May End Post

 After the USM talk, my mind is now preoccupied with the (next) talk in Biruni Universit in Istanbul i.e. for the 9th International Conference on Applied Analysis and Mathematical Modelling. I was listed as one of the invited speakers representing Malaysia (along with Prof. Adem Kilicman and Prof. Maslina Darus). I have been to the same series of conference in 2018 but due to the pandemic, this conference will now be held online. So the last weekend and the few days beforehand I was thinking of what topic to give the talk on. I had already some ideas in mind, which is on quantization but I wasn't too sure about it. Finally I blurbed something to the organizers on "Quantization: Crossroads and Crossovers". I have been brewing some ideas about comparing geometric quantization with deformation quantization for some time like many others have done too, but I wish to focus on systems with external fields. Let's see how my preparation goes.

The other development from the time of 'Eid was the surprise email from a colleague Iftikhar Ahmed during my Durham PhD days. We continued correspondence thereafter, telling each other about our families and life in general. He did certainly remember my obsession with books (which he said would have bankrupted me). Here is a (younger) picture of him with his children (hope he doesn't mind me sharing it here).

Last Sunday, he send me a WhatAapp video showing him mowing his lawn. He certainly has a gorgeous lawn and it seems he has a large comfortable home.

Tonight, received another surprise. I have registered for Covid-19 vaccination on April 3rd (actually it was much earlier but somehow it did not register completely)  and have been waiting since for the date(s) for the vaccination. When there was an open call for Astra Zenica vaccine shots made available elsewhere and there was a rush for these, I felt a bit frustrated. Suddenly tonight, I received a notification that I will be getting my first shot on June 4th at UPM.

I was expecting to get a shot in Seremban itself since I have put my Seremban address during registration but this is fine and good. I would have to travel slightly further distance and probably the hassle of getting police permission to travel interstate during the strict MCO period. 

Mathematical Physics Talk for USM

Some time ago, I received an invitation from the organizers of USM Physics Coffee Talk. It was a pleasant surprise for me to be invited there. So all this week and parts of last week, I was gearing up and preparing for this talk. I shelve most other tasks to actually prepare for the talk including a proposal paper for the collaboration with UniMaP and UTM. I had to apologise for my minimal involvement in putting up the details of the proposal paper, delegating the tasks to my younger colleague Dr. Nurisya. Below is the poster prepared by the organizers:

They also had this put up introducing me as the speaker (not sure where they get this from).

For the last item under the experience box, I didn't quite remember what my involvement really is, but I guess it was minimal (to the point of forgetting). There were many other more significant events that I have taken up but of course, they are not recent. In any case, this is really a minor point.

One of my bad habits when preparing talks is that I tend to brood more than I should, looking up all possible perspectives and references, and usually ending up less time for me to prepare the slides. For this talk, for instance, I was doing my last two slides just about forty minutes before the talk. What happened was, I searched my collection of books and papers for the preparation of the talk, two of which are my own notes from Prof. Herbert Green's lectures and the conference proceedings of an international conference of quantum physics that was organized in Kuala Lumpur in 1997. For Prof. Green's notes, I know I had them in the attic hidden under piles of papers; so finding it seems impossible and I gave up just the day before. I wanted to show to the audience the kind of topics that was covered in the lectures (some of which I have forgotten). For the proceedings, I knew it was not in the attic and I probably misplaced it in one of the rooms. Just three hours before the talk, I made one last search in the room of my eldest son and there it was. I quickly scanned the cover and the first page of Cecile deWitt-Morette's contribution to the proceedings (see below). I also wanted to find the group photo but I just could not find it. We had so many luminaries in the conference: von Klitzing (Nobel laureate), 't Hooft (at the time, yet to receive his Nobel prize), Paul Townsend (my own invitation), Charles Bennett, Bryce deWitt, R.J. Baxter, John Klauder, Pavel Exner and many more.

The page above was not quite the page I intended to show (I completely forgotten what I have read). There was the sentence "Somewhat awed by what I had unthinkingly offered I began gathering material on quantum physics as seen by mathematicians, and recollecting the role of mathematics in my life as a physicist" in the above but this does not give the impact I wanted. The real sentence that I wanted was on the next page: 

"As I was pondering the rich and multifaceted interactions between Mathematics and Quantum Physics, a student of mine, Alexander Wurm, brought me a mathematics dictionary which includes a synoptic table of physics disciplines and mathematics theories. Very interesting, but again too rich a fare: the whole of mathematics is relevant to Quantum Physics."

The last sentence was the thing I wanted to highlight to the audience - the broad spectrum of mathematics that one needs to cover for quantum theory. If Cecile deWitt-Morette was overwhelmed with the scope she needs to cover for the talk at the conference, then I would be very much more overwhelmed with the task of explaining mathematical physics. The only difference here is my audience is a student audience (mostly) and not expert researcher audience. This is also the reason why I had only two slides that contain equations in them.

I was actually hoping to do more. The plan is to have another short section just after the (Un)Resonable Effectiveness slide to talk about the history of relativity and history of quantum theory; this would be the section on the growth of physics with the help of maths (as suggested by the organizers in the title of the talk). There, I would mention Grossmann helped Einstein with tensor calculus and differential geometry; and Born and Jordan helped Heisenberg with matrix mechanics. Having said matrix mechanics, I was also supposed to mention that Prof. H.S. Green (being a disciple of Born) had a book on Matrix Methods in Quantum Mechanics, which was given praises by some  experts. It is also interesting that Cecile deWitt-Morette mentioned in her article that "All throughout my life, I have a needed a mathematician friend willing to tutor me 'as needed' " - a thing that I have always wished that I could have.

Now, I have this section called "Standards" where I would just review (selected) mathematical ideas behind the basic theoretical subjects of physics. (Note: if I had more time, I would put up section dividers before starting a new section, but then I need to finish the real content first.) Thereafter, I really wanted to do a "Beyond" section, where I would delve into some of my research interests: contextuality in quantum foundations and complex networks using graph theory, entanglement geometry via group actions on complex projective spaces and symplectic topology, quantum chaos and even Langlands program via modular forms plus categorical quantum mechanics and topos quantum theory. However these would have taken me more (infinite) time to prepare.

Overall, I was not satisfied with my own talk - I wished I could have said more. As it is, it may appear to be of a mumbo-jumbo to some. I really wanted to get some feedback about my talk but then again, why do I have to put more stress on my own self. I have my own recording of the talk, which is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99qHg5Pxr0w. The audio during Q&A is not good - perhaps the organizer will have a better video later.

The Day My Brother Ahmad Tajuddin Left Us

Yesterday, my brother Ahmad Tajuddin left us. I was writing this post, thinking that he has shown some improvements in his health. Before reading the message from my sister Noraini to our family WhatsApp group, I was discussing with my younger colleague about our proposal in collaboration with UniMaP and UTM. At the time, I was feeling a little tense, thinking about three tasks I need to do: the proposal, the preparation for my talk in USM and my courses. Almost immediately thereafter, I read the message telling the family that my brother has passed away due to a sudden heart attack. My heart sank and my eyes began to swell with tears. I immediately messaged the family, asking for any documents from the hospital. This is needed for us to ask permission for inter-state travel. It took awhile for us to get these documents as they require the signature of my late brother's family member. Thanks to my other sister Zaizah (who was there at the hospital helping out), we finally got the documents around noon. Before getting the documents, I applied for leave for the next day (Monday) in case there are delays in making arrangement for the funeral. I also cancelled the morning class because I knew I won't be in the right state of mind to teach and excused myself from the meeting that night to discuss the proposal.

On printing the documents, we immediately went to the police station to get the permission letter to travel to Selangor/Kuala Lumpur where the funeral will be. Once we got the letter, we (with my eldest son and my other half) head off immediately to the mosque (Masjid Muhsinin) where the funeral prayers will be. The prayers was conducted after half past two, after which we went to the burial place in Kampung Bohol (quite a distance away from the mosque). Around half past three, my brother rested in his final resting place. My eldest son helped to lower the body to the grave as I have a bad back condition to do so.

This is a picture that Prof. Norihan send me (I forgotten to ask her who made the picture) saying condolences.

My late brother Tajuddin is the one who helped get a position in UPM and I am most grateful for this. After coming back from Bintulu campus, I stayed in his place (Mardi quarters) before applying for fellowship in the Sixth College. My regret is not being able to go to his son's funeral (at the time my other half is getting her first vaccination shot) and he must have been disappointed. The second regret when he came out from his coma, I did not get the chance to see him before he left us. May Allah grant him His Forgiveness and Mercy on his soul.

Darker Days Ahead

Update: My brother Ahmad Tajuddin has just passed away this morning.

Yes, we have gone past the 'Eid celebration, a celebration with a sombre atmosphere. Just a few days before 'Eid, we read the news of the aggression against worshippers in al-Aqsa mosque. Al-Aqsa mosque is considered a holy site to the Muslims and such news sank heavy in the hearts of many Muslims. Perceptions differ dependent on what one reads (the choice is yours) but whatever happens there is of concern to Muslims in general. As a consequence, a new crisis erupted and it should be a concern for everyone. It certainly defies logic how some would prefer such escalation or even worse, armageddon. I guess, they do not know what are they wishing for - perhaps it is in the same mould as suicidal thoughts but only this is much worse as it affects many others.

The other reason for the sombre atmosphere is the third wave of Covid-19 infections. Beginning from the Sabah state elections, things have grown worse to the point of our ICU capacities in a few places have become saturated. We just had our daily record death of 44 yesterday and if we are not careful, it may just get worse. Due to worsening situation, the government have announced the third country-wide lockdown though economic activities are allowed to run with stringent SOPs. Interstate and interdistrict travels are prohibited apart from emergency cases and certain allowed activities. As such, many are saddened that 'Eid celebrations are only held in one's own house, but personally, this should be our least concern. There is the longer-term concern of how well we are going to fare economically during the difficult times. There is a call for a paradigm shift by health professionals say e.g. in the article here as Covid-19 is here to stay for a considerable period of time.

On a more positive side, my brother Ahmad Tajuddin has been transferred from UMMC to Columbia-Asia Hospital (private hospital) in Shah Alam by his family. So far, from the video that was sent to us, there seems to be positive development from the response that my brother give to the doctor's question. I sincerely hope that he can get better real soon. The special treatment that he gets there will probably costs a fortune.

May Allah help and guide us in the challenging days ahead.

Eid-ul-Fithri 1442

Today is the day we celebrate 'Eid-ul-Fithri marking the fasting month of Ramadhan. Unlike last year (where our second son, Ihsan was working in Pulau Indah and could not be home due to MCO), we have all the family members together for this 'Eid. Alas, my youngest son, who has started working in the nearby McDonalds, was having his morning shift today (clocking in at 7am). Thus, for the morning, we were missing Izzuddin.

We began the morning by performing 'Eid prayers at home together. After the prayers, we started taking family photos and thereafter, we had our breakfast (traditionally, we should do this before the prayers). Below are the morning photos.

My youngest came back from work around 3.30pm. Then we started our second photo session (see below).

For dinner, we ordered pizza just to change our meal menu. Else in the day, I listened to talks online to get some ideas for my USM talk.

End of Ramadhan

We have now reached the end of Ramadhan for this year where one hopes for forgiveness, mercy, acceptance of good deeds and betterment of our character. Have taken leave for the whole week to reflect and to have time for more personal matters. Well, the week has not gone the way I had expected.

I was perturbed by two questions posed to me by my student and my former postdoc. First, given my near retirement, why I would be involved in a project that may outlive my academic career in the current university. Indeed, I ask this question myself. What I have been wanting to do before my retirement is to simply graduate all my students and have peace of mind until I retire. I chose to leave many things so that I can do this. But there will always be many bigger things than what we want personally. One of them is the push for quantum science & technology to be part of our national science agenda. This is something that I have tried to push before and given the present opportunity, I would like to make one last try. I do not wish for any position with respect to this but merely to ensure sustainability of the effort. I will leave when the time comes.

The other question is whether one should be vocal and push what one considers is right at the expense of creating other problems. I tend to frame this question in a bigger setting of how to deal with one's ideals in an environment which is far from perfect. In the first place, I tend to remind myself that one's own ideals do not arise in vacuum and more often than not they tend to be reactionary to some problems in life. Thus, I tend to entertain things in various shades of grey rather than simply just black and white. There will be certain things that are clearly black which one avoids and others (white) which one clearly follows. All else are probably contextual. How does one react then? I have a tendency to follow what Snowden often says in his talks: How do one creates more stories like this (towards ideals) and less stories like that (far from ideals)? This requires the contexts of each person conditions to be fully addressed as well, when charting future course.

All the above might sound too general. Perhaps a better physics analogy is the following. Most physicists will take Newtonian laws are only true within certain limits (the contexts) and in other limits, they are false. Does one abandon Newtonian laws altogether? Of course not; we will certainly use them when they are most effective and where deviations are insignificant (again contexts). When necessary, then one goes into the more general picture.

With respect to the second question above, I normally give my students the freedom to pursue what they consider interesting but later, whatever I consider (possibly) objectionable, I will raise the matter and observe how these objections are addressed in the views of the students. Some, I may agree and some, I may not (to some degree). One of the research directions pursued by my student is the area of noncommutative quantum mechanics (NCQM). Being brought up in a particular quantization school, I have certain views of the subject and there are aspects of it, I find puzzling and I think, it requires deeper understanding. Since this was not my primary research programmes pursued at this moment, I tend to put this of secondary priority relative to my main research programmes (related to geometry of states and symplectic topology). Thus, I have a tendency to leave the subject of NCQM for others to pursue in detail.

Back to the first question, it seems that I will spending my leave to think about some proposal with collaborators from other universities, to be written by the weekend. I was initially hoping for some free time to prepare for my talk at USM during the leave. So busy times ahead. Here is a pic taken from the meeting yesterday.

Hope today I will have some time to prepare for both proposal and the USM talk.

Missing Mum

Today is Mother's Day. My late mum Habibah bt Daik was born on 16 November 1928. She was a full-time housewife taking care of a family of seven siblings and later even took care of some of her grandchildren. When she was still well, occasionally mum stayed at our (rented) house in Seremban, but most of the time, she stayed with my sister. Below is a pic of her with my eldest in 1995.

She stayed with us for an extended period once when she broke her leg (sometime in early 2000s). It was later when her health declined, she stayed in our present house until she left us on July 13, 2009. I was just a week away from attending a Quantum Theory & Symmetries symposium in Lexington, Kentucky (20-25 July, 2009). I remembered going to the symposium rather heartbroken.

It has been twelve years that she left us. We normally make it a point to visit her grave almost every year. Last year we did not get to visit the grave due to movement control order (MCO) for the Covid-19 pandemic. This year my other half reminded me to go before the third wave worsened. So we did yesterday. To our surprise, the grave has sunken quite deep (probably to soil movement being on a slope) and the writings on the tombstone are partially unreadable. We sought help from the graveyard maintainer to help pile up back some earth, put stones on it and reinked the writings. The pics below showed the conditions yesterday.

So this morning we went over again to have a look what has been done (see pics below). My other half bought some flowers to put them on the grave.

May Allah grant my mum forgiveness, blessings and paradise in the hereafter.

Today, my son in IIUM came back home as planned by the university and the ministry. So we had our breaking of fast almost with the whole family today (my youngest had to worked overtime at McDonalds, so he was not around at the time when we break our fast). Later, an additional surprise:  my youngest treated us with food from McDonalds. Full to the brim now.

Off Day, Day Off

Yesterday was really an off day for me. The tiredness from the day before (cleaning the old office) really affected me. I had to rest more than usual and hence led me to less preparation for the morning lecture. On top of this, I was preparing SCL modules for the two courses I am teaching. These modules are meant to expose students to do some 'research' topics that are tangentially related to subtopics taught in the course. The students are meant to do these tasks in small groups and promote cooperation skills in research. The topics are taken from journal papers chosen suitably for advanced undergraduates. The set of papers are updated from year to year and that had me occupied the night before. When I began the lecture, I fumbled a few times until I said to myself that this lecture is awful. Thus, I stopped and deleted the recording; I told the students that I will redo this lecture at another time. I also decided not to give the other lecture that day when I'm in a groggy state. The other event that day was our weekly group QuEST meeting. We realised that this was the group meeting before the 'Eid celebration, we decided to take a group photo (see below).

Later in the evening, I had some discussions about the collaborative work that was mentioned in this post and the subsequent post. The second post had me feeling disappointed since we missed our university deadline and hence was not able to lead the collaboration. However that does not mean the other universities can't. So in the discussion, our collaborators found another university that can lead instead and we will have a meeting together on the next day (today). So to prepare for this meeting, I went on to do some fact finding tasks. This leads me to another bad news that the agency we had intended to do developmental work on quantum technology for, has changed directions and will not consider the previously planned work. That was a big setback that even involved a foreign partner. If not for the promise to meet the collaborators the next day, I would probably have given up trying to get quantum technologies to the university.

Today it is my day off but yet I have two meetings; one with the collaborators and the other with my PhD student. So in the meeting with the collaborators (two from each university and there were three universities: UTM, UniMaP and UPM), I mention the news I had learned the night before to our collaborators. Nevertheless, we decide to pursue the collaboration regardless. The hope is that this collaboration will get noticed and will help set quantum science & technology as part of national science agenda. We are actually left behind with respect to this national quantum initiatives compared to Thailand and Indonesia (see links in this post). Here is a picture of our meeting.

By the time for my next meeting with my student, I asked him to shorten it since I was feeling rather exhausted. The discussion was mostly limited to his future research direction after his submission of the final form of his thesis. 

Back in 221

On Monday, I received a message from the Head of Department saying that my temporary office has to be vacated for a new lecturer. I was in this temporary office (Room 216) since my old office (Room 221) had its air-conditioning unit not functioning. So ever since I'm back at the Faculty, I have moved into two different temporary offices. Now that they have replaced the air-conditioning unit, the expectation is for me to return back to the old office. I delayed this action, thinking I would like to do this after 'Eid and hopefully by then, I can get the help of others to move and help clean up my old office.

I had left this office for more than twenty years since I was in the management of two different institutes (I rather stay fixed to a single office so that students can easily find me). I had a brief stay in the office during 2009. At the time, Andreas Doering was around in INSPEM as a fellow consultant. The whiteboard in the old office had his handwriting all over it, explaining to me about topos theory (see picture below).

There was also this transparency pinned on the softboard in which I tried to explain the connections of the different research areas I was interested in then (see pic below). Those were the ambitious years.

I also found that my old server monitor and laser printer was broken. I guess this happened while they were installing the new air-conditioning unit. But this is fine, because they were not functioning anymore. The server I had in the room used to serve Qfizik, the website I used to host for my lectures and research materials and other resources (see this wayback machine capturing Qfizik). The room was terrible, dirty and dusty. This is essentially the reason why I wanted to postpone moving back to the old office. I certainly need help in moving and cleaning the room. With the MCO in place, there were no students to help, but my younger colleague Chan Kar Tim helped me out. So we cleaned up enough spots for me to work in the room (see pic below).

The temporary room has been vacated for the department to use and I have returned the key to Mr. Asrul, one of the Faculty support staff.

Thus, I will be using my old office until I retire. Still need cleaning up for me to be comfortable. Also I had this large white board that I hope to move to the Theoretical Lab whenever things returned a bit to normal. It has been declared that tomorrow the university will only retain only critical staff and everyone else has to be working from home.

May the 4th Be With You

Today one can find in the social media posts of this blogpost title rewording the popular phrase from a (series of) Hollywood movie(s). Indeed I found out that today has been declared the Star Wars Day. Talking about forces, one's life are often colored by invisible forces and the most noticeable are the ones that work against oneself. In my younger days, I would probably fight against such forces but these days, I would just avoid them as much as possible. I need my peace of mind.

So given the last ten days of Ramadhan, I would prefer to be in the reclusive mode, freeing myself of harboring of ill feelings that may occur on interactions. I have applied for my 'Eid leave as instructed by the management. Essentially taking the whole week off beginning this Friday. I have contributed what I can and now I should work for my peace of mind and my own satisfaction. Please excuse me while I will be with my faithful companions below.

You May Not

In my previous post, I mentioned about the surprise call to collaborate from colleagues elsewhere. Before this, I was not expecting any more important role to play given my near-retirement. Given the call, put some efforts into it and there is this glimmer of hope that I could be active back again in whatever role. So today, I called up for an informal meeting with my colleagues in the department that even went beyond lunchtime (without the lunch of course). We even planned a meeting with our collaborators. But then our hopes were dashed after finding out that the deadline has passed for our university (but not for others). In a way, there was a sense of relief (not to be held responsible for something important) but I still feel the other sense of frustration of not being able to grab the opportunity. I guess I can call it fate that most of my ventures ended up with nothing.

Let me list some of the things I was involved in but ended up with nothing or no further role:

• Minimal involvement in the early days of formation of Ibn Sina Institute in UTM
• National Computing Centre - initiated by Prof. Rauzah in Universiti Malaya
• National Physics Laboratory during the period when everyone is talking about the Nobel Laureate challenge by Tun Dr. Mahathir
• Minimal involvement in the early days of National Particle Physics Centre

Note that the role I'm referring to in the above was merely being an active participant (not say of any administrative position). Thereafter, I focus mostly on efforts in my own university.

• Was in the nucleus group of Multimedia Institute headed by Prof. Makhdzir Mardan during Multimedia Supercorridor heydays. The institute was later closed down during the first restructuring of the institutes.
• Setting up Theoretical Studies Laboratory (TSL) in ITMA which was later asked to be closed or merged (whatever). Before closure we even had set up a quantum information research laboratory in TSL.
• Bidding for sister events of Quantum Theory and Symmetries Symposium and Group Theoretical Methods in Physics Colloquium (which had the Wigner Medal and Weyl Prize inauguration ceremonies). It went through a committee but we were not successful.
• Almost got involved in the bidding for International Congress for Mathematicians but it was rather ambitious.
• Attempt to build a joint international laboratory for Algorithms, Logic and Complexity with University of Auckland. I felt I was unprepared for this and finally found that getting significant funds for this seems impractical.
• Involved in the paper write-up for Malaysia-Italy Institute for Mathematical Sciences a la ICTP but this went through several unplanned changes.
• At a personal level, is my own departure from Institute for Mathematical Research for personal (health) reasons. As I have said above, it is not so much of the administrative position, but it is to be able see one's ideas realised to their fruition and the trust relationships. (That is why I find not continuing a tradition, is those consequences of the more damaging type; undoing efforts that have been put in for the tradition, unless it is for reestablishing new equilibrium points which are more energy efficient)

I should have been numbed by these unsuccessful ventures. However, frustration will always be there each time one is unsuccessful, particularly when one believes in what one was doing. Accepting them as fate seems easy to say but deep down one feels the regret of having spent significant amount of energy in them. May the last few days of this Ramadhan give me peace with regard to these matters.

May I?

May I be quiet?

The current pandemic is supposed to teach us how to be wiser. Things do not seem to point in this direction. Presently things are not ok. It would have been abnormal not to be perturbed by them. Rising new infections of Covid-19. Uncertainties abound politically and economically. Divisive viral issues that could have been avoided - even staying quiet can be wrong. I certainly fear the kind of future that I'm leaving my children into. Despite all this, one can only act within our sphere of influence, do our best and hope (and pray) one has a better future.

Yesterday was overall good in my personal sphere. First, my PhD student, Umair had his viva examination in the morning. I was there as his supervisor and observer. By around 11am, the viva is over and Umair has unofficially passed his viva examination. Much thankful for that. Umair is my 8th PhD student (as main supervisor) and 23rd graduate student (inclusive of MSc student and several of them are the same person who later did PhD with me, just like Umair). Snapped a few photos (see below).

During the viva, I saw a message coming in my mobile phone regarding an update of my brother in the hospital. I did not read too much because I was focusing on the viva. After the viva, read the message and it was another piece of good news of the day. My brother Ahmad Tajuddin has came out from his coma. Was happy with my eyes swelling with tears. I hope he will recover and be back to normal but this will certainly take time and we will continue to pray for him.

After the Friday prayers, I chaired the Departmental Seminar which is now under my watch. Earlier I was ambitious and wrote that I would like to do this every two weeks. Now, I'm contented to have it once a month as suggested by our Head of Department. So, the speaker that day was a junior lecturer, Dr. Adilah, who had joined our department relatively recently. Below is the poster and a pic Dr. Rabaah took during the seminar.

We also recorded the whole talk and am waiting for Dr. Adilah to give her consent for the video to be uploaded in YouTube.

Just after the talk, Dr. Yap Yung Szen messaged me about some collaborative matters that he had emailed me earlier. Initially I only had relayed the message to my younger colleagues given that I will be retiring. I did not know that it was rather urgent. Right after the exchange of messages, I messaged Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jesni in IIUM about the matter to see what he thinks. Later that night, we had a long chat and in principle, we decided to go for it. Despite my wish for a quieter life until retirement, this is probably an opportunity too good to miss. Let us just hope that this will work out. While my mind and body is tired, I still believe that there should be efforts to have quantum science and technology in Malaysia with a firm, sustainable footing in our national science agenda. This is the only reason I'm pushing this through.

Today came in another surprise message. It was another initiative that I began while I was still the Deputy Director regarding another collaborative matters with China. However this should be dealt at the university level and since I am no longer in the management, I have conveyed the message to the administrative officer in the institute.

Despite the Saturday and being the Labour Day, got myself in a lot of thinking that leaves me mentally exhausted. Zzzzz