Trip to UKM with Julie and Ain

Ain (left) and Julie (right) get their guns up at UM. They have made it their mission in life to get all of Malaysia to "get their guns up". Go Tech. We were going to take pictures in front of signs at UKM, but we ran out of time.

Juliana Sewani and Ain Nural are Malaysian graduate students currently working on their Ph.D.'s with Tigga Kingston at Texas Tech. Yesterday, they came in from Krau Wildlife Reserve where they have been doing their research on bats to UM to meet with some of their friends and colleagues. They stopped by to see me in the morning sol I showed them around the very small portion of campus that I am familiar with, but it didn't matter that we couldn't go very far because it was so hot we found a covered gazebo where we could sit in the shade and chat. We had lunch with Prof. Rosli bin Hashim, an ecologist who is currently the Chair of the Institute of Biological Sciences. I think that Ain and Julie were especially happy to have some "city food" after being out at Krau for so long.

Here I am in front of the 100th Anniversary sign at UM (note the "air your pits out" pose, my common posture outside in Malaysia).


After lunch they drove me out to Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM- the National University of Malaysia) where Julie is a Lecturer and where she will return to work after she finished her Ph.D. UKM is currently hosting a group of college students from the US, Australia, and UK as part of a 3 week Introduction to the Biodiversity of Malaysia program. That afternoon they were having their introductory lectures into the plants and animals of Malaysia, so it was very interesting to hear experts talk about that. After the presentation Julie introduced me to a number of her colleagues and I think that I have made some very good connections for the future. As professors can do when they get together, we talked for ages so by the time I took the 1 1/2 trip back to PJ it was pretty late by the time I got home.

Both Julie and Ain have taken a class from me at Tech and they have been very helpful in trying to get be situated and hooked up with the right people. I enjoyed spending the day with them (and they are even sillier on their home turf than they are back in Lubbock- if that is possible). I knew that something was up when one of the young female Malay professors they introduced me to, Norhayati, came up to me and told me "if you want to make friends with a Malaysian woman tell them this in Malay" while Julie and Ain were giggling in the corner.