Third Wave: First Day CMCO-WFH

Today is essentially the first day of the two-week CMCO (14-27 October 2020) during the third wave surge of Covid-19 infections. It was declared two days earlier for the states of Selangor and Sabah. I had then sent my son to IIUM Gombak campus on Sunday. While we have experienced CMCO before, I still worry about my son in campus particularly the accessibility of food - whether their canteen operators are (fully) operating as they will probably not be allowed to move outside the campus. I hope the university will take good care of them. To know what one is allowed to do during CMCO, one can look here.

Despite the Ministry's message of all education institutions are to be closed down, there was still a bit of uncertainty of what we are supposed to do specifically yesterday; whether we should come to office or apply for conditional work from home or work from home (WFH). I got the news about the work from home instruction after I got home from work and this is only for noncritical sectors of the university. As a theorist, it was not really much of a concern for me where do I do work (in comparison to experimentalists) and also I have brought most of my reading materials home in anticipation of retirement. While there was a sense of uncertainty surrounding the office yesterday, we still had our Faculty Briefing day for the new students this semester. There were some technical glitches during the departmental briefing but it was completed by around 4pm, after which we all (individually) had our online meetings with the new students under our academic advisorship. So the following are my new students under my advisory.

It is good to know that they were actually doing this meet from their homes.

Today, the first day of WFH seems to be a busy day. Suddenly my phone keeps dinging or buzzing as a flood of messages poured in WhatsApp. It was kind of amusing. Then I was told there was a curriculum review meeting for (Pure) Physics degree in the morning. There were some suggested changes which I hope could prepare (future) students better in their theoretical foundations. Below is a pic.

Another meeting is the EQuaLS 2020 meeting. Earlier I have expressed my desire to my junior colleagues that I wish to distance myself from EQuaLS 2020 admin and let them take over instead. I guess I need to explain a little bit more that may also explain some of my 'strange actions' recently. Ever since we decided to do this EQuaLS, several incidents happened that made me question on whom should I trust. Sincerely, I did not want to bring this up at this juncture but one of the incidents seems ill-intent (at least to me) with someone digging up my past involving me as a guarantor to somebody. This is part of the reason that I wish to distance myself away from EQuaLS, in the hope that the responsible party will just leave me (and the event) alone. As far as I'm concerned, I am just trying to do my job (earlier) without stepping on anyone's toes. I'm taking a backseat for now on how this is going to be played. I certainly do not want anymore complications as I am about to retire. Because of this too, I think I have to postpone my plan of early retirement. I pray to Allah that no harm (in any form) comes my way.

Anyway I did attend today's meeting to see how things are moving so far. Here's a pic.

I do hope that EQuaLS 2020 will be a success and the opening/launching will go somoothly as planned. Now I need to come up with some closing remarks for the event - will make it short, God willing.

Reblogging: The Weeks That Were

Since I decided to blog in acufrekuensi yesterday, might as well start blogging in this personal blog since there were many significant events that have happened in the past month or so.

I guess the first thing I want to say in this post is that Roger Penrose won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his singularity theorem. Made a short blog comment in the post here (in Malay). It sort of surprised me since work in mathematical physics are rarely considered for such award but I guess with all the recent black hole discoveries, it kind of made sense. It also delighted me since Penrose is my academic grandfather, the supervisor to my supervisor Richard Ward. I did not know Penrose personally though but I have been to a few of his lectures (face-to-face) in seminars and meetings, particularly the LMS symposia in Durham. When I posted on FB this genealogy fact, I did not mean to brag but it is certainly a delight that one is part of the tradition. I'm very much aware, intelligence does not necessarily pass down a generation after. Very much like publishing in a highly cited journal does not necessarily mean one's work will get highly cited. Nevertheless, being able to publish in such journal or being a student of a luminary is still an achievement (they are not easy). Anyway, I do not intend to make such a fuss about it and my blog post is only to tell others what I understood (on the surface) about Penrose's work. Stay humble.

Few weeks back, I have also passed the chairmanship of EQuaLS to my younger colleague, Chan Kar Tim. Just like what I've told Chan, I have been chairing EQuaLS since its beginning in 2007 until the last one in 2016 when Prof. Twareque left us then. This is not the first time I tried to let go of EQuaLS. Once in 2009, I wanted to pass it to a different university in the hope of making EQuaLS as a national event, but that didn't quite happen. Also when Prof. Twareque passed away during EQuaLS8, I thought that I would not do another EQuaLS since Prof. Twareque was quite instrumental in helping getting well-known speakers to our shores. The present EQuaLS 2020 was perhaps done with the intent of getting quantum technologies locally with the help of SpeQtral. However management is not my strength and I'm pretty much aware of criticisms on this.  Thus, allow me to take a back seat and let me return to my true nature of being quiet and introverted. After many years of administration, I have enough experience to know that human problems are not easy and they are never ending. Moreover, age has caught up with me and I'm normally physically exhausted by the end of each working day and lately, I have been making plans for even early retirement. My focus now is more on graduating my students, so that the early retirement plan can be carried out.

Just last week, my brother-in-law Saharuddin passed away on the night of 2nd October. Earlier he was admitted to Seremban hospital for heart failure and was warded for roughly three nights (including one night at the emergency ward). Prior to that he had already suffered a mild stroke and was trying to recover from that. He had informed my other half and family earlier, that he wished to return to the hometown Segamat. Never did it occur to the family, that he was leaving us for good. On that early Saturday morning, we accompanied his body all the way to Segamat and he had his burial ceremony there. While I'm not that close to him, my kids are probably closer to him since he tend to joke around with the younger children.

Another major thing that is happening now is the third wave of Covid-19. The current figures of new infections are now few hundreds almost daily and once it reached nearly 700. It is indeed worrying. The current outbreak occurred after the Sabah state election (26 September 2020). At the time, the number of infections in Sabah was already rising. In my personal opinion, the 14-day quarantine should have been imposed for those returning from Sabah then, but that did not happen. When the number rose beyond the maximum of the first and second waves, I thought another nation-wide MCO  (even if a short one) would have been put in place, to contain the further widespread. That too, did not happen but instead strict MCO is in place around so-called red zones (which includes my two sons' workplaces - I pray for their safety). Without MCO, infected people (especially asymptomatic ones) will still be mobile and this will make contact tracing very, very difficult. Already I have heard horrible stories about contact tracing surrounding those who went for political campaigns in Sabah (they tend to be very socially active and include some Ministers). 

Soon our universities will be reopened for the new semester and the Ministry has reverted to its earlier decision of having only online classes (earlier before the third wave, face-to-face classes were being planned). Despite this, had just sent my son to IIUM just now for him to be in campus. Was a bit heavy-hearted though. I hope the authorities will take good care of the students there.

The following is a video interview of Dave Snowden predicting very uncertain future of possibly recurring closing and reopening of sectors due to this pandemic.