Just before our trip to Iskandar Puteri, my other half asked me when will I 'dispose' off the tons of papers that I had in the house and I was reminded that people will no longer 'hire me' to work as my age approaches 64 years by the end of the year. While I understood what was meant, it still gave me 'a slap on the face'. To the usual comment of my other half that I should attend more classes at the mosque and surau, my lame excuse has always been that I always prefer to read books. But on the question when I should stop working (as a theorist), I really have no idea. Sometimes I would 'use' the Prophetic tradition that if you have the opportunity to plant a tree but the Day of Judgment is the next day, then one should countinue to plant it (see here). Note that the "Day of Judgment" for one individual is essentially one's own day of death. So, I can 'pretend' to work as long as I am able. Indeed just few weeks back and as recent as last week, I was asked to look into a few rhings. First, there was a questionare that an international colleague gave but the questions about how one approaches research were too deep for me answer without putting longer thoughts into it until it went past the deadline (another failure on my part). Then there was a 200+ page draft of a book for me to look at (and I am still reading it). Last week, my former PhD student gave me a draft of a paper to read and I hope to finish this soon. Also last week, a former departmental colleague (who is now with a private scientific company) contacted me on some news on quantum computing and quantum artificial intelligence and I just cautioned the person that things are not as well understood as people would like it to be. On top of all this, I always do my daily updating of arXiv material just to be aware of what is going on. So how's that for work?
Back to the question of work, all my reading materials are in the store, my workspace in the bedroom (perhaps the main concern of my other half) and of course on my laptop.
With respect to my daily arXiv updating, I have a new workaround that puts lesser reading burden in me me without necessarily missing (being aware of) current topics of research. But with the papers? The option suggested by my other half is to recycle them and I will only do this with a heavy heart. I still hold the fantasy of reading as much as I could but someday I will have to snap out of this fantasy. Reminded me of what mys supervisor was telling me, I don't have to read evrything. The little voice in me however said that there are so much more that I do nt understand ...
The last weekend was a busy one for us as we had visitors: Dr. Arif (and family) who was on his way back from his hometown in Rompin stopped by before going to his place of stay in Sepang. We did some shopping to prepare some meals.
Today, my other half relapsed into her previous fever caught from seeing some patients before this. Myself, I'm still struggling with the abovementioned tasks. I had to do most of these on the laptop (not wanting to print anymore articles - too expensive and taking too much space). With my deteriorating eyesight, I had to put my eyes closer to the screen causing a bad posture and hence aggravating my back pain (often leading to more rests). So be patient for those who are awaiting my response.
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