Everyone needs a friend to help ease life better, to share our ups and downs, even if the friend is simply our family member. Most of my current friends are those whom I meet almost every day, among students, colleagues and staff; not that sociable beyond this circle. While not sociable, I try my best not to make enemies though sometimes difference of opinions can get intense. These days, particularly in social media, people sometimes use difference of opinions, unfortunately to create 'enemies'. My own take on difference of opinions is to use what we know about solutions in maths as a guide. Many times, we can't find solutions simply because the (mathematical) system is overconstrained, allowing too many variables into it. If we understand mathematical modeling, we can sometimes ignore some variables (making it less constrained) or allow variables to be parameters, for us to find tractable solutions. Sometimes we even find multiple or even infinite solutions and to this, any solutions will do. Thus, in the complex sphere of human life, I do take difference of opinions as facets of multiple solutions (whether which is the best depends on criteria (or parameters) adopted) and am happy to leave it at that.
But this is not what I've planned to say in this post. Being completely immersed in my work and in my present circumstances, I tend to lose contact with friends from the past. However, I had some pleasant surprise in the past months, when some of my past friends contacted me through the social media or whatsapp. One of them was Moha Lhousni, a Moroccan friend I met in Durham University who contacted me late last year. He was a school advisor in Morocco but has now retired. I'm happy that he contacted me; I still remember our deep discussions on civilization and I still keep his thesis on the topic of Discourse Analysis of the Holy Qur'an (seemed to have misplaced the thesis). Here is a picture of me and Moha in London.
Another long lost close friend in Durham, was a fellow theoretical physicist from Palestine. Dr. Maher Rashid. I was happy for being able to talk to him over the phone last Saturday using Messenger. He is currently the Associate Principal of Cedars Academy in Leicester. The contact was actually made possible by Dr. Qasem Nawafleh (also friend in Durham) from Jordan. Here is a recent picture of Maher and Qasem:
On the subject of Durham University friends, I have been added to WhatsApp group "Alumni Durham" where I get to know some people I've met while I was there and of course those whom I have heard their names. I guess in part, the group was created after our present Minister of Education, Dr. Maszlee Malik, an alumni of Durham University. got appointed. He was in Durham more than ten years after I left. I'm not sure whether he actually read the chats that we have there but I look forward to see any good changes in our education system under him.
Other friends that I get to reconnect is Hoe Chee Liang, who was a student when I joined UPM. He has settled down in the US and formed a company known as Cita Education. Since we both are very passionate about theoretical physics, mathematics and education, we talked about possible long term collaboration with his company. With his company, we hope to promote theoretical physics here in Malaysia (perhaps more later).
Another reconnection was with friends from my former school SMSPP. Was already in touch with some of them through Facebook but now I'm added to their WhatsApp. Part of the reason in recontacting me is a future get together, to which the idea of me playing drums back with old school friends was mooted. Unfortunately, my schedule was not favourable to the idea. Would have loved to meet them and also perform. Here is a picture of me playing the drums while I was in Adelaide:
On 18 July, INSPEM had organized Hari Inovasi 2018 to honour the high-achievers of the institute (both academic and non-academic). We also invited those who had served with INSPEM before and this time round we had Dr. Mahendran Shitan who was one of our heads of laboratory. Knew Dr. Mahendran even before I joined the Institute and in fact way back to the days in Bintulu. While he was with INSPEM, we often discuss with each other on arising problems of the institute and possible resolutions. I guess I really missed those moments. He is now retired and looked much happier. Here are some photos of us with him:
Finally yesterday, due to a workshop that we had attended in Ministry of Education in Putrajaya, our group from the institute met my former science officer Nor Yusniza there. I did not realise she was working there before that. Here are some pics of us at cafe Gloria Jean near the entrance:
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