Busy is good

It's a very busy period for us at Yayasan Ilmuwan. Being busy is actually good, especially for private organisations like us. Being busy means there is business to take care of.

The project team looking at the Japanese Associate Degree (JAD) programme under the Program Khidmat Sokongan Pendidikan (PKSP) headed by my colleague, Encik Mazilan, is busy preparing the fourth quarter and annual reports. The deadline for the respective education consultants to submit their report to Encik Mazilan is this coming Monday.

I am not involved with the project directly, but I have my plate full as it is. I am currently co-ordinating the publication, research, conference and training activities, aside from the usual administrative stuff.

Currently we are working on ten titles to be published in the first quarter of 2009. Two books are in the layout process, one is being edited while the remaining manuscripts are being readied for editing process. Come April 2009, when Malaysia's biggest book fair - the Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair - is slated to be held, we should have at least ten titles, if not more. It's quite a tall order but I cherish the challenge this presents.

We are also finalising our plans to offer courses next year. As it is, we have identified ten core courses to be held at the Yayasan's premises, while at the same time, we would also entertain requests from organisations or companies to have in-house courses to cater for their needs.

Yesterday, I also had a fruitful discussion with my supervisor who is also the Director of Universiti Malaya's Centre for Civilisational Dialogue, Professor Datin Dr Azizan Baharuddin. While still at the initial planning stage, we will be co-organising two conferences in 2009.

Alhamdulillah, I am very pleased with all these developments. There are more, but I won't bore anyone with the details. Just keep your eyes peeled to this blog when new books come out or when there are courses or conferences organised.

I am definitely eagerly looking forward to 2009.