home clearly. Apparently, his wife had gone back to his homeland.

After a small conversation about the PhD situation, I felt he is not well that much. However, I did not take it seriously. We went to the pool and he said I do not feel well because last night I used a strong pill and after that I drunk alcohol. Last night I got optical illusion and I saw two kids. I was laughing at him. I could not believe him. After an hour we decided to go for launch. When he was wearing his clothes I felt he cannot keep his balance. Suddenly, he went to the kitchen and I heard that he is regurgitating. "OMG what happened?!" even he could not answer. I took a glass of water to him and leave him alone. I felt my presence can hurt his pride and maybe he does not like that I see him in this situation. He came out from the kitchen, but he was pale. Are you alright? Do you need help? Please rest...But he insisted that he is OK and it is because of alcohol. "Let's go out".

With his insists that he is OK, we left the house. On our way he was talking about Stephen Hopkins and his family problems that I saw he fell down on the street. I shocked! He was lucky that at that time we had a distance to the cars and they stopped. I took his arm and direct him to sit on the safety guard. In that time I really felt he is really sick. Still, he said :"I am alright. My foot twisted". However, I clearly saw he was dizzy and all his words about optical illusion was not a joke.

Finally, we got to the mall and eat our KFC. He continued his words and he kept asking some strange questions from me such as "What is your worst memory?". "What is the best for you in the world?",.. He gives some idea about psychology.. I asked about the pills that he had used and he indirectly answered that it was a drug for depression. I heard from a common friend that he is using the medicine. However, I did not have any idea what is his health problem. Usually, in such personal issues, I do not ask that many questions and try to be not curious. I do not like to penetrate into people's privacy and cause pain for them.

When I was going back to the home. During walking, I thought to all the today's incidents. I told myself. Never regret about others' lives. They have many big problems that they do not show to others. Just like an ice mountain, They only show the nice part of their lives to others. Be yourself and be happy. It was a big lesson for me. When I was watching the beautiful sunset in the KL sky, I was thinking how happy man I am...

Academic Discrimination in Malaysia

A few days ago my Iraqi housemate told me about Student Discount Card at Malaysia. It seems that they launched this card for student to live easier during their studying. He had heard this news from his Malaysian classmates. The card gives 60% discount for some services and food. 25% discount for domestic flights and many other useful discounts. I become happy because we thought finally after long time Malaysia has decided to give some facilities to students like other countries. They called it KADS1M.

The day after this news all student got an email in Malay language about this card. It was strange for me why they sent an important email like this in Malay?! In the email it was mentioned that for receiving card please go to your faculty. I was at lab and I went to counter. Yes, Students were collecting their cards. I become happy again and I said yes It was a true news and they did finally noticed to students' life. I stood up at queue. When it becomes my turn she told me are you Malaysian citizen?! I replied No I am not. She told me "We are sorry. This card is only for Malaysian Citizens!". OMG, Why? We are not student here?! She did not have any response. 

It was one another sample of distinction in Malaysia and especially in academic places. Every country has some programs for supporting students because students do not have any job and are weaker than other cast in society. So, when you launch this program why you separate international student from it?! International students in Malaysia are paying double or even more tuition fee. Most of RA and TA positions belong to Malaysians. International students have been promoting Malaysian ranking universities in the world with publishing ISI papers even in some cases with force. But now they assign facilities only to Malaysian citizen.Is it fair? 

These behavior shows still Malaysia is developing countries and do not want to exit from third world. 

Difficulties to Be Iranian Citizen

It is not clear what's going on at Iran economy. During one month Iranian currency lost 25% its power again. It had lost 50% its worth last year. But it was shocking news for Iranian Students which are studying abroad and they have to pay their living cost in foreign currencies. Unfortunately, my money is only enough for this year. If the condition become worst which is not unlikely, because of corrupted Iranian government and  its  sucking regime, I should leave Malaysia forever and go back to Iran. It is very sad when you are living in a rich country from every points of views and because of a rotten ideology all the world should contempt you. ( It is very painful when your nationality make a lot of problem for you. Going back to Iran is also a disaster for many Iranian students. There is no job opportunities over there and inflation rate is horrible. I really I do not know what should I do?! I wish I were citizen of a developed and stable country. I wish there were more hopes to feature. As an Iranian you should live in fear everyday. Under the shade of War. We are afraid of tomorrow because we do not know if we have today's facility or not?! We do not know again Islamic Regime wants to act against who and attack to which embassy?! 

I want a free Domain

Ok, we assume that you have created a website with PHP, MySQL or even with Joomla or pure HTML. You need a domain for example www.sample.com. Usually for having a domain with popular postfix like .com, .net, .org and etc you should pay money for renting these domain for one year or more. If you are going to launch a business website, so you should pay and buy it. Nevertheless, for personal usage or academic usage domain name is not a big deal. When you use from a host service actually that host assign you a free domain name. But these names are not very short and remembering them is difficult for your audiences. For instance www.tobacco.webhostfree.com. So, what is the solution? Fortunately, there are some domain that are free and short. Today I want to introduce one of them to you.

If you are looking for a free and short domain and you want your domain address be just similar to commercial website, you can use Dot TK. With free service of this domain you will have something like this: www.yourwebsite.tk. It is nice, isn't it? The process of membership is very easy and straightforward. Just go to www.dot.tk and register and select a meaningful name for your domain address. You will have this domain at last for one year free. During this time you can be sure if you are successful person in cyber world or not. Do you want to continue your activity here or not? Does it worth to invest on a website or not? 

Do not forget to change the host name of your domain to your host. If you do not do that. Your domain address is not connected to your server and cannot load your website to the browser. Check your host and look for Host name or IP address. Then modify your domain address and change your host name address to something that you have. That is it. Congratulation for your new and nice Domain name. Be successful in cyber world.

If you need Dot TK just click on below banner. Thanks.

My Online Card Sorting Is Ready

It is around two weeks which I working to make my online survey. As you knew there is no free option for doing online survey especially with card sorting technique. So, I decided to design it with PHP and MySQL. It was very interesting and enjoyable activity to build it myself. I love DIY.  You can take a look at it and feel how it will be if you make your card sorting survey yourself.

Absolutely, It worth to do it. However, at least you should have some background in HTML, programming and database designing. Another requirements are PHP, Javascript, Jquery, CSS. If you have these capabilities and you want to build your online card sorting website, you can do it quickly and easily.

Now I am looking for free host and domain. If you know a good one which support PHP, Apachi and MySql version 5 and above please let me to know. Thanks a lot.

Crisis for Iranian Currency (Rials)

It is about one year that I am in Malaysia as a student. When I headed to Malaysia at Iran 1 USD worthed 16500 Iranian Rial (IRR). That time you could buy USD anywhere in this price. It was not good but was reasonable at least. With deteriorating Iranian Nuclear Case in UN and starting UN and US sanctions against Iran, everyday Iranian currency lose its worth more and more. With increasing US dollar worth, government to show all the things are usual and sanctions does not work against Iran and also in order to preventing increasing basic goods' price kept reference US dollar rate identical. However, buying USD with this price was impossible for ordinary people and especially students. They have to buy USD from black market with higher fee and this fee was increasing everyday and it fluctuated a lot in some period. 

Fluctuating Iranian Currency between 2011-2102 in front of USD

In other hand, for a long time passengers who wanted to travel abroad had a allowance to buy USD with governmental price. It was the only hope of many Iranian students who studied abroad to prepare their needs. That amount was not outstanding but they did not have any another choice. 2000$ for every passenger. However, after a while jabbers came and abused from this law. They booked for trip to some countries like Georgia, Armenia, UAE and Turkey to earn Dollar and sell it in black Market. Everyday the gap between IRR and USD was increasing and jabbers become more greedy. Government did not have any plan and instead to negotiate with world powers and solve the problem start to change the laws. At first they announced every passenger can get this allowance once in a year. Two month later national TV reported that these allowance will be different for different countries. Asian countries only 400$. And finally they removed this law and Parliament claimed that with removing this law we saved a lot of money which was escaping. None of them did not even think to Iranian students who study abroad and they need foreign currency.

After one year Iranian currency has lost half of its price and now 1 USD equals 2160 IRR. Price of most of goods in Iran has increased. Based on national news papers we had 40% inflation. What a awful economy and foreign policy. Now no one can dare to buy Iranian Oil and people around the world think we are very rich. Because they heard Iran has oil. Nevertheless, they do not know what a bad position we have now. Most of Iran's worth use for supporting US enemy by government and fighting with west. It is not ridiculous?! Every country should notice to its national benefits not others. Now Iranian neighbors are very happy because of our foolish policy and take advantage of it. Turkey sell a lot of gold to Iran. Pakistan wants free Oil and Gas from Iran. India pay its dept with its worthless Rupee and rubbish products. It really worth to be enemy of US and west without any reasonable reason and pay these expenditures? Iranian people does not have any problem with west and US. Even many of them love US people. 

Price of IRR in front of USD in recent weeks

As a student I should fasten my belt and make it firmer everyday. Having student life is difficult enough but we should tolerate this also. :(