Looking Back

2 years on, with 1 year anniversary of no access to university building due to the earthquake.

I must have achieved something within these 2 years...if not i may have wasted all the time and money spent.
I need to list down the new skills that I acquired, at least in term of computer software skills that I have sort of mastered...
So let's see what software they are
1. Microsoft Word: I thought I knew it all, but how wrong am I
2. Microsoft Excel: am loving it each day, seeing its capability
3. FileMaker Pro: learnt it from scratch, developed 3 databases, alhamdulillah I am comfortable with it
4. GraphPad Prism: this produces excellent graph. Still learning ways to manouvre it to produce some theoretical graphs.
5. Omnigraffle: this produces excellent flow charts and diagrams
6. SPSS: again thought I knew it all, but how wrong am I. Easily produce several statistical analysis, but the graph is poor.
7. EndNote: still using this as my main bibliography rather than using papers2 because of my library that already has about 1000 papers, but this does not mean I have read it all
8. Papers: am loving this each day, especially for its capability to sync with my iPad
9. Dropbox: since the earthquake, I have started using this extensively...still remember that is the first item I grabbed before evacuating our building was my pen drive, can't imagine if I have lost it...hence, since that I have been using Dropbox extensively.
10. MatLab: another powerful statistical software that I would like to master, am still learning it. InsyaAllah. Probably LabView if time permits.

Not bad eh.....alhamdulillah...but the most important skills that I have yet, and still continuing to grasp include:
(1) research thinking: abstract thinking...to question everything, and not to just accept everything at its face value.
(2) soft skill: how to interact with your supervisor, colleagues, clinicians, nurses, patients, relatives, lab personnel, university personnel
(3) laboratory skill: very minimal, but I have learnt how to set up clinical trial, and how to run it smoothly
(4) writing skill: have learnt a lot from my supervisors
(5) presentation skill: 7 to 8 presentations within these 2 years
(6) statistical analysis skill: again learnt a lot from my supervisors
(7) time management skill: this one I think, I failed miserably...especially after working from home, but thinking back not sure if I am effective when working from office a year back...

But what I missed? CLINICAL skill.....hope to relearn back after I got back...but considering all the above, this is minimal price to pay....once an anaesthetist, will always be an anaesthetist...hope my 10 years experience doing anesthesia will help, amen

Apart from the above, I have also gained the opportunity to learn more about Islam, to be more aware about my religion.
I have been blessed by Allah with the opportunity to attend the Quranic Tafseer class, the Quranic tajweed class, and interact with few religious people to gain more knowledge about Islam, alhamdulillah. Khadijah also got to attend hafazan class, she had already memorized 24 surahs within these 3 months time. She has also acquired love for reading, and accumulates lots of book, especially her Stilton series books....alhamdulillah ya Allah. You have shown me that this is the best pathway for me, forgive me if there's any elements of doubt within myself....