Just had a meeting with my principal supervisor this afternoon. He mentioned something subtlety defined. Let say A be my supervisor, and B be Arnold.

A: Arnold, there is something different between urgent matters and important matters
B: ??
A: Your confirmation seminar is urgent because you have to do it soon, but not as important as your research.
B: So, you mean I have to set my research as the first priority?
A: Do your confirmation since it's urgent, but don't ignore your research.

Okay, now I know. Urgent matters are not always important, and important matters should not be ignored. What a wise advice.

So, what confirmation seminar is? Confirmation seminar is one of the milestones in PhD candidature. Ok, here the process for Australian Universities, first, PhD applicants have to submit their research proposal outlining what they will do in a brief. If the proposal gets accepted, in the next 3 months they have to prepare stage 2 proposal which gives more detail explanation of the research plan as well as a preliminary literature review (in Bahasa we call it dasar teori). If the research committees agree, then the student can proceed their candidature period until the next milestone, that is confirmation seminar. Usually it happens a year after the study period is started. In confirmation seminar, a student has to exhibit several things such as a rigid knowledge about the area where he/she is on, rigidly identifies the research problem, has a clear feasible and actionable research plan, convinces the panels that he/she can achieve the aims and objectives. So this is an oral presentation where panels and public audiences are there. If the panels are okay, then the student will become PhD candidate. The last milestone is obviously, Final seminar which is done at the end of candidature period.

Wish me luck guys, I'll be having that very soon within these weeks (finger crossed).