Final Phase of Marking Varia

I'm currently n the final phase of marking. Recall that our final exams started only last week (see this post). Next Monday will be the deadline for keying our marks (in total) for the courses we are teaching. I told my colleague that in my former university, we have around of two weeks to complete our marking. Thus, the window that we currently have is much shorter. As a result, the marking that we went through in the past week or so, is very intense. Many times, I feel light headed, eyes all teary and my body all tensed up. I avoided taking pain killers to make sure I can stay awake to finish the marking. Hopefully by tomorrow, I will end my marking (with my group of Linear Algebra being the last) and the weekend will be simply for keying in the marks, God willing.

The job does not end with marking. After this, we will be occupied with filling up with OBE forms, scanning samples and preparing our teaching portfolio for the current semester. Today, while my colleague and I were switching scripts, I told her that I was caught by surprise the level of details that the staff needs to go through. I mentioned when I first taught at the university, I was preparing the exam in the same way as in my former university, namely allowing students to have a choice of questions for them to answer in the exam. To me, this should benefit the students to be able to choose the topics that they understood better and that having choices also reflect real life. However, having this flexibility caused difficulties for me to fill up the OBE form where teaching aims are more rigid. I guess there are pros and cons on this matter. My own stance is essentially teaching and learning are creative processes and making things rigid might stifle the creative process.

Update on my other half's health: The specialist in HTJ, Seremban told my other half that what she is experiencing could possibly be Meniere's disease, a rare disease with no known cure. She has been asked to go for MRI to observe details of her inner ear. Currently, she has to cope with the echoing 'noises' in her left ear and also the problem of balance. When will the MRI be done, is not known yet. If it is scheduled too late, we may have to opt to get it done at a private hospital (and pay higher expenses).

My near future: I still seek whatever opportunities that are available for me. I may have to return to part-time teaching with the current university. In some way, I do wish I can help in the activities of International Year of Quantum Science and Technology in some small way. My younger colleagues will take lead of course. Recently, I saw Dr. Yap was named CTO of a start-up in Singapore (see here). I toyed around with a similar idea and suggested this to my younger colleague at my former university, even if it may seem remote to be realised. I have been listening to many talks on such related matters. In a way, we need to take risks and be more determined in our actions. Well, small steps first.

Another Day At Ara Damansara

Today we were at Ara Damansara Medical Centre for my other half's appointment. She had another audiometry test, which is longer than the last one due to more elaborate testing (see figure below). After two weeks of taking steroids, the curve that corresponds to the nerves seem to be responding well. However her hearing is still impaired according to what the doctor said as conducting loss. We were thrown a few medical terms for which I write here: grommet, tympanosclerosis, otosclerosis. From the doctor's brief study of the curves drawn by the audiometry tests, my other half is probably suffering from otosclerosis. The treatment for this probably involves surgery and the doctor has referred us to the public hospital in Seremban this coming Monday, as the surgery will be more invasive than the previous one. We can no longer afford such treatment at the private hospital.

(Source: https://dizziness-and-balance.com/disorders/hearing/otoscler.html)

My other half joked a little about her getting these rare medical cases: first, the spontaneous cerebrospinal fluid leak which rarely happens without any form of head injury, and second, otosclerosis where her impaired hearing occurs at low frequencies (usual impaired hearing involves higher frequencies). As much as I want to be humoured, this is no joking matter. Both of these will cause further financial stress on me and today I also heard about another financial worry. With her impaired hearing, she could no longer perform her normal doctor duties and any possible near-term locum seems to be out of question. Note that she has already closed her clinic in Rembau years back and the usual clinics where she sometimes did locum have mostly closed down. The only means of help to alleviate financial stresses has been my part-time teaching duties, which I will probably continue in the coming April semester.

Final Exams and Marking Extravaganza

This week we had final exams for the two courses I am teaching, namely Quantitative Methods and Data Analysis I (despite the fancy name, it is essentially Applied Calculus), which is on Monday, and Linear Algebra which is on Wednesday. Both subjects had six different groups; I taught two groups for QM (this is what it is popularly called there by students and staff and it took me quite awhile to get used to this, since QM in my head, automatically translates to Quantum Mechanics) and one group for Linear Algebra. Each group may be of different size, typically over sixty. I had 87 and 105 for QM and 68 for Linear Algebra. So in order to conduct an exam for all the six groups for each group simultaneously, we do need a big exam hall. Indeed, they had LY3 (which stands for Ling Yun 3 - unsure what the name refers to), with the ground floor capable of accommodating around 600 students. I was told there were other exam halls, which I have not gone to as yet.

Exams are conducted in strict fashion and are administered by a central Exam Unit and invigilators are discouraged from staying put or looked at the mobile phones during the exam. I had already a little experience before while I was teaching at Physics Department there, but I only had a small group then. For this semester, it was a real learning experience dealing with large number of students. They also implemented that uniform marking across different groups with each lecturer marking specific questions for the exam. So for the previous midterm exam, I got a huge surprise of having roughly 1000 scripts to look through (roughly 500 for each subject). I was terribly slow then given my first experience of such large number of scripts to mark, and we had to prepare for our lessons as well. Then, I also had the conference in Krabi, Thailand which sort of slowed down my marking (absence of a week). For this final exam, my colleague lecturers spared me from looking into many questions (I can't thank you enough). Also, with no teaching left, I was able to mark faster now. I have already switched bundles of scripts with my colleagues and tomorrow, God willing, I will be doing another exchange.

So for this week, my condition is very much like the cats below with lyrics of Adele's songs "Hello from the other side" in my head.

Difficult Start for 2025

Well, we are now in 2025. I posted this on my FB; whatever importance that may be to anyone. For me, it is just another passage in time, and I don't think it is any more different from 2024. I will still be working hard to support the family as a whole.

Just before the New Year Eve, I received the news of my son Izhar was diagnosed of having a swollen heart. We asked him to come home for a further check-up at a private hospital near our place. Over there, he did an echocardiogram test (an MRI test would be more detailed but it was just too expensive for me). What would be the cause of the problem? Most probably being stressed out by too much work. I had a similar problem way back in 2011. Perhaps such incidents should be a reminder for the employer; as much as one would like to squeeze as much work from an employee, his/her health may be put to risk.

The check-up at the hospital (particularly without an appointment) almost always end up at least spending almost a half-day of waiting. I had plenty on my mind with so many unfinished tasks. I developed another bad episode of back pain during the new year. Yesterday, I had to take pain killers to relieve the pain (and slept most of the day through and still feeling drowsy). So far, I have not complained about my back pain and have grown used to it, but out of prolonged sitting in the last few weeks, the pain worsened and I just can't ignore it.

The whole family was actually back together briefly for the New Year holiday, but I was not able to spend much time with my sons due to work (or resting from back pain). Mainly spend it with my cats.

Here is Stephanie (the oldest cat in the house), recovering from a minor surgery to remove an inflamed swelling from her body.

I was hoping that I get better news for the New Year but it seems they are not forthcoming. 

Varia: Thoughts on Teaching, Another Trip to Ara Damansara

Last Friday, was my last day of teaching. It was a replacement class for my Linear Algebra course and I was teaching Singular Value Decomposition. I have never taught this topic before even though I have come across it. Some hours went into reading and thinking on how to best teach it. For some reason, it had me thinking about more general topics on maps, kernels and images (see pic below from the book of Lay, Lay & McDonald, the textbook for the course)

I did mention about this in the class, just to inform that things are much richer than what they have encountered in the class. In many ways, I have tried my best to convey some general concepts all he way throughout the course so that they can connect the pieces when the time comes. I do notice however, there is a difference in styles of teaching here, which is more centred on problem solving skill set. I remembered putting out some problems for one set of quiz (involving general ideas of vector spaces) but was discarded then.

That week also saw me returning their midterm exam scripts to the students so that they can see how they performed and how the exam was marked.

Almost immediately, I had queries and complains about their marks and my standard answer is we tried to conform to the marking scheme given. They had also the chance to compare their marks with each other. Many complained about why they were not given the full marks for some questions but less complained on how marks are given to different students. Since each lecturer is marking specific questions, the tendency of giving marks uniformly is better. Nevertheless, I do consider there is always the possibility of genuine differences being made and when I raised this matter to colleagues, it is not meant to question anyone or undermine the system of marking (I do respect each colleague's independence on how the matter is perceived or judged). So, there is a balancing act of entertaining the students' queries and respecting the colleague's way of marking. It also means that my marking is not really over just yet as I need to go through each query.

In a way, this semester's teaching has been very much labour intensive and much more than what I was expecting (given I'm paid only through teaching hours). But I can understand the administrator's approach to the whole matter. Have been part of admin before. I told one colleague, while one can do multitasking, there is often a limit of what one can do. Given these limits, I have set up a hierarchy of priorities of what should done first (the education of students over the satisfaction of students). Imperfect as it is, this was what I can do then.

So with the semester ending, I will soon be back to be unemployed. With old age, I guess there is lesser chance of getting opportunities. Some may say that I should just simply retire (and I know some advise me not to return to work), but I still have to work to support the family and pay financial bills. In any case, I hope there is an opening for a job with the preference of one with more creative tasks than one with physical labour.

Yesterday, we were at Ara Damansara Medical Centre to meet with my other half's doctor, Dr. Abdul Fattah, who has operated on her for CSF leak (see this post). Sometime last week, she complained about hearing impairment on her left ear (hearing echoes and noises). First, she went to a local ENT specialist clinic in Seremban, and she was given some medication to reduce what was thought as an inflammation on her inner ear. It was diagnosed as Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. There was little improvement even after a few days of treatment and thus we thought that we should return to Dr. Abdul Fattah, fearing for a more sinister cause. She went for an audiometry test and there was a loss of hearing for the lower frequencies. Dr. Abdul Fattah said it was due to damaged nerves (and not a more sinister CSF leak-relate problem). She was given high dosage of steroids but he told her that this prescription was best done in the early stages for better recovery. For now, we just pray for the best; she is due for another audiometry test in two weeks time to see if there is any improvement.

From '62 To Sixty Two

No words will be able to describe ... 

Marking Weekends and EQuaLS Forum

The past few weekends have been full of marking activities. I'm pretty stressed out with these tasks and at times I went into a slight depression. The student clients ('bosses') kept asking when will they get their results and my fellow colleagues also asking the same, on behalf of their own students. In a way, I have started to regret my trip to Thailand. Not only has it caused financial stresses (yes, I know, my own doing) but it also came at the busy period of marking. By going to the conference, it had caused further delay of my marking (not helping with the expectations of current job). As I have commented before, what was I thinking when I accepted the invitation. Perhaps I have attached too much importance of my participation as a Malaysian representative to the conference (nobody really cared or noticed, right?). Thinking back, will there be any difference with my participation in the conference with the otherwise situation of my absence from the conference. Back to the marking, I have actually delayed marking scripts of my own group of students (to their displeasure) and gave priority to the scripts of the students of my colleagues. Of the two subjects, Linear Algebra was the one harder to mark particularly those problems involving row reduction procedure since there are many ways to do them (some perhaps not considered by the marking scheme). I have finished my marking of Linear Algebra, and now I am left with just scripts of my Applied Calculus students, which I hope to finish this weekend.

Yesterday, after my replacement class at XMUM in the morning, I drove to UPM for EQuaLS2024. I was invited to the forum in the afternoon. I was told that I should share my experience of building the quantum research ecosystem.

I started off by saying what I have done (the so-called 30 years) can only be of historical note, but what is more important will be how we forge the path ahead. The EQuaLS series is part of this history, a continuation of the lecture series I initiated in ITMA (TSL Expository Lecture Series). When I renamed it to EQuaLS, I was actually asked the reason why I did not name the lectures after the name of the lab. Having experienced being moved from one institute to another, and then from one lab to another, I thought it was best to name it after the research theme that it should carry. In this way, the lecture series is independent of the hosting institute and laboratory. Indeed, there was once the vision of EQuaLS as a national event, that may be hosted by a different university. It almost did happen until the intended organizer backed off. In the forum, I explained the intent of the lecture series is to bring us to the level of international experts with enough mathematical sophistication and maturity and of course, this could take years. Without such level, no one will take us seriously and it is highly unlikely for us to progress without substantial amount of acceptance of the relevant (international) community.

The other thing that we did, mentioned in the forum for a historical note, is our regular weekly meetings, that we called QuEST.

The point of the meeting is to allow members to share what they have read or worked on with other members. This inculcates a culture of critical discussions among members, which would pave the way to attain mathematical sophistication and maturity mentioned before. The other problem that it addresses is the fact we have limited reading capacity, while thousands of publications are being produced daily. So if we wanted to be well-rounded and be aware/on top of current issues being discussed, then we need to distribute the 'responsibility' of reading/reporting among the members. Perhaps another matter that can be instilled with the weekly meetings is the sense of urgency in doing research. Having said all this, a danger would be falling into the trap of having meetings for the sake of meetings. Every now and then, there should be some form of renewal of the spirit of these meetings. So a good thing to have (which we did not do), is to assess the situation at some regular intervals.

All of the above points raised seem to be out of synch with the topics raised by the other panel members; they touched upon policies, working papers, financial issues, legal frameworks. If ever, some criticise what I have raised is too idealistic or emotive or whatever, I can also retort that some of the issues raised are really like putting the cart before the horse; we are still facing very basic issues. However, the point here is not to put anyone down; everyone's contribution should be welcomed, particularly when the meet is meant to foster collaboration among us. In any case, we do need realizable actions from all these discussions, so that whatever being discussed does not end with the forum itself.

At some point in the discussions, I did raise my concern of unhealthy attitude that may take place while pursuing these quantum agendas. With the recent attention of the government on quantum technologies, there may be tussle about who should take lead. This may happen when personal agendas are placed above the overarching national agenda. Ideally, everyone should be leading in areas that they are familiar with. Opportunities should be open to all with complementary contributions from each group. Dreaded are ideas of sabotage or wanting others to fail. If there are any, then rightfully such persons should be shunned from the collaborative efforts. I also stressed the fact that no single person can carry the quantum agenda for the country on his/her own; we need all the help/contribution that we can get. I hope that by saying this, I will not offend anyone but it is a sincere thought from me.

After the forum, I met with my junior colleagues. As a follow-up to the forum, I did say that we need to come up with some coherent direction for the group, something that we could say to the world, these are our contributions. It is quite easy to say that we need to work on topics that are close to experiments, but what precisely are those? Perhaps using the Thailand experience, we should turn the question around, we need experimentalists to work closely with theorists. The cooperation between theorists and experimentalists should be organic and this will take time (maybe we give, say another five years?). During the forum, I did point out that Singapore had started off with high energy physics in the beginning (80s). It was only later (90s) that they turned to quantum foundations and quantum information with topics like Bell inequalities and qutrits, before they arrive to where they are now.

It was nice to meet with my junior colleagues. I left the place feeling rather estranged, not knowing my future. I wish my younger colleagues all the success and hope that they can carry out the national quantum agenda successfully.