Ending October

Another week has gone by. We have started teaching last week with me handling three hours (1+2) worth of lectures on Monday. For the first hour, there seems to be hiccups in the Faculty's wi-fi and I was disconnected twice from the class without me knowing, until the student(s) notify me through the phone. So for the next two-hour lecture, I decided to use my Yes mobile broadband to make sure the class went uninterrupted. On Wednesday, tried back with the Faculty's wi-fi and it was working fine. The same for Thursday. So I hope it will continue that way. This coming Monday, we were just told on late Friday that the campus will have the staff in full force. I hope the wi-fi will still be good; will experiment with the first lecture at 10 a.m. I am actually fine with going to campus (I think most of us are tired anyway staying at home); as I have said I enjoy working but with the right environment. As I discussed with my colleague, we are passionate with our work but things can change if the conditions get too rigid and I hope the administration should understand this human nature.

In a way, we need to come to terms with living with the virus in the community by proceeding with our lives with caution. In the past, we heard people lost their loved ones to Covid-19. Today, we still have new deaths but the numbers are smaller, perhaps due to the vaccination. Recently, just received the shocking news that one of my house-mates in Adelaide, Khir Abd Jalil, had succumbed to Covid-19 late evening on Thursday last week. I received the news rather late i.e. after reading the message of Dato' Suhaizan (another house mate during matriculation days) early Friday morning. I tend to go to bed early these days due to my tired physical conditions and so was not browsing the social media that much. Was unaware of what's happening. After getting the message, checked his FB page and saw his colleague mentioning the sad news. May Allah forgive him and bless him with jannah. Here is a pic of me with him (without glasses).

Just after this news, we have also received news that our brother-in-law was Covid-19 positive despite him being fully vaccinated, but so far he is ok. More recently, a school-mate was admitted as a Stage-5 patient;May Allah help him. Thus, we still need to be careful despite the opening of many economic sectors and state borders.

Renovations update: Currently they have started working on the kitchen and room downstairs, while the room upstairs are still in the plastering stages and not completed yet. Thus, most of our things had to be moved to our living room, making things a little bit unbearable. This is today's pics:

See the video below taken by my other half (like a horror movie with a soundtrack).

I have booked an extra hotel room (see below) for my sons to stay (on and off), to get away from the renovation when they want.

Been staying in the hotel and have not been to my home since the weekend. Missed my cats. Here's Fifi who normally sleeps with me.

She has to be sent to the clinic yesterday since she was not well.

I guess the other cats are also stressful with the current conditions of the house. Here's Lofa playing with the noise in the background.

Like I have mentioned earlier, I tend not to read too much social media these days. Occasionally, there are some posts that are of interest, and some perhaps I have strong opinions on. Particularly those related to theoretical physics. After having gone through much, all I can say is that we have yet to build a strong theoretical physics tradition locally and as such it needs help rather than obstacles. What we need is not more constraints but more opportunities. Some posts triggered bad memories for which I will get turned off easily. We can talk so much about what we or other people want but unfortunately we do very little to help ease the work we are doing. Just this morning, I mention to my younger colleague that I have done what I can during my administrative years. I now prefer a quiet life, away from most things, and will not do much unless necessary. Currently, I was given the tasks of handling seminars at the department and some of these are posted in YouTube channel. For this week, I'm quite excited to have Kwek again, speaking now at the department. Hope my colleagues here will see how far has Singapore gone into quantum technologies. Recently an old boss messaged me about conversations held elsewhere on the wish for Malaysia to be in the quantum race. I told him we had a few initiatives trying to get quantum technologies but none has been successful. I guess, we can only dream at this stage. Anyway here is the poster of Kwek's talk to be held this Friday. I took leave so that I can use the hotel's wifi to conduct the seminar uninterrupted.

Mid-October Update

Our third son, Izhar has just went back to his college in IIUM yesterday, being a final year student. It was my other half and my eldest son who sent him off. Had to refrain from travelling too much as I am suffering from a bad episode of back pain. What has really triggered it, I'm not particularly sure but it was after my travel to work early last week. I was supposed to be in the office all five days a week but by Wednesday, it seems my back took a beating. Early Thursday morning, I was on pain killers and hence took emergency leave to rest for the next two days. The pain subsided but my right leg seems to be quite weak and my other half suggested to me take another MRI test. Let's see how this week goes.

Renovations update: Yesterday, the contractor stopped work to follow our request to please our neighbours and so far we have not received any further complains (but this may be due to the present work of only wiring and plastering). Here is a picture taken last Saturday.

Besides the kids' room, we will be retiling our own bedroom and removing the attic to be replaced by cabinets for my collection of papers and books. I was forced to throw some of the old papers I had (recycling them rather) and saving their electronic versions instead. A lot of sieving to be done. The work for the room downstairs (to be enlarged) and the kitchen (to reduce in size) has yet to start. So long way to go and our lives are pretty much disrupted at this point.

Today, I will start lecturing again and I'm teaching both Statistical Mechanics and Mathematical Methods in Physics for this semester. Last week, the new students came for their registration and we had online meeting with them (see pic below). I saw that I was not assigned as academic advisor to any of the new students, perhaps due to my retirement around the corner. We also had our new physics curriculum, which will have a new course on quantum information. Kudos to the curriculum committee.

Ok, back to work of preparing lectures (and I should also get some sleep).

Of Labels, Positions and Salvation

I have been called with many labels. With some students and colleagues abroad, some call me professor and in the earlier days, I would explain to them I'm just an associate professor.  Later, I've grown tired of explaining myself and let them be uncorrected. They could always look me up in official websites what my actual position is. For that matter, I'm fine being just called a lecturer or 'Dr.', like in this conference where I was invited to give a talk. In fact, later when I retire, I will no longer have the Associate Professorship; I will simply be a 'Dr.' by virtue of the PhD degree I have. Sometimes people have asked me, why I have not applied for professorship. I don't really know, I just feel I need to do more first. Perhaps I'll wait for some significant original scientific idea that I long for and that will never come. In any case, the current criteria for professorship is very demanding and to a certain extent I question myself of what I used to know as an academic professor.

Many of the labels that I got, however, are often derogatory, some I take seriously and would try to improve myself but some I find meaningless and merely attempts of discredit. Some would take me as a fool for not 'fighting' back but at times I felt it would be more foolish to do so. There is so much pretense today, putting up 'shows' (maybe I'm wrong), to the extent that I just want to do something different, Yesterday I discussed about my previous resignation from an administrative post with a colleague. I know some sniggered at this 'foolish' action but I took into account of my health conditions as well as the labels that had been thrown at me, indicating that I'm not wanted there. In retrospective, I recalled the hadith:

Abdur Rahman ibn Samurah reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said to me, “O Abdur Rahman, do not ask for authority. If it is given to you at your request, you will be held fully responsible for it. If it is given to you without your request, you will be helped by Allah in it.”

Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6727, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1652

Thus, I'm glad that I did it. For some exposition on this matter, I suggest to listen to Sheikh Omar Suleiman at https://yaqeeninstitute.org/omar-suleiman/hadith-4-to-seek-or-not-to-seek-leadership-40-hadiths-on-social-justice. The position was really not my concern. I still believe in the struggle of putting theoretical physics (and more very technical mathematical science at large) at UPM and in the country as a whole. This belief can be realised in many different ways and thus would like to take a different path. Hopefully, it will count as good deeds in the hereafter.

In the previous post, I spoke of granting me peace until my retirement. I already had unpleasant memories before and would not want to add more as it would make me bitter. This will not help me get salvation in the hereafter, which is ultimately what I want. May Allah ease the path for me.

Sour Eleven

Things have gone a little sour lately with things going haywire and I'm in a dark mood (be warned). Have moved into a budget hotel (Rivero Boutique Hotel) in Garden Homes to escape myself from the current renovations that we are doing to our house. The main reason I'm staying in the hotel is to ensure I can do online classes (or for that matter meetings) without noises from the renovation. Last week, for instance, I need to do my presentation at the QuEST group meeting, so I want this to be uninterrupted. I was a bit unsure about what I am going to speak on but I had the idea of just explaining the research program we are conducting or at least what I hoped to do (applying symplectic topology to quantum information). Scoured through numerous papers and that left me very little time to prepare the slides. I was disappointed with my own presentation, really but I did stumbled into something that I did not know before - the symmetric product of CP^1 can give you CP^n. The only problem here is the details and interpretation. Because of ill preparations, I did not record the talk (which I usually do) but I was at the hotel then during the presentation. 

There were a couple of other things that upset me last week particularly on work matters. However, what really brought my mood down was the complain made by a particular fussy neighbour on our renovations yesterday. Yes, the noise can be disturbing but we were hoping that they would understand. How can there be renovations without any noise; I will certainly wait for the day when they can invent a silent drill and a clever technique of wall knock-downs without noise. We have tried to be good neighbours but sometimes this is not reciprocated. Certainly in this instance, we can't do much to please the neighbour. We need to proceed with the renovations to make sure that each of our child has a room for their own before I vanish from this earth. We have instructed the workers to stop work during the weekend (though this would delay further the work). Worse come to worst, I'll be happy to give my hotel room to that neighbour; I have already rented the room for a month. Here are some pics of the renovations.

Here is a pic of the hotel room I'm renting. It's not big but cosy and convenient enough. Next to the hotel is a 24-hour convenient KK store, which is really helpful. The neighbour can stay there, if they want.

This last option seems plausible now, given that I am required to be in office for the whole five days a week and hence there is little reason I need the hotel room (apart from getting some moments away from the renovations). I only knew about the matter only around 9.05am this morning and I had to rush to work after having breakfast with my other half (she took leave to oversee the problems raised yesterday). Going to work everyday is no problem for me; I'm not lazy. My preference to work from home earlier was that I felt I can use the time for travel (one and a half hour to and fro) for better purposes. Also, I have a back condition that led to a weakening right leg and long drives tend to put a lot of stress on my back (yes, I know, the late Stephen Hawking went to work despite his conditions; this was a remark once made to me). As I said really, I have no problem with going to work and I have been in management before to know the problems of absenteeism. But I think the reasoning used to select people for the 5-day week is rather unwise; we were told that those who had little publications will need to come to office all five days. Felt like a pariah these days. Never mind, its their judgment call and I won't pose any problem to their decision. Once, during the management at the institute, I had to deal with absenteeism. My intent then was to help educate the person and indirectly showed to him that he was doing less tasks than the rest of his peers. Instead of taking this positively, he brought his problems to the registrar of the university and we had a little meeting on this. Never mind, I no longer want to associate myself with the person and the rest who seems to be hostile to me. I want to be left in peace until I retire December next year. Those in power, please grant me at least this.

October 2021 is Here

It's already October and I have yet plenty of things to do. Currently, I'm in a pretty much messed up state but essentially I'm making plans for the future of my absence. My home is currently undergoing some renovations to enlarge rooms for my children for them to stay comfortably in the future. I have sold off my house in Garden Homes and use the money for renovations and paying off some debts. Hopefully there will still be enough for some future savings. 

Due to the renovations, our home is in a state of mess and essentially it will be noisy with all the drillings and what-nots. My apologies to our neighbours for all the inconveniences. My apologies to my students at these times as I juggle through some inconvenient times. I'm putting down here some pics to remember things by.

Have also considered arrangements with a budget hotel to move out when necessary. It is an expensive affair but it is for my family while I am still able to do it physically and financially. Hoepfully the future will be kinder to us.

I was also reminded by my niece that on this date, 24 years ago (October 2, 1997), my second eldest brother, Zainal Abidin left us rather suddenly (suspected of a heart attack). This is followed by my third eldest brother, Ahmad Tajuddin, on May 16 this year. My Allah grant them forgiveness and His Grace in the hereafter.

Here is a photo of my second eldest brother with my niece.

This is a picture of my third eldest brother at our last family gathering together.

We shall follow suit, certainly. This is the group photo.

Today, I have just updated my technical blog, Ketchup Spills. Hopefully I can do this more consistently, though I must say, I have to read a lot for each post. It is hoped that these posts will help others to learn mathematical physics as well.