Talks and Thoughts

Have been busy lately with preparing for invited talks and preparing exams. Much to the point of having sleep disorders and exhaustion. But often I asked to what results? Only to receive flak and displeasure? I guess I should take the lesson of life in not expecting anything from others and do things to my own self-satisfaction. Even in this, one gets criticisms for being exclusive or 'syok sendiri' (full of oneself). So no matter what one does, there will always be somebody who torments you with their words. I guess some might say, I'm a grumpy old man. Thus my preference of self-isolation, away from most people, interacting only minimally until I retire.

I certainly have a lot in my mind and when I face competing priorities, two factors come to my mind: (i) the number of people affected by the task; (ii) the impact or importance of the task itself. For instance, recently when I had a presentation I need to complete for Comdata conference and I had classes to prepare, I had to forego the latter as the talk involves my commitment to an external community or persons, while our classes can be postponed to a different time. I did finish the presentation (but not completely to my satisfaction) and gave the talk. My talk was probably out of place with most of the other talks are on computational physics (mainly atomic and nuclear physics). I had to rush my talk towards the end and went overtime for an extra five minutes to come to some conclusion (the talk was only half-an-hour). Hence, I felt I could do better.

Well, I had another chance of going through the talk at our departmental seminar (see picture for an unofficial version of the poster).

While slightly better prepared, I still think I could have done better (see the recorded video link below and tell me what you think). Perhaps my slight disappointment was with the turnout which is roughly about twenty and many of these are our usual regular group meeting attendees and some people I know from outside (including Dr. Yap from UTM who was there showing support). That means not many from the department came. I guess many are not interested in the talk but my bigger fear is whether people are actually boycotting (which I really wanted to know the reason why, so that I can be better but not bitter). Please do know whatever stories people tell about me, there is always another side of the story. It does seem sometimes that people from outside are probably more appreciative on the theoretical work that we do but this is probably just apparently so since the ones that have shown appreciation are those who are working in fields closer to ours. In any case, this grumpy old man will be retiring soon and I sincerely wish my younger theoretical physics colleagues will not have to face what I have gone through.

Below is the link to the video of my talk at the departmental seminar (most probably my last talk at the department). Have tried to make the talk mostly qualitative to make it accessible.

On a brighter side, recently Dr. Bahari Idrus from UKM came to visit me and brought along copies of the book main authored by out jointly supervised PhD student Dr. Siti Munirah (congrats to her). Here are some pics.

I still have another upcoming invited talk at the Topical Meeting of Photonics 2021. My agreement to give the talk is mainly having to respond positively to invitation of friends. I am still clueless about what to talk on, despite that there is a track on quantum information. Will be nice to make connections to the main topic of conference and to something that we do in the group. Hopefully some ideas will come soon in this weekend.

Will continue with my isolation mode and I am in the nomadic period due to our house renovations. Here is a short video clip made by my other half on my sons' rooms (not completed yet particularly the washroom). Note: the video is taken during Maghrib time and hence there was the call to prayer through the phone.

Here is our cat officiating the room with a balcony.

Here is a picture of the budget hotel where we are staying temporarily.

May Allah ease up things in my way.