Teachers Teach

Less than a week ago, we celebrated Teacher's Day (I'm well aware of the other Academia Day on October 5th, announced by the Higher Education Ministry, but a teacher is somehow placed more dearly in my heart, knowing the ups and downs of academia), I thought to myself who would I remember most as a teacher. I have to name Prof. Herbert Green as one who had influenced me quite a lot. Indeed, he introduced me to theoretical physics and the creativity that goes with it (now, put this in the context of myself not even knowing what theoretical physics was then). He taught me Mathemtical Methods and Statistical Mechanics in my third year. Next year (Honours year), he taught Elementary Field Theory. 

The way he taught things seems very original because we had a difficult time to find out what books that we should refer to, to understand his notes. In the end, we had several different books to look at and most of them we had to decipher the notations used by the authors to agree on what he had used. As a result, we had developed our own way of (profound) understanding the subjects that he was teaching, which is very useful later when we do research. The pic that is in the Wikipedia shows a younger Prof. Green; the way I remember him is shwn in the pic below, with white hair and white beard.

When I finished my Honours year in 1984, I went to see him if he is interested to get a graduate student. However he then advised me t find a younger supervisor for my graduate studies. If he had agreed, through him, I might have had Max Born as my academic grandfather. Also, I would probably be doing something very different, since in his latter years, he was more interested in biological and neurophysiological models in collaboration with Terry Triffet. One can have a good glimpse of his life from the article of Prof. Charles Hurst. His last book was on Information Theory and Quantum Physics: Physical Foundations for Understanding the Conscious Process, and I hope to read this in the future. As a tribute to him, I hope to put the notes of his lectures in LaTeX, for people to read, sometime in the future.

The last thought is in line with what I had in mind, when I came back from my PhD, namely to let our students know about theoretical physics, not simply for its technicality but also for its creativity in understanding the world (a thought that I told the panel of interviwers when I was applying the job at my former university). Today, I'm teaching part-time at XMUM. Even though, I'm teaching basic calculus and algebra, I internalize the subjects in a way, that I can say something different when I am teaching my students. Most of the teaching and its materials are done electronically. This is my teaching set up, with a writing tablet attached to my (very old) laptop (see pic). So, with skeleton slides of teaching materials, I write extra notes and explanations on the slides so that the lecture has a feel of a real traditional lecture.

In order to access the projectors, I have to borrow access card from the library at BlockA3, to insertit in the AV module (see pic below) and return the card back after my lecture ends. So, a bit of running around. For full-time staff, they can simply insert their staff card there.

Recently, I had to teach this new subject handed to me, which is an amalgamation of linear algebra and applied calculus and I had reached the calculus part. For many Malaysian students, what they see in calcuus is probably a boring repeat of what they have learned in schools. So, I saw my students getting bored and even played games while they were sitting in the front row. That stressed me out and I thought I should make the lecture more interesting by saying things that they probably would not know. In the past (last two semesters), I already dug out Silberberg's The Structure of Economics to help me understand why they are studying calculus. 

This time round, since the accounting students are more advanced, I dug out Takayama's Mathematical Economics for a much more advanced and broader perspective.

Unlike what people think they know about lecturers (some falsely claim that we are using decade old notes), we do renewal of the teaching process and at times look into research papers to see what's the latest in these topics. By stating this, we do not want all these 'renewal' or 'continuous improvement' processes to be stated in the QA documents. Like what I've always said, teaching and learning will always be creative processes; there is no universal blanket algorithm that will cover the infinite facets of teaching and learning (and we should not waste too much time on such administrative tools). Teachers teach and should be less bothered with administrative matters.

Come What May

Yesterday was mother's day. I always have my late mum (and dad) in my prayers. As many things on social media, I have resisted to post anything so that it becomes like a performance for the public to see. So yesterday was like an uneventful like any other day. Our son Izhar was back with us for this extended weekend. He will soon be starting a new job in an industry after leaving APU some time last week. Late night, we went out for tea in a local mamak restaurant (nothing fancy), perhaps celebrating mother's day with their mum there.

While things are somewhat difficult, we have to keep ourselves happy. Among the things that were on my mind the past week or so, is the various ambitions that went unrealised. Most of these are worldly things and I'm training myself not to be attached to them. I should count my blessings. Lately, I'm feeling a bit vulnerable. In particular, I had a really bad back episode last week that my other half recommended me to get a voren injection, and so I did. I hope this relief of pain will last when I go back to work this week. Have been trying to finish off some teaching preparation. With only a small desk (recalling the luxury of large desk when I was in management), I had to use the bed as my work space - not a very conducive place to work (as I can easily dozed off), but it will do.

As I said, I should be thankful that I can still work. 

I do worry about the future and what will my children face. I kept myself updated of the happenings in the world. While I dislike politics (including those in workplaces), one should not be so naive as politics tend to have a large influence in our lives. I do tend to keep my family updated on significant things happening in the world from time to time. May Allah make us wiser and ease our living.

May the Fourth (Be With You)

I guess another post is due.

I had just put out another post in my Malay blog last night. It was meant to be posted during the World Quantum Day on April 14. However I was still reading up materials for the blog entry. Initially, I wanted to rush it to make the post in time. Then I rechecked my intention; if my post is meant to educate those who are interested, then it doesn't really matter when I post it. So I took my time reading as much as I could, including my surprise doscovery of Prof. Shaharir's papers way back in 1974. I thought it would be a good idea to publicise such technical materials. I posted the link on FB so that the article gets a wider reading. Again, intentions need to be rechecked time and again, not to chase popularity at this age but to increase good deeds

Did a lot of reflections over the period in Syawwal and now in Dzulqaidah. Found myself still wanting a lot from this world, which is not a good thing at my age. Financial wants seem to take a huge chunk of it, particularly when expenses tend to grow over time. I'm still blessed with a part-time job in XMUM and I hope the opportunity will still be there in the future. I have still my youngest who intends to start his BSc education later in the year. Also, none of my kids have yet to marry (so my 'Datukship' is still far away). Recently, we went to our surau's neighbourhood day cum belated 'Eid celebration and there was some health check station and optometrist station. My other half took my youngest to check his eyes. Ever since he broke his glasses in college (I think), he went on without wearing glasses. The check-up showed deterioration of his eyesight. In my mind, I was already worried about forthcoming expenses since new pair of glasses can go up to 400 or 500 Ringgit. We were told then he need his eyes checked by a specialist to be sure of what his problems are, in a way delaying the expenses.

Many times I do delay spending in things that I want to have, to ensure we have enough until the end of the month (or whenever the pension pay comes). An immediate need is my laptop (see pic below) whose battery is no longer working and due to its expansion, cracked an opening in the laptop.

Once, just before a lecture, the laptop could not be started and I panicked. After a few times switching on and off, it finally booted up. Unknowingly, the laptop's clock was slowed down to around 7 minutes late. Not realising this, I tend to finish late with my lectures, overrunning another staff's lecture. After realising that the clock was slowed down, I made the effort to apologise to the lecturer in the following week. So my laptop will be at the top of my priority list given that I have at least three months of teaching left. Other things like my own back treatment can wait (hope to do better pain management and get me off the dependence on pain killers).

Hosting Own 'Eid Celebration

I have been slacking in updating my blogs. This is mainly due to me not being well while bearing a constant back ache for the past few weeks. It has been (almost) a week since we hosted our own 'Eid celebration. I guess it is long overdue for me to post the pics that I have during the event.

The event started off wuth my in-laws decided to come to our place for 'Eid. Thus, we started to invite our family members, neighbours and close friends. We did not plan anything really special, an ordinary lunch with plain rice. Gradually it went bigger and we ordered more food. I also extend the invitation to our theory group members through Dr. Nurisya.

So here are the pics (with no particular ordering).

The last pic is me with Aqwa, my former MSc student who did Categrical Quantum Mechanics, who graduated after I have retired. I have not seen him for quite a while and was pleasantly surprised to see him come. It seems that he read my blog post on Kashiwara and we discussed a little bit the state of affairs of theorists and pure mathematicians in the country. He is currently waiting for a PhD opportunity abroad and I hope he will get a scholarship to do this.

The following pics are courtesy of Dr. Nurisya and Faisal.

During the event, we had to put our cats in cages, so that they do not get in the way.

Some unfortunate things happened. As the day progressed, some of the food went bad, without us knowing. We sincerely apologised if anyone was affected by this. Before this, we had no problem the food caterer and was surprised by the outcome. Perhaps they had prepared the food too early since we heard they had to cater another wedding event on the same day. I felt silly going around taking pics of the guests, thinking that they are enjoying the food. Our apologies again.

The other unfortunate thing was the car of my son, Ihsan, got scratched sometime during that day. Despite that this is minor, one can't help feeling frustrated.

In any case, we are most grateful to everyone who went out of their way (going through the traffic jam) to be at our event. May Allah reward your generosity and kindness.