Mid-Ramadhan 1441

We have reached mid-Ramadhan and now entering its second-half. We are still under MCO but conditions are now relaxed to allow the economic sector to slowly pick-up. There is a little worry that we might see another wave of Covid-19 infections but so far the number of infection is still well within the two-digit range (there was a slight jump to three-digit but it was around 100-ish). Let us hope that it will be on the decreasing trend and that Malaysians be on their alert and not let the disease spread.

On the personal front, fatigue seems to set in earlier this Ramadhan perhaps due to being at home with lesser activities. We are still working but perhaps at a more relaxed phase. So far, we have already had twice departmental meetings (see pics).

The first pic was on 16 April where we had our Dean attending as well and the second pic was on last Monday, 4 May. Over the MCO period, we had to submit several reports too. I'm making this known so that people get to know we are not just lazing around, sitting idle, while we are 'working from home'.

We had also started our QuEST meetings. Initially just to test the group video chat on FB Messenger (on April 26 - see pic below). I also made a presentation last Tuesday, 5 May on my reading of noncommutative geometry (it was supposed to be on Monday but then we had the departmental meeting). It seems that the FB messenger group chat that we had, have some limitations. So we finally decided to move Google Meet while it is free. Google Meet is part of G-Suite which is not free. Whether I should consider this suite depends on what I want to do when I reached retirement - have to be careful on the extra expenses that I'm committing myself with. I would love to be part of some independent scientific community (particularly with my present colleagues and students) even after I retire.

For my own classes, due to the smaller number, I have mostly limit myself to whatsapp and going online when necessary (especially when there are questions). My notes are mostly on the web - for PHY4503 it's in PutraBlast while for PHY5601 it's on my KetchupSpills blog. I have also put up some of my video lectures on my YouTube channel (only for undergraduate lectures). I only emphasize the main points of my notes in the video; nothing can beat the interactive face-to-face lectures (which I leave this to my live online chats). For my graduate lectures, I've started using Google Meet (last Wednesday for the live session). One downside is that when I share screen with the students, I would not be able to see my students - makes me feel like I'm talking to my own computer screen - that seems common to all platforms that I've seen. Here is a capture of that session.

The other thing that I've done during the MCO period is to update my Acu Frekuensi blog, writing about quantum technology, making ourselves ready for a forthcoming (ambitious) project. There are other things that I wish I could have done but I will leave this for a future post.