We are entering the second half of February. Despite the Chinese New Year break, the bulk of heaped duties has not reduced and we have not really got a proper break in the sense that our minds are always occupied with the worry of unfinished tasks. At the end of the last week, I had to rush my reading of the drafts of dissertations of my FYP students. Most of them required careful reading and major improvements but some are pretty good, showing they have done a lot of independent work. I do wish those who felt the urge to do theoretical physics will come prepared with mathematical abilities and has the inquisitiveness of where a particular equation comes from. Also, they should write for their peers as the audience in mind, and not make their writings similar to the papers (it will defeat the purpose; readers might as well as read the original papers).
After the FYP dissertations, then came the exams. Had many replacement recorded lectures to do, budging even into the exam week. Certainly this semester was a challenging semester and regretted of not having to do the lectures during extraordinary 'flood' break (as instructed). The editing of the FYP dissertations also interfered with my process of replacing the lectures (I could have used these hours to do the replacement lectures). The other challenge is that I have not been in my best physical conditions as my back pain worsened. Since end of last week, it has been very bad. These days I have difficulty walking a substantial distance without feeling pain. Driving too can cause a lot of tension in my legs. In a bad spell, I had to lie down whenever I can, to ease the pain.
A few days ago, I got a visit from a staff who felt that he/she was being victimised. Sat down and heard the person's side of the story. Matters like this can be demoralizing. I got to tell my own stories from the past too that got me agitated as well. One of the things I have learned in management is not to take sides but listen to both parties and try to weigh things out. Some things can go very toxic and that is why in my humble opinion, those who appeared to be vengeful with tendencies of taking advantage of others, should not take up a leadership position (if the person has not shown any changes). I remembered handling a case of absenteeism where the person involved thinks he/she was being victimized. I was accused of being an iron fist administrator (really... ? Some others thought I was too soft). The matter even went up to the higher authorities (putting me in bad light) because the person had 'friends'. I tried to reason that others were taking up responsibilities that the person had avoided and we (management) tried to offer solutions. Of course, the damage has been done and things went sour. Now, I'm happy to leave these all behind. Now I'm on the receiving end and I hope to bear whatever I will be put up against, until I retire (hopefully peacefully).
Beyond my personal life, I saw the social media flared up with controversies. I read them only to take lessons from. For me, I am more concerned about my own salvation, to be drawn into any of these. I do, of course, have my own opinions but I have no wish to 'join the crowd'. On the pandemic, new daily cases started to soar beyond 20,000 since the last several days (updates can be found here). This new surge is said to be due to the Omicron wave; it is said to be less severe but the worry of the health services being overwhelmed is still there. My own son who is part of the teams that do the testing had their leaves frozen. The testing team are also open to risks of infection and quite a few times that his colleagues was found to be Covid-positive. So far he has been lucky (tested negative).
On a better note, the renovation of my house is now paused momentarily despite the gate and balcony are not finished. The past and present weeks have been peaceful. We have also let our our cats out from their cages (so that during the renovation, they will not run off). Here are some of their pics.
Here's Lofa climbing up the curtains of my son's room:
