The Rotarians Visit - May 2006

Posted at 12:15 AM, Saturday, September 19, 2009

I started to write this entry on May 25, 2006 ---- way back when the Rotarians came to visit us at AUN (called AAUN back then). The only reason the entry was so delayed was because I have been waiting to get some pictures from the PR (Public Relations) office ever since. Since I couldn't get any pictures, I decided to add the entry anyways. The reason why I'm not scraping the entry altogether is that that day I had read this wonderful story called "The Penny". I had received the story as a forwarded messgae in my email from a friend. Here's the what I had in my email:

We went to the university club and had lunch with the Rotarians that day. It was a lovely day, I still remember the clouds. That was the first time I visited the faculty club and got to taste the food there! I liked it, but not too much. We also had a tour of the yet-to-be-built south campus (permanent campus). I talked to them mainly about the US and particularly Tennessee, from what I recall. Anyways, it was nice meeting them especially cos I got the penny from them. It was then that I realized that God was speaking to me..... and He still is today as I write this entry seated in my dormitory in South Korea. I was worrying about so much these past few days, but now I know that I trust Him completely. The inscripton on the penny is truly awesome - "In God We Trust"

AUNHS - AUN Honors Society

Posted at 3:40 PM, Tuesday, July 7, 2009

We started a new club in AUN called the American University of Nigeria’s Honors Society (AUNHS). The criterion for selecting student members was CGPA of 3.3 and above, and completion of a certain number of credit hours. I and all my siblings were also invited to join the club. The first meeting was held in early October, 2007 (that's when I started writing this entry!) Professors in attendance were from the three different schools and the three deans were also present. Well, the meeting was spent familiarizing everyone with the purpose of the club, and discussing why someone would want to join the club. At the end we decided to meet twice again the coming week to finalize the constitution and select the executive members.

As agreed, we met next week and were able to finalize the constitution and select the executive committee. The president’s position was given to Dean Norman Wright! I was really happy cos I wanted him to win. It was a secret ballot, and we were voting for either Hamman or Dean Wright. So we (me and siblings, including Hamman) voted for him! The position of the Vice president was give to Hamman Samuel (yes! This time we all voted for Hamman). Patricia Akubo won the most votes for the position of Secretary, and Adunni Rufai was voted the Treasurer. There are different member types that constitute the society. These are the charter members, members in course, honorary members, and associate members. Of course, over the years there have been new elections and new members to take the positions in the executive committee. Somewhere along the line we as a society decided it was in our best interest to have students run the society so consequent executives after 2/3 terms were all students. I think last semester, the president of the society was Temitope, the vice was Heriju, the secretary was Omasiri, and Bimbo was the treasurer. Anyways, I, Hamman, Nousheen, Omasiri and Nayyara were elected to form the website committee. There were lots of other committees created by the society such as a tutoring committee, events committee, movie nights committee etc

There were also numerous event organized by the AUNHS - Dr. Korie Handweger made all the arrangements for the first few events (from what I recall). We also had an event where Patrick Okata (a board member) gave a speech. Like earlier events, this also was really good. And like the earlier events also, I wasn’t able to attend. This time I had a mid-term in History of Art, and I couldn’t afford to get a low score on that. So I decided to forfeit the speech . BTW, when I was writing this entry back in October, 2007, I wrote this:

"Speaking of board members, I just read from a newsletter that Desmund Tutu has joined the board of Directors for AUN! Isn’t that amazing? I’m grateful to God that we have very distinguished dignitaries in out board of directors - (Written on Oct 30, 07)"

There were other events organized by the society in one of which we were to have poet from Ghana come over. The event that I got to attend was the career counseling - it was a really good event. Lots of professors from all the schools were present. The event was organized basically for seniors and juniors to better equip them for their future endeavors. Some sophomores also attended. There were two meetings in the event - the first was among facutly and students in the same school (e.g. SITC held its meeting and dicussed careers in IT and professors addressed any questions students from SITC had), and the second was a meeting with everyone from all schools present. The second meeting was kinda funny cos professors and deans from the schools started competing with each other, haha. Dr. Smith (dean of SBE) said that "if you want to make money you should join the school of business and enterpreneurship" to which Bill Hansen (representing the dean of SAS) reacted "if you want be an intellectual you ought to join the school of arts and sciences". Dr. Kah being the last of the deans to speak said "if you want to make money and become an intellectual, you have to join the school of IT and communications". Really funny seeing all of them trying to get attention from the students. The event was fun and I'm glad I attended it . Dr. Fonkam and Patricia organized it very nicely.

Ok then, here are some random pictures from various Honors Society meetings, mostly from the AUNHS Awards Night and Career Counseling. The Awards Night was organized for all graduating seniors that were part of the AUNHS members. Outstanding graduating seniors were recognized during the event - awards given included graduating class valedictorian, students with 2nd and 3rd highest CGPAs, service awards, contributions awards, etc. It was a really cool event - the venue was the faculty club and the food was totally delicious! Well, enjoy the pics! I'll write about graduation and other awards nights in one of my later entries.

Seniors at the AUNHS Awards Night (Left) --- Bill Hansen, Mohammed Sani, & Adi Bongo at Career Event (Right)

Oma at Awards Night (Left) --- Temitope & Judith being awarded by David Kosoko (DSA) at Awards Night (Right)

Nayyara being awarded by DSA at Awards Night (Left) --- Me, Saima, & Nousheen at Career Event (Right)

Me being awarded by DSA at Awards Night (Left) --- Nayyara and Sam at a General Meeting (Right)

Nayyara, Oma, & Frank Azeke at Career Event (Left) --- Hamman speaking at Awards Night (Right)

Hamman being awarded by DSA at Awards Night (Left) --- SITC Faculty & Students at Career Event (Right)

Field Trip with Dr. Odinma and Victor

Posted at 12:40 PM, Monday, July 6, 2009

This entry was supposed to have been posted on 25th August, 2008, but unfortunately it wasn't. Anyways, the field trip was organized by Dr. Odinma for the INF 252 course (Telecoms and Data Networks). The aim of the trip was to show us how various networks across the AUN campuses and AUN housings are connected. We visited the server rooms of the university as well as control rooms in the faculty housing and dorms. The trip was meant to help us do our course projects - I and my team were assigned to study the AUN MAN. Victor (the IT director) was our "tour guide" -- he explained all the technical stuff and answered any questions we had. It was by far the best field trip I've had at AUN (have had about 3-4 others). Here are some pics from the trip - enjoy!

Victor & Dr. Odinma at 16 Flats Faculty Housing (Left) ----- Server room in the Girls' Dormintory (Right)

Students on top of the roof at 16 Flats Faculty Housing (Left) ----- Main Satelitte of AUN on South Campus (Right)

Dr. Odinma and the studnets touring in bus (Left) ----- Outside the AUN President's house with Victor (Right)

Victor explaining design of connections at the Girls' Dorm (Left) ----- Outside the server room on the South Campus (Right)

Spelling Bee!!!

Posted at 4:20 PM, Thursday, May 21, 2009

AUN had a spelling competition as part of the founder day's activities for fall 08. Close to 12 teams participated made of 5 members each. I also took part in the contest - Hymenopterons (my team's title) was made up of Nino, me, Hamman, Omorx, and Wisdom. A very strong group, or so most people who met us remarked. The contest was fun! Professor Pavlik was in charge and the aim was to raise funds for the library project. We had lots of judges too. I personally didn't practice too much cos I was participating for fun. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of the competition. The founder and president also attended the contest. It was scary standing on stage and trying to spell out words! Thank God everything went well and I didn't get out in the first round! I got the word 'longevity' wrong. You won't believe it but I had never head the word before :-)

There were supposed to be two winners - one who scored the most points, and one who raised the most money. The money was to go to charity for the library project (like I mentioned a few lines back). Praise God my team managed to raise the most money! I think the Dictionary Dudes got the highest score. There was also an individual winner who would win an iPod nano. I can't remember the name of the person who won the contest but he was part of the Dictionary Dudes. We also had a dinner at the president's house as part of our reward. The winning teams were invited and the faculty was actually serving us! I would say the contest was the thing I enjoyed most and I must congratulate Cheryl Pavlik for doing such a wonderful job and for giving us students something really fun to do!

A Miracle-Filled Semester

Posted at 6:30 PM, Thursday, January 29, 2009

I'm truly amazed I got such a wonderful result this semester! Thank You Jesus!Thank You sooooooooooo much!!! I had been praying earnestly for an A in Database Security and Auditing, and in Systems Dynamics. Praise God I actually got an A in all my courses!!! It's amazing how God answers prayers, even of those that are unworthy- thank You Father!!! So it was the THIRD miracle! I knew it! I'm waiting for more and more that are yet to come........

This semester I enrolled for just 4 courses and surprisingly, I found it harder than usual to cope with classes. I guess I was being lazy. Anyways, all courses turned out to be good - the Systems Dynamics course was particularly fascinating. Database Security and Auditing turned out to be the most pragmatic course I've ever done. I think I learnt more in this course than in any other course, something I did not expect. I got to develop a prototype of an e-commerce site in my Web-driven database course. Better still, we all got pizza's at the end of the semester!!! Western civilization turned out much easier than I anticipated - thank God I was able to write a good reflection paper in the course.

So much for courses, I want to be abap (as brief as possible) about courses this time around. The new and final semester has started. I'm taking 4 courses again - Senoir Design Project with a new professor, IT for Development with Dr. Bollou, Technical Report Writing with Dr. Ume, and I'm retaking Project Management with Dr. Quaye. I truely love the way all of these professors teach these courses! Actually I didn't know any of these courses could be as exciting as each of these professors have made them. I'm not very clear on the capstone project I'll be doing but I think I'll be working with Dr. Grakhov. The semester looks like a lot of fun, I only hope things turn out well, God willing. Can't wait to graduate, hahaha!

The Third Miracle

Posted at 1:05 PM, Monday, December 22, 2008

Like I've already mentioned in my 2 recent entries, two miracles occured in a row (Praise Jesus), the third incident that happend actually had to do with my courses. It was time to write my mid-term for INF 353 (Database Security and Auditing). I'd been revising whole week. I don't think I spent so much time studying any other course - almost 4 hours each day. Looking at exam questions I thought to myself "piece of cake". All of us (me and my mates) thought we'd do well and score high on this one........reality turned out to be different....

The professor handed us our papers back - I scored 15, "hmm, not bad" Patricia got 16 and Oma got 11. I thought my score was good enough until Patricia told me it was out of 20. "What? That means I scorred only 75% on the Midterm! And midterm is 20% of overall grade!!! How come?" We all felt sad and decided to go and ask the prof about his marking scheme. We didn't gain much by doing that. In the end, we felt very much discouraged and sad cos we weren't sure if we'd make an A or even an A- in the course. I couldn't help but wonder,  "could this be a third miracle? Oh Jesus, please let it be!!!!"

I haven't been told my grade in the course yet, God willing it will be good as always.......

The Second Miracle

Posted at 6:35 PM, Wednesday, December 3, 2008

This is what happened a few days after I had my motherboard replaced [just the way it was in my head]

On Friday.......

Woa, I can't believe my laptop is finally working fine! Thank You Jesus! I Love You! Even my USB ports must be working now!!! Unbelievable! Let me connect my iPod nano and check ...... Woa, still can't believe it. Hmmm, what's this New Folder? Maybe someone created it, anyways, let me see if I can view the pics...... what's this? Why is everything stuck? Wait! {I unplug the iPod immediately} Why is my anti-virus disabled all of a sudden? Lord, what is this happening? I need help, where's Hamman? Jesus, why did this have to happen now when I just got my new motherboard? Oh Lord, please help me..........

"It's the same virus that has infected Saima's laptop" Hamman tells me when I show him what happened. What?! "It's running the Blank.exe and .JPG processes that you can't even end. Don't restart your PC, and quickly uninstall Yahoo messenger" "But I can't even open the ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS in control panel! This is bad! Why me? I said. Hamman says "Don't panic, we'll find something to fix it over the net" "But it won't even let me download - wait, I can download only with Download manager. Phew! Ok let me do that" I said. "Here are some links try them" says hamman as he sends me some links. "But you were working on this for Saima's laptop ever since, didn't you find anything for her uptil now?" I asked. "No, I'm still looking" and he goes downstairs to do some work of his, while I search for something to rid my laptop of the virus. {I find something and download it } Lord help me {When I get to Hamman he runs the new program but it doesn't help in any way so I begin to pester him to find something quick} "Please, I don't want the virus to spread" {but Hamman doesn't seem as eager or worried as I am} Why is Hamman not concerned about my laptop? He's busy helping someone else with their homework! It's not fair! I guess it was all my fault to have stupidly connected the iPod without reason {tears begin to fill my eyes, but I control them and decide to cry when I get home} I don't want to format my laptop, there's so much in there that I can't loose. Please Jesus help......

The next day ......

Today's a new day. Hmm, Father You didn't let me cry yesteday :-) Thank You Jesus, please let me find a solution to my problem today. Let me search the internet to find some solution...... One site has a forum where AVG is recommended to get rid of this virus. Hmm, Hamman would know better since he already knows all the details of the virus. "I think I've found something, start downloading it" Hamman tells me. "Lets go and get lunch and go for a little walk" says Saima. Ok, no problem, I think that'll help and the download will be finished by the time we get back. I have a feeling this might just be the answer. As we walk past the beautiful grass and watch the mountains and clouds I can't help but praise Jesus for everything that he has given us. My heart tells me that I ought to praise Him for His love. On our way back, I'm listening to the wonderful song "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever" by Women of Faith and all of a sudden I feel so glad that Jesus loves me, that He cares for all of us enough to take our sorrows upon Himself. Thank You Jesus. Hmmm, everything will be well - "what about your laptop? aren't you worried about it?" says a voice in my head. And my heart responds - "the LORD's will be done, everything will work out just fine" {When I get back to my laptop, the download's finished} Great! Let's see if this works.....Hamman and I run the AVG software scan and it is able to detect the virus!!! Amazing! Thank You Jesus for answering my prayer!!!! But maybe it can't remove it, lets wait and see........ "Click heal anytime it asks you about an infected file it has detected" Hamman tells me, and so I do as I am told. After a while multiple message windows start to pop-up saying unable to start some program. Hamman tells me to close them as fast as I can. It gets to the point that my system crashes because of the amount of message windows. I see a blue screen and it turns off. A blue screen? Why, what happened? Hamman says "Your system just crashed! Hahaha". What?! That's the first time it has happened. "I hope it's fine when it turns on" I told Hamman "Yes it will be, don't act like you are not an IT student" Hamman tells me. "I only hope the virus is gone now - why did it crash?" I asked  "The virus was probably trying to lauch a file that AVG had deleted so its very likely the virus is gone" Let's check.......It really is gone!!!! All the processes the virus was running are gone!!! Praise You LORD!!!! Thank You SOOOOOOOOO much! This means we can now correct Saima's laptop also! Wow! God really is wonderful!!!!

Saima's laptop had had the virus and we couldn't find anything to heal the laptop for a long time. Now we could try and get rid of the virus from her laptop as well!!! Not only did this experience make me praise God more, but it also helped me to rely more on Him for everything. That was the second miracle.

Two Miracles in a Row, Could this be the Third? [The First Miracle]

Posted at 1:45 PM, Monday, November 17, 2008

This is what I felt like a few weeks back and am writing as it was in my head at that moment....read on.....

It came to the point when I had to press my laptop very hard multiple times and turn in off/on before it booted. I felt really sad for the state of my motherboard; depressed actually. Let the LORD help me, I don't want a bad laptop. How will I tackle this problem in class? Then there's the problem of changing my domain still pending! How could Nino not have helped me now? Why did she go and have her domain account changed by Victor and not taken mine also with her? She should have known I couldn't take my laptop upstaris for fear that it might never boot. Yet, neither her nor Noshi helped me. I felt really upset now, how could I get on the domain? Maybe I should go talk to Victor about some permissions that needed to be set for the Finance staff on the Finance module, and with this also request him to change my domain account. That way I won't have to go upstairs....his office is on ground floor you see. What a brilliant idea! God willing, it'll work out fine.......

In Victor's Office.......

Now that I'm in Victor's office, he's soo busy correcting problems.....he has asked me not to talk till he is done with his work. It's 10 minutes since I came in and Victor shows no sign of finishing anytime soon. Mr Francis walks in, phew! Maybe he'll distract Victor so I can talk about Finance and my domain problem. Guess I was wrong, even he's been told to sush and wait. What's this? Is Victor getting ready to leave? "I'll be back in a minute" he says. Oh! He has to check on the server.....hmmmmm(sigh). When will he be back? Am getting late for my readings........A discussion on domain accounts with Mr. Francis starts and I voice my reluctance to take my laptop upstairs for fear that it might not boot. I also tell him about problems that others were having after changing his domain account. Mr. Francis tells me how to solve these problems. Wao! I didn't know it was ok and the problem could be solved so easily,........hmm "Can I bring my laptop for the domain thing to your office?" I asked, and he said sure, why not. He says I should come and check at his office tomorrow afternoon. Hmmm.... that's good , God wiling I'll get some good out of this. Can't stop thinking about my poor motherboard.....hmmm(sigh)

Next day.......

Let me just quickly check upstairs for Mr. Francis, if he's around then I can bring my laptop also......... "Which one of you (siblings) has problem with mother board?" he asks. I said mine was too bad now, the worst probably. He tells me he just got a very new motherboard from someone else's abandoned laptop. "There are other people in the queue".....but he's still giving it to me? How's that possible? Could this be true? "How much does it cost, and how do I make the payment".....he tells me I have to pay at finance and bring the receipt to him....."I don't have the money right now but I could call home and get it and make the payment today.....PLEASE don't give it to someone else, I'll make all payments today" I said. "No problem, you can pay tomorrow. Go and get your laptop so I can change the motherboard" What? Did I hear him correctly? I can have it changed without paying? Amazing!!! Praise the LORD!!!! "Thank you sooo much, let me go and get my laptop.....how much does it cost?" ........close to 21,000 naira. Who cares, that's not too much, thank God I have a new motherboard!!! I'll complete the payment process ASAP. Let me go downstairs and tell Nino or Mona.....but no, let me just go for the database course and I'll tell them after. Thank You Jesus!!!

That's the first miracle, Prasie GOD!!!

President's Barbecue Fall '08

Posted at 11:20 AM, Monday, August 25, 2008

I had a fabulous time! Tastey food and lovely people with fantastic speeches..... I enjoyed every bit of it. The event started with my good friend Judith's speech - she spoke about her experience as an abroad at AU exchange student, and when she mentioned that she actually shook Obama's hand there was a huge round of applause! The deans of each school (Dean Kah - SITC, Dean Smith - SBE, and Dean Laawal - SAS) and the DSA (Director of Student Affairs) gave a speech, as well as the SUG (Student Union Govt.) president Soji. Dr. Garofalo and President Smith also spoke at the barbecue. I loved Dr. Garofalo's speech best, but the others were just as wonderful. In any case, the food served after the speech was superb! We had chicken, rice, vegetable and fruit salad, and cake, with soft drinks. The quality of the food was really good. Hmm, I guess President Smith was somewhat correct in saying he was standing between us and the barbecue (in his speech) haha....just joking, actually I liked the speeches so much that I didn't even remember the food Thank God Hamman got to take pictures for me to post . I also gave an interview after the event not knowing which channel it was for. I found out after the interview that it was for  AIT! I hope my interview wasn't too bad cos I didn't really think while answering questions  Actually they intended to interview Judith, but they asked me to join the interview. It was cool actually .......

Elijah and Damian in the left photo & Judith giving her speech in the photo on the right

I feel that becasue of the presence of soo many new people and of course better planning, this orientation has been the best so far. The only hitch was that a lizard ended up in the Admissions check-in room! Haha! Mr. Edwin (one of the Admissions staff and a good friend) said that the poor thing had only come to register! It was really funny..... all the staff at admissions, and in fact, AUN is just soo friendly and funny. I'm having a great time, thank God! Another thing that I really liked about this orientation was that the Finance department got rid of some of the manual process - we (me and my siblings) developed a Finance Module for the Finance department to computerize some of their student records. You know, I just love to see automated and improved processes  I only pray registration is just as smooth. There will be some improvements in registration as well, but that's supposed to be a surprise so I can't mention it right now. At any rate, I sincerely thank Lord Jesus for everything.

I will talk about faculty and staff that left us this semester, and new ones arrived in one of my later entries. There's a whole lot of new faculty and staff that has arrived. And we have 2 exchange students from AU, Washington, and 2 visiting students. This semester looks promising......

This Summer

Posted at 10:20 AM, Friday, August 15, 2008

What a Semester! (Spring 2008)

Posted at 10:12 AM, Thursday, May 22, 2008

What a wonderful semester indeed! Thank you Jesus! I didn't expect to get such good grades in all courses esp Ethics and Leadership (PHI 300) and IS Security & Auditing (INF 351). You know when I started the semester, I never thought I could get such good grades  If you recall, I mentioned courses I'm taking this semester in one of my ealier entries. I also said I might drop the World Literature course if things got difficult. Well, I did drop the course cos I knew INF 351 and PHI 300 would take up all of my time; thank God, otherwise I might have ended up with lower grades  The other courses I took were Operations Management (QBA 202), Process Modeling and Solutions Blueprinting (INF 361), and Psychology (PSY 101). I had a personal and a group project in most of the courses plus lots of exercises, homeworks, quizes, and exams. Most of the time I had to stay up late (till 2:00am) or get up very early (3:00am) to finish a paper or read for some exam. There was a particular day when I didn't get to sleep throughout the night...It was quite stressful . But at any rate, God has been merciful and has granted me a very good GPA for the semester. I think I'll discuss what each course was like and let you see for yourself how Spring 2008 has been (I've decided to be brief about all my courses this time).

PHI 300 was a very good course and Dr. Osam Edim did a great job teaching it. Almost all the students I know liked his way of teaching, which is saying a lot as students generally like to complain about professors. We were each of us required to present a world leader of our choice; leaders ranged from Ben Carson, Alexandar, Nelson Mandella, to Bin Laden. I chose William Wilberforce; I think he is one of the finest people that I know, I really praise God for such people. Saima chose Susan B. Anthony and Nayyara chose Ben Gaurion. Hamman's taking the course Summer I and he's presenting Atiku Abubakar. Apart from individual presentations, we also did group presentations on failed leadership in different sectors of Nigeria. My group presented failed leadership in Nigerian Banks. We also wrote a mid-term and about 5 critical summaries of different articles including Bertrand Russell's Appearance & Reality and Michael E. Brown's Misconceptions of Ethical Leadership among others.  

PSY 101 was entertaining, really. A lot of concepts were very new to me. Dr. John Carroll also did a great job teaching it. Sometimes we watched presentations by other Psychology professors in other universities. I usually enjoyed that. I think I like everything about the course expcet Sigmend Freud's theory. But anyways, there were good concepts that I learned like I got to understand how psychologists think and view the world. We wrote about 5 exams in the course and did various exercises in class. I took the course as a free elective.

QBA 202 was very enlightening. Dr. Botchway's style of teaching was different from what it was in the previous semesters; I loved it! This time, we did a personal project on Peugeot Nigeria and a group project on Virign Nigeria. We were required to present details about the company, identify problems with operations, and recommed solutions as operations managers. We also wrote a midterm, a final, about 5 quizes, and did about 4 group exercises. All of this work made everything easier to understand. On the whole, I would rate the course with 5 stars!

INF 361 was also very enlightening. Dr. Bollou did not give us too much work in the course apart from one midterm, a few in-class exercises, and a personal project. We didn't cover as much as we should have which resulted in the personal projects not being very strong, but not bad either. However, we did learn a lot of new things in the course like cycle time analysis and capacity analysis among others. The course textbook was helpful in understanding everything. Some of the in-class exercises we did were very entertaining; I particularly like the business games that Dr. Bollou gives us in most courses.

And finally, INF 351 was a very important course cos it was the only course on security that I've taken. Dr. Kah gave us just as much work as he did last semester; however, he was not to strict on us. We wrote two exams and thankfully, I completed both exams in time. In fact I was the only one who completed the second exam within its time limit. Some students said the time given for the second exam was not enough, but praise God, I was able to finish. Apart from the exams, we wrote about 3 homeworks. We also did a personal paper and a group project. I wrote a paper on the Student Repository system (Samuels' Student Repository system) that we have developed for the university. The group project entailed carrying out a IT securiy audit of AUN! It was executed in a very nice way; the entire class was divided into 3 groups and each group was given part of AUN to study in different phases. The entire team got together for analysis and compilation of findings. I enjoyed it eventhough our group (me, Saima, Radiya, and Jennifer) did a lot of work, in fact more than any of the other teams (our team was assigned areas that required more work). Each one of the 3 groups submitted about 3 different reports, not to mention the 7 status reports, documented interviews, and other project management docs. And finally, a final report that was composed of the 3 reports and all the documents created in the course of the project (a 112 page document!). On the whole, I enjoyed the course. I had prepared my mind for a B+ this time cos I didn't want any negative surprises; however, I worked for an A. I can't thank God enough that I did eventually get an A.

So you see, it wasn't very easy, but praise God! I could never have gotten through with such good results! And look at my entry! Isn't it amazingly brief? I think I've acquired better summary skills after writing soo many summaries last semester haha!

PS - Just in case someone browsing this blog happens to need some information about work I completed (e.g. if you are researching on Wilberforce, or Virign Nigeria, or want to understand the Samuels' Student Repository system) you can email me and I'll send you some helpful info depending on what you request. You know when I was researching on Virigin Nigeria, I really needed to get information on the organizational structure of the company but couldn't find enough resources; I feel that the least I can do after going through that disappointing experiecnce is to make my work available so that it can be of help to someone.

My Most Difficult Semester Yet - Fall 2007

Posted at 12:36 PM, Monday, May 12, 2008

Fall 2007 was the most stressful semester yet. The ending was nothing like what I expected – I thought that I would not be able to get an A in my STA 301 course, but it turned out that the only course I could NOT get an A was IS Project Management! That came as a shock, really. At first I was very upset with my grade (B+) because I had worked very hard in this course, especially on the project. I mean I spent so much of my time on the project; I had to walk over to the Community school with my group members for interviews and what not. I even had to stay late at school or miss out lunch/dinner for the project. I even kept on bothering Dr. Sergey to set up the site on the server (he was really very helpful as always, he’s also one of my very fav. profs). The project was about developing a web portal for the Community School. We concluded the project successfully enough because the client (Dr. Elspeth Smith – Director of the AUN Community School) was really pleased with the outcome. She’s such a nice person, always very clear about what she wants. Anyways, at the end of the semester I never even once thought about my grade in INF 321 cos I was sure of an A. I was disappointed with the outcome of the examination because Dr. Kah didn’t give us enough time to finish the exam. From what I recall he gave us less than 1 and half an hour. And believe me when I say that the paper was one of the longest I’ve written. We were all surprised when Dr. Kah said that the time was up and we should all submit. Actually he was taking us for dinner after the exam so most of us let go of the exam papers, but we did protest. I guess I have to be more careful next time cos I couldn’t get over the shock of the grade for like 2 days. But with time I realized that I shouldn’t be complaining for 2 reasons – #1 it is written: “Give thanks in everything for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” and so I stopped struggling with trying to accept this grade. In fact, I realized that if I thank God for an A, then why not for everything else? And to be frank, B+ is not bad at all. I guess I was just being greedy and selfish. #2 reason: my grade in STA 301 was way better than what I expected so I praise God for that. Can’t tell you how foolishly I was acting over this grade in INF 321. I ended up writing an email to Dr. Kah to get details of my grade and telling him how happy I was with the project I had done in the course. To be honest, I really am very happy with the web portal project for ACS. I acquired some web development skills doing it. At any rate, Dr. Kah always says that it’s unfortunate for anyone to be in his class. In my opinion, it’s the opposite – I think it’s a great pleasure to learn from him (of course I would have been happier if I had had a better grade, but who cares).  

My first elective was the Database Systems course. Unfortunately, CSC 348 was just as stressful as INF 321. In fact, I’d say that CSC 384 was the most difficult course in the past semester. The project took more of my time than any project I’ve done since I came to AUN. I still feel tired when I remember how I used to be writing queries and doing functions, procedures, triggers, etc every where and every time – in classes, during lunch, during dinner, during group meetings, during club meetings, at home late at night, very early in the morning, and what not. But fortunately, it was also the BEST course I’ve done at AUN. And I really really love the way Dr. Grakhov taught the course. He is just one of the best professors at AUN. Really good at explaining, he also makes sure that everyone participates and learns what is required. The project forced us all to practice and learn what we’d studied in the course. On the whole, along with being the most stressful course, CSC 384 was just awesome! We also did final presentations for the project assigned to us in the course. My project involved developing a database that would help store information about labs and could be used by the lab supervisor – Dr. Sergey Butakov. Our client as always was very helpful and was very pleased with the final outcome. We also developed a little application. Faiza was my group member. Dr. Vladislav, Dr. Fonkam, and Dr. Bollou were also present at our final presentations. I was very surprised when everyone commended us for our work. In fact, all the professors were very pleased with the work all the groups did. I really thank God for that. Can’t tell you how relieved we all felt (esp Nino, me, and Oma – group leaders) after the final presentations were over. To make things even better, Dr. Grakhov took all of us (including the professors present at the presentations) to dinner at the Faculty club. We had a really good time chatting, eating, and thanking God that the course was over, haha. Discussions varied from jobs opportunities to education and life in Russia. We also chatted about IT stuff and lots other things. I really really had a good time. I’m so happy I was in Dr. Grakhov’s class, he’s very nice. He even let us order for any amount we wanted; so I asked him “Can I order the whole menu?” And he said “Yes, if you can finish it, why not?” Plus he said that ice cream was mandatory for everyone! He remarked “Eat, so that this food will help to regain the blood that was sucked by the work you did on the projects” Haha. What a wonderful semester indeed! Thank you Jesus!

The History of Art course (CMD 131) was also very enjoyable.  Dr. Parker is also one of my very fav professors. His style of teaching is very good and his classes are very entertaining. Some of my most entertaining class moments in AUN were in this class. I remember two such lessons – one was when Dr. Parker was giving out chocolate cookies for correct answers, and another was when we had a kind of a quiz-game for some chapters in the course text. Everyone was doing something very funny in both lessons esp the cookie-prize class. Some of the students were making so much effort to get the answer right, haha and one student remarked “See what people can do for just one cookie”, hahhahaha. Another very funny comment the same student (Umar) made was when he saw Donan smile after getting a question right and receiving a cookie – he said he’d never seen Donan soo happy before in his life! And then there was this instance when Dr. Parker asked one student “Why was King Tutankhamon’s coffineete very famous?’” and the student said “Who is Tutankahmon?” And everyone just bursts out laughing cos we’d studied it lots of time in class. So in an attempt to remind the student who Tutankhamon was Dr. Parker posed like the Egyptian paintings to illustrate that Tutankhamon was an Egyptian King, haha – his head and legs were in profile while his shoulders were frontal. It was very funny, I couldn’t stop laughing, haha. Oh I’m really going to miss being in that class. I met Nicolas Caroll there too. He’s very cute and sweet, more like a younger brother. The students made the class very lively and enjoyable as did the professor. One of the finest classes I’ve been too. The course was also wonderful. Believe me when I say that I learnt more in this course than in any other course. I mean I leant a lot of new things, and I still remember them – Arichitecture, art, and sculpture; Greek, Near Eastern, Roman, Middle ages, Bzyaantine, Reinascence, and Christian. My favourite were the cathedrals, the most amazing piece of architecture ever! I love the cathedrals at France and England. They are all truly beautiful! If you read my entry on my trip to Abuja, you’ll see how much I appreciate having done this course. Once again, thank You LORD!

The other three courses were Enterprise Resource Planning, Fundamentals of Accounting, and Probability and Statistics. All of these were difficult. I had problems in statistics, had my worst ever score of my entire life on the first test in STA 301 – I got 30% L Later on I improved by God’s grace and miraculously I ended with an A in the course! I Praise God for giving His servant what I do not deserve – how wonderful is God’s mercy. I remember telling a good friend of mine Peter C. about the difficulties I was having cos the course text was not available. He suggested that I use one online that was similar to the course text, really nice of him. I actually came to know him through this blog. He came across my blog as he was searching for Professor Cheryl Pavlik, but that’s another story/entry. On the whole, I enjoyed the class, esp the final exam. Dr. Monday Datong (our professor for the STA 301 course) was really nice and funny too.

The Fundamentals of Accounting was another elective course I took. However, ACC 201 was a free elective unlike CSC 384. You see, my catalog does not require me to take accounting, but I decided to do it anyway cos it interests me.  Dr. Jonathan Muterera taught this course. He is really good at teaching, and very funny too. In fact, I feel his style of teaching is just one of the very best; he breaks down the problem and explains it in such a simple manner that even a complicated problem looks easy! We (the Samuels') really like him a lot. He talks about partying lots of time; his attitude made me thoroughly enjoy being in his class. I was grateful to God for my grade in this course. It was difficult I must say, esp the final exam. But God is faithful, and He granted me a good grade in the course. I loved everything I learned: preparing financial statements, analyzing financial statements, etc Nino and Noshi love accounting and such stuff. Really, I think Dr. Muterera's teaching style is the best I've ever seen. He makes everything soo simple and quick to understand :)

Enterprise Resource Planning was also a really good course. I mean it laid a very good foundation for courses I'm taking this semester. Dr. Bollou did a great job teaching us; he introduced us to SAP (which wasn't easy to learn) and the fianl project was just wonderful. There were three groups in the project - one studied the ACIT, another a bank, and my group studied AUN. What we were meant to do in the project was to study an organization, identify the problems, and propose an ERP solution showing how an ERP would help solve the problems identified. The best part was that I got to learn new terminology that is proving to be of great help for courses I'm taking this semester. I enjoyed the course, thank God. I think I like all my courses last semester (as usual)........yawn..........

Uufh, I don’t like writing such long entries, but kya karein? (what to do?) I hope I didn’t bore anyone with this.  

Out of Yola after 12 Years of Waiting

Posted at 1:12 PM, Tuesday, March 18, 2008

12 years - yeah, it’s a long period alright but then, I’m glad I finally got the chance to travel to another state. I went to Abuja with dad and my siblings to see Nousheen and Hamman off to AU in Washington DC (as you may recall they are going there for the Spring semester as exchange students). I was expecting Abuja to be so much better than Yola. Abuja is actually better than Yola, but guess what? I found Abuja to be less interesting compared to Yola. I believe my reason for liking Yola is the fact that I grew up in Yola. I have too much here in Yola that I hold dear, too many memories, and I really like the scenery here. The greatest advantage Abuja has is the buildings and the good order of things, perhaps even job opportunities. I love the way everyone follows rules (so unlike Yola), and the way people are dedicated to working and making Abuja a better place. But the prices are very high in Abuja. Food in the hotel was like super expensive; Nino keeps on saying that Abuja has made her fat, haha.

This is Mona, Noshi, Me, and Raju outside Wonderland

This is Nino, Noshi, Mona, and Raju walking aroudn in Wonderland

This is Raju, Mona, Noshi, and Nino at Wonderland

This is Mona and Nino walking around Hilton Hotel

This is Noshi in Wonderland

This is Raju, Noshi, and Dad at Transcop Hilton Hotel

 Abuja is very clean too, with lots of places to go. We visited the National park where we had a close-up view of Aso Rock (the rock, not the presidential house), Wonderland, Millennium Park, Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Amigo shopping plaza, and the most beautiful thing of all – the Central Church! It was the most magnificent building I have ever seen! Looked like it dropped straight out of heaven! Especially the interior; chandeliers looked like they were made of crystals. The rib vaulting was fantastic as were the flying buttresses and the huge organ for playing music. It had a very large capacity for believers from different denominations to come and worship. Dad was overjoyed when he saw the Church. Really, I wish I’d taken pictures. I couldn’t cos the camera wasn’t working. I’d say the interior looked pretty much like the Cathedrals we read about in our History of Art course – Cathedral of Reims in France, St. Dennis, Chartres Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral of England, etc. Thank God we were able to visit such an awesome site. The other places we visited were also lovely – I enjoyed Wonderland and Millennium Park a lot. One thing I noticed (apart from the rest that I’ve already mentioned) was that there are a lot of Lebanese people in Abuja, esp at Wonderland and Amigo. I guess they own those places. It was nice to see a whole lot of foreigners in any case.

Anyways, the trip was good and beneficial in the sense that I realized that I had a lot to be thankful to God for - AUN being in Yola, living in Yola, and growing up in Yola. Perhaps I might want to work in Abuja; I don’t know yet, whatever God wills

                 

                                                                                   These are some of the pics we took while touring Abuja

I remember dreaming of going in an airplane, flying to Europe for the holidays with mom, dad, and all my siblings. I had this desire after the trip in 1992 to Pakistan when we all traveled through Switzerland. It really was beautiful; I enjoyed every bit of it, Praise God! I never traveled out of Yola after 1995. Even after 1995 I still dreamt of going to Europe or the US, but my dream never came true. It does feel sad at times cos wishing for something and not getting it really breaks your heart. But then I cheer up after a while knowing that it is God’s perfect will for things to be this way, and I end up thanking God for everything He has done for me. The thing that cheers me up most is that I know I don’t need to travel anywhere on any airplane cos in the end I’ll actually fly up to heaven with my family and be with the Lord forever. Isn’t that the most amazing thing ever? I mean it’s more than a dream come true; it’s the best that anyone could wish for. And I thank God that even if I don’t have everything I desire in my lifetime, He will fulfill my dream of heaven. Thank you Jesus!

Do you have a dream that you would give anything to fulfill? Ask God, and He will give it to you according to His will. Even if your dream never comes true, always remember that there are greater things in store for you; if you fight the good fight of faith, God will surely reward you with greater joy than what your dreams could ever give. Trust God always and lean not on your own understanding.

Spring 2008, Different.....???

Posted at 1:27 PM, Thursday, January 31, 2008

I'd say this semester is different, in certain ways. For one, Nousheen and Hamman are not here with me. We miss them a lot! But I'm soooooo glad they're in the US enjoying all the wonderful things there! Thank God for that :-) Secondly, this is the first time I'm taking a course all by myself. Not that it's anything strange/special, just feels different. Usually, I have either of Nousheen and Saima, or Hamman and Nayyara in my classes. But anyways, this semester looks weary already, haha. I'm taking Leadership and Ethics (PHI 300) with Dr. Osam Edim; Introduction to World Literature in Translation (ENF 231) with Dr. Andrew Rooney; IS Security & Auditing (INF 351) with Dean Kah; Procedural Modeling and Blue Printing (INF 361) with Dr. Felix Bollou; Operations Management (QBA 202) with Dr. Benjamin Botchway; and Psychology with Dr. John Carroll. It all looks exciting right now, but loads of readings to do. All the same, I think it's too early to decide what this semester is going to be like :) Thirdly (you must have thought I was finished, haha), Dr. Sergey won't be here this semester. That's really going to be a loss for the university. I mean he contributed a lot in the school of ITC - managing the moodle site, managing all the IT labs, supervising in the ACIT, etc. And we students are going to miss him the most, esp those in Software Engineering and Computer Science. He always helped students with any problems they had with getting software to be used in different courses. I heard that he might still come back next semester. I pray he does cos he was very helpful to everyone and so good with everything.

Talking about Hamman and Nousheen, I've had lots of pics and info from them about the US already. All the exchange students that went from AUN spend most of their time together - Nousheen, Hamman, Oma, Judith, Lydia, and Luke (I see them all in pics together!). I just have to mention that all of them saw Obama live a few days back! He came to AU with the Kennedy family to deliver a speech! Judith actually shook hands with Obama! And seeing the Kennedy family too was great! I guess I can't write about all that (or post pics) just yet. I'll definitely add an entire entry on everything that's going on over there soon. You see, the semester truly is super busy. I don't know; I might end up dropping one course next week if the load gets too much. God willing, I won't have to :)

There're about 5 entries that I haven't finished writing and so haven't posted yet. I'm waiting to finish compiling pictures for some. I've finally gotten my own camera!!!! Now I can take all the pictures I want, anytime. Praise God!!! I've even signed up on flickr. I'm looking forward to adding more entries with lots of pics :) Got to go now, I've over-spent my time on this entry already (8 minutes over). Have lots of assignments to finish.......Hoping to post soon :)

Programming Competition

Posted at 7:59 PM, Monday, November 19, 2007

Remember I mentioned a programming competition to be held in Abuja in one of my previous entries? Well, I have too much work on my hands and have decided that the best person to talk about what happened at the competion is Nino. Isn't that good for a change? You must be bored to death by now cos of my usual boring writing. So here is what Nino had to say about what happened:

The result wasn't as good as we expected. We came 7th (my fav number); surprisingly at the competition the number assigned to our team was also 7. I thank God for it as it was His will. Some agriculture university won the competition; good for them especially given they are just an 'agriculture' university. However, there were reasons for the competition and results ending up the way they did. The organization and the setup was not altogether as should be and this presented alot of road blocks for our team and probably others. On the whole if these problems in the setup has been prevented, it is hardly questionable that the results would have been VERY different indeed. There were 25 other universities altogether from across Nigeria who took part in the competition.

Nevertheless, having taken part in the competition was a great experience. Having the support of Dr. Kah and Dr. Fonkam was the best part. They both showed their appreciation of the effort we put in the competition. Despite our ranking, we all really felt very glad with the confidence our mentors put in us and their encouraging remarks. We are really blessed to have such people with us to be our mentors in AUN, who don't just excel in their profession but are such wonderful people. So you will see (from the award pictures) that we all looked happy at the end of the day!

Our team was in Abuja for four days. The compeition's results were announced on the third day's afternoon. After all the burden taken off our shoulders, we were able to do a little bit of sight-seeing in Abuja. Faiza took us around Abuja and introduced us to a lot of her family members; it was wonderful to meet them all and her brother and sister accompanied us on our trips.

Abuja is very scenic and beautiful especially the architecture and roads. The plantation is wonderful and the trees you see on the road kerb and with the street lights are not indigenous to Abuja, but I think were brought in. However, you can see them all around the city.  Abuja is built on a town plan and all new building projects are aligned with this  - a lot of construction is still going on there, so people say that it keeps on changing every visit they make. Among the places we visited were Wonderland (an amusement park) at night on Saturday, and the Ya'aradua center and The Millenium Park on Sunday.

It is a marvellous thing that the government cared to make the place look so grand! For me what I liked best was the rides and looking around at the buildings - banks, hotels, churches, etc and of course the stadium. However, I was so absorbed with just looking that I don't recall where what was located. I only remember that the entry point to Abuja city has the stadium. The smooth, three-lane roads are a complete contrast to Yola roads and so is the traffic. People are law-abiding in terms of driving rules and I think there would be little chance for road accidents if people in Yola were the same.

Isn't she just great? Maybe I say that cos she's my sister. All the same, I'm sure having a different writer made reading my blog a little more interesting, hmm? Ycan decide that while I finish the entry with pictures of the the event.

AWARDS

This is Dr. Kah, Faiza, Hamman, Nayyara (Nino), and Dr. Fonkam (left-to-right) I think the rest of the pics become quite obvious now :)

WONDERLAND

That's Faiza and her sister. This is not so obvious :)

MILLENIUM PARK

This is Hamman, Faiza and Nino (your left-to-right), and Hamman, Faiza's brother and Nino in the picture above it

YARADUA CENTER

ON THE AIRPLANE

FINALLY

My Birthday.........

Posted at 1:43 PM, Friday, November 2, 2007

Well, my birthday came and went, and I didn’t tell anyone at AUN about it. When most of my friends found out it was my birthday the previous day, they were like "Why didn't you tell us?" Actually, I didn't want to give anyone the impression that I was requesting presents, or stuff like that. Anyways, the day started in the normal way, then it went from normal to bad, and sometime in the late afternoon it became worse. But then suddenly in late evening, everything changed! I was just sitting outside all alone waiting for the bus remembering my past birthdays. Couldn't stop thinking about mom, I really really missed her. Then I looked up at the sky and saw exactly what would cheer me up - I wasn't expecting it but here were the clouds I had been praying for! God blessed us with rain that night. Actually, I had been praying for rain on my birthday for like 3-4 days. Thank you Jesus for sending the rain, it made my day! It didn't end there; after a few minutes I was off to ride my bicycle when Dr. Evgeny Grakhov (my CSC 384 professor) comes up to me and wishes me a very happy birthday. I hadn't expected anyone to care really, especially not one of my professors. And then, here is one of my favorite professor wishing me happy birthday! I felt really glad (he even gave me some sweets as a gift) I found out from him that 5th October is also Diana’s birthday. Diana is the daughter of Mr. Stanislav Kublakov, the administrative assistant to the President. She is a cute little angel! I just love to see her with her mom and dad; it's just so beautiful.  Wish I had some picture of her to post here. But unfortunately, I don’t.

When we got home I got 2 more surprises – Mona, Nousheen, Nino, and Hamman gave me a beautiful jewelry set! It was just lovely! I hadn’t expected it. Then dad told me that he also had a present for me – he had ordered a cake on Sunday for my birthday! I was so happy cos I just love cakes! Hmmmm, I knew that things would soon be well and thanked God for everything I got that day.

Then, finally, the best gift of all came later that day. At night before going to sleep, I prayed to God to change me and make me who I was before mom passed away; to take away all bitterness and sadness, to make me joyful once again. And in the next few days I changed! It was evident even the next day, I just felt different - much more cheerful! I can’t thank God enough for His mercy. I wouldn’t be who I am today if He hadn’t changed me. "Thank you sooooooooooooooo much Savior!"

My friends also wished me when they found out it was my birthday the previous day. Thanks everyone. Thanks for making my day special. And above all, thank You Jesus for everything I have, and everything I am. I love You because You first loved me. It’s just the best feeling in the world, to know that God loves you. It’s amazing, so amazing! There’s nothing that can compare to that, absolutely nothing! To make you understand what I’m trying to say, I’ll leave you with this wonderful poem to reflect on (got it off a greeting card) :

You ask why I follow this Jesus?

Why I love Him the way I do?

When the world’s turned away from His teachings

And the people who serve Him are few.

It’s not the rewards I’m after,

Or gifts that I hope to receive

It’s the Presence that calls for commitment

It’s the Spirit I trust and believe.

The Lord doesn’t shelter His faithful

Or spare them all suffering and pain,

Like everyone else I have burdens,

And walk through my share of rain.

Yet He gives me a plan and a purpose,

And that joy only Christians have known,

I never know what comes tomorrow,

But I do know I’m never alone.

It’s the love always there when you need it;

It’s the words that redeem and inspire,

It’s the longing to ever be with Him

That burns in my heart like a fire.

So you ask why I love my Lord Jesus?

Well, friend, that’s so easy to see,

But the one thing that fills me with wonder is

Why Jesus loves someone like me.

     

That's me with my gift from dad (first pic), and me again with my gift from Raju, Mona, Noshi, and Nino (jewellery set - white top)

AUN Staff Leaving

Posted at 12:40 AM, Monday, October 29, 2007

At the end of the last academic year, more faculty and administrative staff left AUN. Among these were Dr. David Huwiler (President), Dr. Banerjee (Economics instructor) and his wife Animita Roy (Registrar & Accounting instructor), Dr. Jennifer El-Mattrawy (Director Student Affairs), George Peterson (VP Finance) and his wife Paula Peterson (Faculty Club Manager), Svetlana (Logistics Director), Abubakr Buera (Management & other Business courses instructor), and Amy Greene (Writing instructor). I’m really going to miss them all cos I like them a lot. However, Dr. Banerjee did say he might come back after a while since his leave is only temporary.

Dr. Buera and Dr. Banerjee taught me, and I enjoyed their classes very much. I’m going to miss the funny (& sensible) things that Dr. Banerjee used to say. Like Dr. Banerjee, Dr. Buera was also really nice both in and out of class. Dr. Banerjee’s wife was also really nice. I still remember the times when we went home with her in the university bus at night. I can recall an excellent guessing/riddle-solving game we played with her and Dr. Evgeny. I'll definitly miss those times. Amy Green never taught me but she was a very lively and sweet person. I know I'm going to miss her too! I feel the same for Jennifer Mattrawy - I feel the university won't be the same without her. She made me feel very much at ease in discussing whatever issues I had. And Dr. Huwiler is one of the nicest persons I’ve ever met. Mom and Dad also liked him a lot. I pray that at least one or two of them attend our graduation ceremony. 

The first picture (on left) is Dr. Banerjee, the second is his wife Animita, and this third picture shows both of them and Cheryl Pavlik

First picture is Jennifer Mattrawy and Maria, second (left) is Svetlana, and third (right) is Amy Greene

First pitcture (from left-to-right) is George Peterson & Dr. Garofalo, second is Dr. Buera, third and fourth are Dr. Huwiler 

The new people occupying some of the empty positions are Dr. Smith (acting President), John Carroll (registrar and director of student affairs), Dr. Tarek (acting dean of arts and sciences - I’m happy for him), a few others that I can’t recall at the moment, and a few whom I don't know by name.

We also have some new faculty this semester - Dr. David Parker (my CMD 131 professor, a really nice person), Dr. Jonathan Muterera (my really exciting ACC 201 professor), Monday Datong (my STA 301 professor, also very friendly), Dr. Vladislav Scherbinin A. (another cool Russian professor!!!), Dr. Norman Wright – Dean of Business and Enterpreneurship (he’s totally cool), Dr. Bollou’s wife Artlet (just as nice as Dr. Bollou), and lots of others. I hope that that no one leaves at the end of this academic year, or at least not before I graduate. I know I’m being somewhat selfish cos I know that people leave only cos they have to. But I hope that most of them are still here when I graduate, God willing.

Look at the time! It’s 12:38am and I’m still not asleep. I don’t know why the pressure of exams is beginning to worry me. I have a CSC 384 midterm this coming Thursday. I only pray to God that this exams goes well. Can’t wait to see my scores on the History of Art exam . And by the way, I wasn’t feeling too well last week and that is why I didn’t post any entries. I didn’t even write the programming exam. I just needed time to revise, and since I wasn’t feeling well, I never got the chance . The exam was meant for selecting students that would participate in the programming competition. I just heard on Saturday that Nino, Hamman, and Faiza are selected for participating in the competition.  The venue is Abuja and the competition takes place around November 3rd, 2007. I was very glad for all three of them. God willing, one of the AUN representatives will win .

Anyways, I have to go and sleep now (yawn). Hope to post soon...........God bless you

Ready for the Exchange Program?

Posted at 1:20 PM, Friday, October 5, 2007

CONTINUED - A Look Back at the Semester Spring 2007

Posted at 2:37 PM, Sunday, September 30, 2007

Hmmmm, I’m really enjoying this 3-day holiday. Right now am at home. It’s 12:50pm and I’m listening to the wonderful song “Amazing grace how sweet the sound” by Chris Tomlin. Can’t tell you how relaxed I feel. I thank God for his mercy and love and pray that the Lord will be with me always.

Here is the continuation from last Friday’s entry...........

System Analysis and Design by Dr. Bollou, like the other courses, was a very important course for my major. I thoroughly enjoyed the course, especially the project. I was very glad when the instructor gave us the option to choose our own group members. My group was totally cool! I had Nousheen, Saima, and Oma in my group, which made work a whole lot easier, phew! We worked on doing an analysis of the bookstore here at the university.  We stopped at the design phase because the course was not supposed to go into coding, implementation, and testing. On the whole, I loved it! Some of the amazing things that we learnt in the course were doing a DFD, an ERD, and cost-benefit analysis. There were lots of other topics like systems planning, requirements modeling, data & process modeling, development strategies, output and user interface design, data design, system architecture etc. I guess I learnt a lot of important stuff in this course. I loved the exams, especially the questions where we were required to do a DFD and ERD on a case study. I didn’t like the multiple choice questions too much. And oh, Dr. Bollou promised us lunch at the Faculty club, but due to one thing or the other, it didn’t happen. I hope we have one this semester though. I do like Dr. Bollou a lot because he makes sure that his students know what they are doing. During the project he scheduled meetings with the groups so that we would know what we were doing, why we were doing it, and how we should do it. I mean he wasn’t required to spend that time explaining things to us, but he really set time apart only so that we would understand the whole thing well. I am really grateful to God that we got a good grade on the project, and in the course! I guess it wouldn’t have been so good if Dr. Bollou hadn’t taken time to explain and guide us. Thank you Jesus for such wonderful professors

Dr. Felix Bollou

QBA 201 was pretty much like Intro to OS in terms of the flow of the course. Dr. Botchway was the instructor for this course. He made everything so very easy for the students. I mean he went through each step again and again just to make sure that every student understood what was happening. He did try his best and I was very pleased with that. Dr. Botchway is one of the nicest persons I’ve met. Anytime anyone of us had a problem we just went to office with our concerns and he was always there to listen, help and even adjust his own schedule to help us. We learnt about descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, graphical & tabular techniques, sampling techniques, probability, probability distributions (random, discrete & continuous) etc. The course text was also wonderful; I think one can learn a lot from the course text alone because it’s very self-explanatory. I think I’ll also go over the course text this Christmas holidays to refresh my memory, I will be needing lots of stuff from that text in the near future.

Dr. Benjamin Botchway 

And lastly, MGT 201 was a very different course from the ones I had taken previously. It was a pure business course. Dr. Buera took us in that course. The best thing about this course was the class session itself. I really enjoyed listening to Dr. Buera because it felt like listening to some argument or story rather than studying in a class. His examples were just wonderful. He focused on problems in Nigeria in most of his examples. Some of those were very funny too, especially those that about corruption in Nigerai. He would always question “Why, why is it like that?” I can understand that, I mean it’s true. Most people here don’t care why things are bad in Nigeria, they just continue to live their lives. Anyways, back to the course – Dr. Buera also emphasized discipline and obedience in class, which I really liked. I also liked the idea of the extra point assignments. Furthermore, he gave the choice that some students could do a project instead of the final, this helped lots of students to catch up. I however, chose to write the final cos he adviced me to do so. In the course, we learnt about functions of management, evolution of management thought, principles of management, managers, planning, ethics & social responsibility, organizational culture, communication and negotiation, diversity, human resource management, organizational control etc. Dr. Buera was concerned about the students and always gave them advice in a fatherly manner. I think I’m going to miss those class sessions with Dr. Buera. At least I can go over the course text to make sure I remember the important concepts (if not all) before next semester.

 Me, Dr. Abubakr Buera, Saima, and Nousheen (left-to-right)

Well, there you have it, every course I took last semester. I was very pleased with all the grades I received. All the glory belongs to the LORD because without Him, I could never have had those grades. So "THANK YOU JESUS FOR EVERYTHING!"

I kept to my plans this week and have updated my blog. Why, isn’t that surprising? My next entry will be on the good news I talked about in my entry last Friday. That'll be followed by "the summer I spent in Yola" (with loads of pics). Thanks for your time and God bless

Spring 2007 - A Look Back at the Semester

Posted at 1:25 PM, Friday, September 28, 2007

This week was one of the busiest I've known! So much work! Not that I'm complaining or anything. Dr. Kah's homework was the longest homework I've ever done in my entire life! I enjoyed doing it of course, especially reading the Standish Group article - CHAOS Chronicalls 1995. The article was all about why IT projects fail, and how to prevent failures from occuring. The part that I really like was the comments given by different IT professionals. When interviewed about why IT projects fail, an application analyst commented "Brain-dead users, just plain brain-dead users." HAHA, that's the funniest comment I've heard coming from an IT professional! A project manager described a very funny situation - "The project was two years late and three years in development. We had thirty people on the project. We delivered an application the user didn't need. They had stopped selling the product over a year before." - This is what IT projects can end up being, haha. Chaos, chaos, chaos, everything is chaos - That's what the whole article is about. I enjoyed all my classes. I think this is going to be one of the finest semesters ever! Accounting, ERP, History of Art, Project Management, Database Systems, and Statistics - all are just totally awesome! Thank you Jesus for giving me such wonderful courses AND professors I sincerelly praise God for everything in the past week and am looking forward to a good week ahead. My next entry might come sooner than Friday this time, God willing. That's cos I have very good news to share......

Anyways, moving on to the purpose of this entry ............ 

Last semester I took 5 courses - Telecommunication & Data Networks (INF 252), Introduction to Operating Systems (then INF 350; now INF 250), Systems Analysis & Design (then INF 360; now INF 260), Quantitative Business Analysis (QBA 201), and Fundamentals of Management (MGT 201). The understanding of each of these courses is crucial for an IS major. The knowledge gained here will form the foundation for many courses ahead, so I had to be cautious to carefully understand each one of them. Unfortunately somewhere in the middle of the semester I kind of started forgetting stuff in 2 or 3 courses. But thank God, I did well in all of my finals and earned my highest GPA ever! Praise the LORD God Almighty! I never thought I could do it, I just kept on praying to God to help me during the finals because that was the time that mom had passed away. I knew that I had to be just what the LORD and my parents wanted me to be, and God did answer my prayer! Isn’t that just amazing? I can’t thank Him enough. "Thank you Jesus!"

Let me begin by describing how the Telecommunications and Data Networks course went. INF 252 was taught by Dr. Augustine Odinma, one of the most highly qualified professors here at the university. He worked at Bell Labs as the Director for Africa and Europe. Now isn’t that amazing or what? I was like totally impressed when I realized that a person who had had such a high position would be willing to come and teach in our university. I really like him beacuse he is always concerned about students learning the course, and not just passing it. He treats everyone in a fatherly manner and that’s one of the things that sets him apart. I like his style of teaching cos I learnt a lot. Infact, I learnt everything so well that I remember lots of it even after such a long time. I’m sure that if I just “brush” over the course text I’ll recall everything. The course text that we used helped a lot. I think it’s one of the best (or possibly even the best) textbook I’ve read. The author did a great job. Anyways, we learnt about network connections, network cables, data & signals (conversion techniques), LANs (topologies software, & internetworking), data packets, network traffic, network architecture (OSI & TCP/IP suite), multiplexing, errors (detection and control),  MANs, and WANs. The exams and tests were done in a different manner - we had only short/long answer questions. This was great for me cos I don’t like multiple-choice questions. One of the best things about the course was the field trip we had. That's a whole new entry on its own so I'll leave the description for a later time. For now let me give a brief description of what it was all about -  we went out to town to the various appartments of the university to view the equipement kept for internet connectivity. We also visited most buildings on-campus (both temporary and permanent) for the same purpose. You can read details and see pictures in one of my later entries. On the whole, I really enjoyed the course and am looking forward to the part II of that course i.e. Telecommunications & Data Networks II.

Dr. Augustine Odinma

Moving on to the next course, Intro to OS was a very easy-going course. Dr. Okunoye took us in this course. He was a visiting professor and is not returning this semester. There’s one thing about Dr. Okunoye that you have to know, he is one of the funniest person ever! Infact, I can't recall ever seeing him upset. He always said funny things in and out of classroom. The atmosphere in his classes was one of great ease. I really miss his jokes. We even gave him a surprise birthday party organized by our classmates. Everyone (except myself and Saima) danced in the party, I think someone even shot a video of the whole event. I’m sure Dr. Okunoye must have been pleased with everything the class did for him, and we were all happy to have him as our professor  Back to the course, we learnt about different processors, comapred various OS, also learnt how to do different installations, and lots of other stuff. The best part was the group presentation we had to do at the end of the course. Every student was required to pick a topic and make a presentation. Me and my group picked memory management and gave our presentation. Though it wasn’t as good as it could have been, it was ok. The good thing was that I learnt more about memory management than I would have if I just read it from the textbook. Making the presentation required research and that’s how I got to know a lot about it. Actually, my sister Nino was taking Computer Organization and Architecture that semester and she was the one who gave me a very good source for my information. She also helped me to understand various concepts. I was really glad we had done all this work. In essence, it was a good course, and I’ll try and go over it again this Christmas holiday so that I don’t forget everything 

This picture is taken in the Mac lab, and in a very funny way. As you can see cute Patricia was going to take her own pic when Dr. Okunoye just jumped in from no where. Seriously, he is very funny and I miss his jokes

I'll write about the other 3 courses in my next entry. For now, I'm at the Admissions office for my work hours. So let me continue doing that. I only pray that I'll have enough time to do everything I want over this weekend. I'm so greatful to God that Monday's a public holiday! It's Nigeria's independence day on 1st October. My birthday will be 4 days after that, can't wait for it! Hmmmmmm, no classes today. I can relax as much as I want, yes! Thank God it's Friday!