I am in a week towards the end of submission for my journal article. It’s a few pages work. I am so anxious to start. I came up with a structure, but haven’t really start writing anything on it yet. People suggested me to use Quillbot. I never used one. Might check it out in a few minutes.
I am so not ready to do anything today, but guess I need to start slowly. My house is in a mess, I haven’t eaten lunch, it’s almost dinner time. I don’t feel like eating, but I should. So what’s my strategy now?
Normally, I would just write everything on my mind. Or I could summarise what I have written for my proposal. Copy and paste here and there and touch up later. I really need to work on a timeline for this.
Saturday – Sunday: Rough draft, just keep some contents in. Target page count, check on format
Monday: Refine and feedback from lecturers – iterate until Friday
Friday: Formatting check and submission
Ok, this could work. Now let’s have something to eat. I have got my coffee already. Screw him, let’s get back to work.
As I write, it’s almost 2 am, just submitted my set of questionnaire for my research to my supervisors and had to power through to prepare for tomorrow’s BodyPump class. Yet to apply for ethical committee approval to collect data, but I’m hoping to get it done in a week from now.
Next up is to write couple of journal articles, starting with conceptual paper. I’m so excited to start on this one. I hope I can manage to get it done on time. Honestly so struggled to do it all, but compared with my condition last year, I’m at better odds to get things going.
Be grateful for what I have and had done and focus on facing the present while preparing for the future. Now, time to sleep. I hope I can remember my chorey for tomorrow’s class.
Finally the dreaded day has come! Most of my preparations were ready with the help of my supervisors. It was not 100%, but I felt that what I did was good enough.
I was late probably 30 minutes later than what I originally planned. Managed to tweak a bit my presentation slides in the morning, where I deemed appropriate. My wardrobe planning were done yesterday and I had everything ready the night before. Wardrobe planning is so important to me, that I would not risk it for the last minute throw as it could end up not right the first time, and I would waste times to find what will fit; then I would be late and other disasters would follow. Talking about neuroticism, but I accept myself this way.
I was happy with how I looked and my makeup was alright! My car took a bit more time to warm up, but I just waited patiently knowing I will arrive on time (30 minutes later than what I had planned).
I tried to stay calm throughout my journey to the uni, reassuring myself that I had done enough preparation for it. Whatever happens, I’ll just need to catch up and do my corrections. It’s all in God’s hand.
I arrived 15 minutes early. Set up my laptop, presentation slides with the projector and basically got myself ready and made sure that I was within the right mindset.
The presentation went smoothly as per my usual practice mock DRP. It was a lot better and smoother than what I had expected. Got a lot of feedbacks and questions from the examiners and everyone present. After I finished answering and clarified what was asked, I was asked to stay outside with my supervisors as the panel were discussing among themselves on my results.
Had a little chat with my supervisors while waiting for the results. When we were called in I was calm, maybe because I fought and waited so long for this day. The chairperson explained to me all the passing ranks and the justifications. Finally, he announced that I passed with rank 2! Hooray!! Very minimal correction and only my supervisors will endorse the corrections after that. We were all so pleased with the results. We were then given the opportunity to speak a few words and I was so happy and expressed my gratitude and appreciation for everyone involved especially towards my supervisors.
What I took from the session was, I did a good job together with my supervisors at research. According to the panels, my research is in line or at par with PhD level, for it’s prospective contribution not only for the industry, but also for the body of knowledge. Secondly, practice and hard work seldom come irreciprocated. Third, when I disagree with something, often I just need to express it and ask for help on how win win situation could be created with related parties. Finally, I was just so pleased because all of this was the fruition of my authentic intention and beliefs. I also could not do it without the support and understanding of my parents.
I would also like to stress that understanding my interests and my awareness of my behaviours my motivators, though it’s hard work and resulting from years of exploration – doing something that is aligned with myself will never feel like a burden; but rather something that I would be gladly and willingly fight for.
So, my DRP is finally happening and will be conducted on 4th August 2023. I am so excited, but also now really need to focus on touching up my proposal and presentation plan to be in sync with my supervisors. List of things to do from here on:
Finish adding citations and check references
Formatting
Check my grammar
Presentation slides adjustments
Mock DRP presentation with my supervisors
My own timeline prior to make the above list happens
This week, laser focus on this one and assignments. May God help me in completing this one.
Oh my God! I’m supposed to submit a draft early morning today. Not tomorrow.
Well I really do my best, if only people know how hard I am trying. I feel guilty though, but I’m not gonna beat myself up cause I really did everything I needed to prepare myself to write today.
This weekend I spent a lot of my time for activities involving my DBA studies.
Had my 4th presentation on my DBA research proposal, that I do not have any fear to talk about it to anyone (hopefully) at all. The more I present and received feedback from lecturers, the clearer I get on what are the challenges to do it; and how can I improve the research. My confidence also grew a lot. The lecturers and my peers had warned me that the actual defense session is going to be brutal. I do not yet feel threatened or stressed out by it, but I have still to prepare myself for what can happen.
Explaining my literature review leading to research framework
I did the presentation in the midst of class learning about PLS-SEM, but glad that I managed to catch up what was it all about after missing about one and a half hours of lecture and demonstration.
I feel the time is just right. Had I presented my proposal before I have the slightest idea what PLS is all about, I might be fried and burnt down to ashes, if methodology is asked out of me. The more I just let things flow and not stressing over it, the more convinced I am that Allah has everything laid out for me. I just need to do my best in my capacity and with the help of others around me.
All of us DBA classmates minus one, with Dr Chua and her husband
We also had a nice dinner last night at a native cuisine restaurant at Hotel No. 5. It was a nice and chill hang out with my classmates and the lecturer. I don’t really know what was nice about it. The whole experience, the company, our dynamic conversations that really made the night, I guess. We spent for a whole 2 hours there, but it felt longer that time.
At this point of time, I really am feeling that I am together with my tribe – people who are more like me; and less like the people who I tried so hard to belong to. I feel like I have really grown and upgraded; and I am so pleased with myself. Thank you Allah for all the experiences you sent my way. And for my mom, for being there for me in the toughest of times.
Oh my God, I have 126 papers to organise into LR matrix to help me with research references. Tonight I did the matrices for Technology Readiness Index and Technology Adoption Model.
Scary thing is, I feel like my references are not enough. But of course I did find a major discovery that I could use in my research argument.
For example, as the case with TAM, apparently some literature proved that not both indicators – Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived of Usefulness, are statistically significant towards intention to use a new technology. In a marketing research by Muk & Chung (2014) showed that in Korea, perception of usefulness is more important than perception of ease of use, which are different than the targeted samples from the United States. Similarly, a research by Jimenez et al (2021) showed the same towards intention to adopt AI applications in agriculture industry. Interestingly, findings by Mohr & Kuhl showed that perception of ease of use is more significant than perception of usefulness in adopting new technology in agriculture. I see the pattern here, that, young and technology adept population favour ease of usefulness over their perception of usefulness in order to use a new technology; while Easterners or less savvy tech users put more importance on whether the new technology is useful for them or not.
These are from just a few applied papers that I have read. Perhaps I could form an argument here, given that they value usefulness over ease of use, users are likely to use the new technology if they can be convinced that the new technology supports the farmers ambidextrous attitude and ambition towards managing their farms with AI technology.
I need to find more paper and evidence on integrating TAM and TRI to form TRAM. I have read a few, but not sure why there is only one paper in that reference folder now. Tomorrow, I will find more paper on TRI in agriculture sector or AI adoption, and then find evidence on entrepreneurship and ambidexterity among farmers relate with propensity to adopt new technology. One more paper to review and I call it a night!
Third semester in on my DBA journey. Still do not get the hang of writing consistently. I managed to come up with a draft for my research proposal. However, it is still lacking of stuffs like structure, evidence and further idea synthesis.
My goal is to finalise my proposal by this week (9 -15 July 2023) so that I could be cleared for research defense session by end of the month. I used to have Trello laid out to track my progress, it might be organised but highly tedious for me. So, let’s try another approach.
I’m gonna publish a list here for me to complete by this month, and update what I do as I progress along.
So it has been a while that I have since written anything here. I am feeling productive today in the midst of writing my proposal report for my DBA thesis.
I am beyond grateful for this opportunity to upgrade my knowledge as well as adding depth to my information technology and research skills.
The topics that I am interested the most is about income equality, new technology implementation, innovation, entrepreneurship and strategic planning.
Please pray that everything goes smoothly and that I will be able to graduate on time!
