68th Annual Tournament Part 2

This morning Wan Huzaini and I are playing in the Gents Doubles Handicap 'A' section under the Lancaster, Morecambe and District Badminton League 68th Annual Tournament. It's a knock out format with a handicap system put in place. This means that every players will be given a handicap in form of points added or deducted and number of serves allowed each turn. For us, we were given a handicap of +5, meaning that we only need to get 10 more points to win a set. Our opponent is ranked first so their handicap is a whopping -8 and 1 serve. This means that they need to get 23 points before they can win a set and can only do so with only one serve each turn. So who do you think will win?

In the end we lost 10-15 and 12-15. Basically we managed to get 12 points from both sets, much better than what we did last Thursday when we got only 4 points. It was a good match and most of the audience are watching how we fight for every point. I guess somehow it's a good way to end this season by playing against the best players in the league.

Fooling around with Umi's glasses

Final standing in the league

So, it's official. We are moving one step higher in the Division Two of Lancaster and Morecambe Badminton League. Last year we were fourth, winning nine and losing nine. This time we managed to win 12 and losing only six. A much better performance I think, partly because Paul was available since the start of the season and there has not been much disruption to the team line-up, unlike last season. Congratulations to the Bailrigg B as well, since they managed to keep their place in the Division 3. Two years ago they got relegated from the same division and they have done well to remain there this time.

2007 standing

2008 standing

68th Annual Tournament

Wan Huzaini and I are participating in the Lancaster, Morecambe and District Badminton League 68th Annual Tournament. We registered for two categories, Gents Doubles Championship and Gents Doubles Handicap 'A'. The first category was held today and we were grouped in the Group 1 with three other doubles. We need to become a group winner or runners-up if we want to proceed to the semi final. In the end, we lost all our matches.

Considering that the other players hail from Division One, I do not have high hope of advancing to the next round but still hoping that we could win a set or two. Our first match was against one of the top seeded doubles (R Parkinson & C Foote) and we duly lost 4-15 and 1-15. In the second match we lost first set 5-15 to M Kearns & A Forrest but were leading 11-6 in the second set. However, they managed to overturn the deficit and won 15-12. Our last match is against another top seeded (B Stephenson & J Mitchell) and this time the defeat was the heaviest as we lost 0-15 and 4-15.

This Sunday morning we will play in other category and it's a knock out format. Since we are playing at the Morecambe College, the place of a car boot sale, I might as well bring my family along. We are scheduled to play in the quarter final and were given a handicap of +5, meaning that we will only need 10 more points to win the set. Our opponent are more likely to be a certain B Stephenson & J Mitchell and they were given a handicap of -8 1hd, meaning that they had to get 23 points to win a set and were given one serve per turn only. Given that we lost easily to them today, I don't expect them to have any problem of getting those 23 points with one serve. But then, who knows, we might get lucky this Sunday.

Karnival Sukan Lancaster 2008

Today is the big day for all Malaysian in the Lancaster as we are having our annual Sports Carnival. Last year we had badminton tournaments for men and ladies, men futsal and 'sukaneka' for kids. This time it is even bigger. We are having the usual 'sukaneka' for kids but the ladies will be competing in futsal and netball tournaments. As for the men, we are having a futsal tournament which includes participation from Islamic Society (2 teams), Chinese Society and University Central Lancashire Malaysian Students Society. We ourselves have two teams to compete in this tournament.

It is a bright but chilly morning and the carnival starts around 9am. I think everyone is enjoying themselves especially when around noon the snow started to fall down! As for the tournament results, the undergraduate ladies won both netball (12-0) and futsal (3-2) by beating their postgraduate sisters. As for the men, Malaysian A only managed to get third placing and Malaysian B in sixth placing. Islamic B won the futsal tournament by winning all their matches.

Afterwards, the undergraduate men asked for a futsal challenge with the postgraduate. Last year they lost 1-5 and they are confident of getting a revenge this time. However, two goals from Wan Huzaini and myself secured yet another victory for postgraduate team even when they managed to get one goal through Sean Chua. Try again next year, kids!

More pictures can be seen in here and here.

Upgrade Presentation

Today is the big day for me. That's what Professor Ken Peasnell has told me when I came accross him in the office corridor. Why? Apparently the office has circulated an e-mail inviting all lecturers and PhD students to attend my 'Upgrade Presentation' at 4pm today. What exactly is an upgrade presentation? Well, when you first registered in the first year, you are not exactly a PhD student. You are in fact an MPhil student and only through an upgrade presentation that you will be confirmed as a PhD student. If you fail this upgrade, you will be required to submit your thesis for an MPhil degree only. So it seems to be an important process towards getting your doctorate and usually this upgrade presentation is a presentation of your first research paper (you are required to complete three research papers for submission as a thesis towards your accounting doctorate programme). The problem is, I haven't got any complete paper yet since I haven't finish downloading all the data and thus no analysis has been done. So why an upgrade now?

It seems that the department are trying to make sure the student do an upgrade far earlier than previously done. Usually the upgrade is done when the student is in the end of the second year or beginning of the third year. In my case, since I have 17 hypotheses and 16 models to test, it will be more than six months before I can come up with a complete paper. Therefore, they think it is better for me to have some sort of proposal presentation to be followed up by an upgrade presentation when I have all the analysis and results. This way, I can get the academician feedback whether my research do contribute to the knowledge in accounting and what I'm going to do for the next six months will not be in vain.

The presentation was webcasted over the internet since our PhD director is currently in Greece and he need to watch me present my research ideas. There were about 15 people in the audience, mostly lecturers in accounting. And I think only two of them did not ask any questions and both of them are PhD students. In the end I got lots of useful feedback and comments which I will take into consideration when I'm starting my data collection and analysis.

A huge applause towards the end indicates that my presentation is a success and my research is a novel idea? Only time will tell, or in this case, in six months time.

Maisarah's Birthday Party

Lancaster Morecambe Badminton League - League Match Eighteen

The ceiling is ridiculously low though..

Tonight is the last match of the season and we are playing away against Bolton-le-Sands A, currently occupying second place in the league. We are currently at third place but any chance of changing place with them is none since they have far more superior points. Not that we fancy to be in the second place though, we would pretty much like to be as it is. Quite comfortable in the second division, in between win-at-all-cost division and easy-win division.

Paul and I started the men doubles as usual and although last time we managed to get a win, this time we only got a split of 12-15 and 15-10. Tim and I repeated what we've done in our previous meeting, we lost both sets. This time we lost 10-15 and 11-15. Brenda called in sick so Eddie got roped in the last minute. We managed to get split with 8-15 and 15-12. In the end we lost 5-13 overall, last time we met them we lost 6-12.

I think we are going to get 3rd placing in the league but Sunnyside C has not play their last match yet so I will put up the league standing once it is finalised.

Drawings by Ilyas

Ayah watching television

Lancaster Open Badminton 2008

Today is the annual badminton tournament organised by the Malaysians who play badminton regularly in Lancaster University. Last year it was participated among the Malaysians only. This time out of 12 players, 7 are Malaysians, 3 are British (2 of them are Chinese in origin) and 1 each from Indonesia and Oman. Last year the format was round robin but this year is a bit different due to a limited supply of shuttlecocks and time constraint. 6 doubles are squaring each other in the Qualifying Round and the winner for each match will be put in the Winners Pool and the losers will be put in the Losers Pool.

Players selection for each double partner and scheduling were done by a random draw. I got to be partnered with Owen Pryce. In the qualifying round we faced Sean Chua & Romzie Rosman (my neighbour) and we finally won in the rubber set 14-21, 21-13 and 21-12.

In the Winners Pool we managed to beat Steve Kong & Awa (my brother) in another rubber set 16-21, 21-15 and 21-9. Our last match is against Wan Huzaini & Wing. They already won both previous matches with straight sets so we know this is going to be a tough match. In the end we managed to beat them 21-11 and 21-18.

The winner of Losers Pool is Sean Chua & Romzie Rosman who managed to beat Khanif & Ali Al-Belushi 21-15, 18-21 and 21-12 and Jason & Don 21-17 and 21-17.

In the end it was a good tournament day for everyone.

Lancaster Morecambe Badminton League - League Match Seventeen

Tonight we are playing against Overton B at home. Last time we managed to beat them 11-7 at their home ground so we are quite confident of getting a win. On top of that Brenda has recovered from her injury so the team is back to its strongest lineup. And so we managed to chalk a 13-5 result.

Paul was late so I started with Tim first. We won first set 15-6 but lost narrowly 13-15 in the second although we were leading 13-8 at one time. The next match with Paul was also shaky in the first set when we lost 12-15 but we managed to recover in the second set and won 15-4. After that Brenda and I mercilessly beaten our opponent 15-7 and 15-3. Looks like she is back with a bang!