Finally, after much deliberation, heartache and pain - okay, perhaps not - but seemingly endless days staring at sheets and sheets of printed paper, nonetheless - I have stumbled onto two potential topics for which Peter seems happy for me to proceed with. Almost instantly I felt my brain sighing with relief.

So, as it stands, I'm looking at two separate issues - Earnings Management via Financial Enginering; and Severance Pay for Outgoing Top Executives. They are then to be linked together by examining both topics against governance mechanisms - specifically boards and board committees - the idea being to see how they interact.

Both the above are instances of the manifestation of the agency problem and basically the contribution to the literature would be further evidence of board effectiveness. For the former, potentially a model which could be operationalised and for the latter, hopefully we can begin to understand the motivations behind high pay for outgoing top executives, especially in more acrimonious situations.

Plan of action for the week ahead is as follows:

After a very hectic Wednesday, it was nice to have a relatively easygoing Thursday. Aneel did come down from London and I was foreseeing a whole day of thrashing about re: the research project; but what it turned out to be was a nice casual chat between me, him, Steve and Val, basically focusing on informing them what we have done, and receiving subsequent offers for another job, perhaps in the summer. RA work is tedious and repetitive, but it pays good money and it allows me to be involved hands on with the research process.

Thursday morning, as always, was spent doing tutorials with the students. Lunchtime - found myself in a roundtable discussion with Ana, Khal, Rijal and Jiden about 'the escalating costs of travel today'. In retrospect, it was time better spent on reading journal articles, but who am I lying to? I needed the break, and it was a welcome break too. Rest of the day - mostly fudging about here and there.

Yesterday, too, Ija - one of my oldest family friends - arrived from Malaysia. She was here at Lancaster last here with her late husband, who tragically passed away in May after a short illness. She intercalated and is now back to finish off her Masters. Spent most of the day trying to track her down, which I did, in the end - only made it back to my flat after midnight.

To me she is a symbol of tremendous strength. She was pregnant with their firstborn as he got more and more sick; and she gave birth to their son only days after he passed away. Lesser mortals would have crumbled under the pressure, the grief and the depression. But she has shown so much strength and solidarity - at least in public - which, to me, borders on truly inspirational. And we're all going to Sheffield on Saturday.

Saturday is Sheffield Games day. It's an annual event, which the University of Sheffield's Malaysian Society and the Malaysian community in general organises. It's a sport meet, essentially - with netball, men's football, squash, badminton and volleyball being contested - but others tend to turn up, too - to socialise. It has been a while since I did any competitive sport with Malaysians; and I am competitive by nature. Meets like these psyche me up - reminds me of the old school days when I would get so into the spirit of the games.

I used to be quite relentless, and couldn't understand people who didn't embody the same school spirit as me. Because even as a supporter I was competitive - wanted to be the one with the wittiest cheer or the loudest shout. I still can't understand people who don't want to be behind their university or club or school or house team when it comes to competition; but I've slowly learnt to be more accepting of people's differences.

It is 9pm. I am just about to head off back to my flat. It has been 12 and a half hours since I set foot into the office this morning.

Funnily, I am unexplainably perky. Can even see myself polish off a few articles before bed tonight. We'll see.

Am totally knackered. Missed training this afternoon to see off the load of files I received from Aneel today. Only managed to get everything done by 6.30pm; have already recieved another set of files for me to crack tomorrow.

Tried reading the Brief paper - Conservative Accounting and Earnings Quality - for tomorrow's seminar. Too much statistical mumbo jumbo. Or it could be, again, my brains that are already fried by now.

And so a new year dawns today. I have been busy all day - started the day with journal articles, followed by more RA work. Which only finished about 10 minutes ago. Not that it's the end of anything, because another pack will arrive on my lap tomorrow morning.

Today, 4 March is also 1 Muharram. So I thought it would be an appropriate time to think about some New Year Resolutions.

1. Speak less, listen more
2. Mesra sejadah
3. Prioritise
4. Make sure tomorrow is always better than today, which was better than yesterday.
5. To be more accepting of myself and other people

My brain, as is evident, is probably fried at this point. Nothing is making sense so perhaps I should call it quits. More logical resolutions may just come about after a good night's sleep.

My weekend started early this week - on Friday night instead of Saturday morning as usual. It has been one of ups and downs; starting off with the amazing International Night performance [yes.. masuk bakul angkat sendiri.. sebab takde orang lain nak puji], ending with depressing 2-0 loss to Liverpool. Oh well.. here's a round-up..

The Dikir Barat Performance

After almost a month of sacrifcing my Wednesday nights and Ant & Dec on Saturdays, it finally all came together on Friday night. International Night is an evening of international culture organised by Lancaster University's Student Support Department and International Office [or are they part of each other? I dunno] We were the second performance up; and it was a good thing we used our own instruments instead of a recording, because the sound system was atrocious.

It has been a while since I've been on stage; and I must say the adrenalin only started flowing a few minutes before the actual performance began. But once you get up there, it really does flow and I found myself really enjoying the moment. And, rather ungraciously, I have to admit that I think the audience did too - the applause was superb [or it could have been a ploy to get us off the stage as soon as possible]. The thing was, even though they didn't understand what we were singing about, the beat of the tune was catchy and you find your feet tapping to the sound of the drums, and your head nodding in tune; so at least on that level it worked.

There were a few negligible [and not so negligible] mistakes, but on the whole we did get pats on the back by our friends; so I reckon it was a job well done. More importantly we all enjoyed ourselves; after all, what was it worth, the pain and strife, if it doesn't end in jou at the end? I was especially proud of the fact that in terms of numbers, we were the most well-represented, with about 30-odd people on stage. We also did not have to resort to baring flesh or sensous moves to make people sit up and look. People were quite intrigued with the cooperation from all levels of the community; from the children, to the undergraduates, postgraduates and moms & dads - everyone pitched in where they could.

And all I have to say to that is I think this year, we Malaysians work ok as a community. We are not perfect; there are people grumbling about other people, surely - but at the end of the day most can set aside their differences for the greater good. Which, although in some cases can lead to superficiality, can also lead to better understanding; I use it to look at people through different glasses every time, in the hope that I can see themselves in the way they see themselves, and hopefully, would help me understand and accept their shortcomings as they do mine, and at the same time, striving to learn more about the massive chinks in my armour.

Work work work

I put in a few hours of work this weekend - mostly doing the RA stuff I've been helping out Aneel with. Most of Saturday was spent doing that. At night we went for a meal at Kak Fida and Kak Fiza's place [they are twins, and I have only begun to be able to tell them apart!]; followed by a Hindi movie! Now I am the world's No 1 non-Hindi movie fan, although my whole family seem to be besotted with the genre. I am strictly an English movie person; for the mere fact that my brain races when I have to read the subtitles when I am watching the movie, and I often find myself lost half way through [I don't watch modern Malay movies because my brain refuses to be lowered to that level; and until they can come up with something quality, the best modern Malay movies are the ones which you can laugh at. Any attempt at drama falls flat. Give me P. Ramlee any day].

Anyway, watched Dil Ka Rishta - which was okay by Hindi movie standards ; at least it wasn't filled with cliches - or perhaps I haven't watched enough Hindi movies; because Abe claims he predicted the storyline after the first 20 minutes.

Sunday
Work. Football. Depressed. End of story.

Sheffield Games

We're going to the Sheffield Games next Saturday - this is like a UK-wide Malaysian student's sports meet. I am trying out for the netball team. Not that am I of any use. Yes, I can run, and yes I can catch a ball. The thing is, netball doesn't let me do one and the other at the same time; and for that reason I suck at this game. Basketball - I can do better, except that I am totally crap at taking shots. So it is perhaps appropriate that I play what I play.