Singapore

I was in Singapore for the Pacific Association of Quantity Surveyors (PAQS) International conference from 25 - 27 July 2010. I felt a bit lost as I used to be fully involved in the Board meeting which was held a day earlier. But due to the circumstances I was only able to attend the conference. Met many acquintances whom we would only meet and catch up every year during such annual conferences. I love all the keynote addresses but some of the parallel papers were too academic. I do hope that PhD candidates who presented their papers in conferences consider the audience and not be to lengthy on academic stuff such as objectives of their research, literature review on knowledge gap, methodology etc. With only 15 minutes allocated the papers should concentrate more of the findings (even if its at the initial stage of the research) and their intellectual analysis and synthesis. If they would be able to do that the papers would have been very interesting.

We stayed at the Amara Sanctuary Resort Sentosa. Thank God my friend Ainon changed the accommodation from the original hotel booked by the secretariat which was inconveniently located outside the Sentosa island expecting us to commute for 3 days. It only takes common sense and sensitivity to know which hotel is the most appropriate!!.

All my kids have gone back to their universities and at the moment I felt the empty nest syndrome all over again.