Counting Days and Marching In

Since end of January, I have started to count the number of days to my official retirement. A younger colleague made the remark that normally this is done when one has several days left (as opposed to few hundred days, I guess). I guess what I wanted to do is to remind myself that time is running out and there are plenty on my mind that I wanted to finish (or start) before I retire. Because of this limited time, I have started to pick and choose on what I should do in this period and my apologies if I have declined some requests of certain tasks (I hope they get better people to do them). In addition to sharing the number of days left, I have also shared what preoccupies my mind for the day, rather randomly. Perhaps it is of interest to someone; I hope it is not deemed as seeking popularity.

I have paused my blogging for weeks now because I had many tasks to complete: reading the draft of FYP dissertations of my own students (four of them), setting up final exam questions for my two subjects (two different sets, bilingual with solutions), marking the second test, collecting marks for the various assignments (marked by my graduate student as teaching assistant), finishing whatever (recorded) lectures that I can, reading drafts of PhD thesis, papers of my postgraduate students, examining thesis of FYP students of others and marking the final exam. Juggling through all these, sometimes I need to shelve one duty, prioritising another to allow for more focus. Sometime I get frustrated over some of these; for instance, I had to spent more time than I should to read (some badly written)  drafts of the undergraduate theses, when I am supposed to rush my final exam questions. I did notice that they did some of the corrections that I have asked them to do but just do not have the time to recheck. I have always advised my FYP students to write their thesis with their colleagues in mind as the audience/readers since usually the readers of their thesis will be future students (not us researchers). So if they write as if it is a research paper, its value would be diminished.

For the final exam questions, we had to make some judgment calls about what is to be included despite we had less number of weeks to go through the course contents due to the extraordinary break due to the floods and only later we were asked to replace the lectures (no additional weeks were given despite the break - this is to ensure that the Chinese New Year holidays do not go into the exam period. One somebody told me that I have mellowed over the difficulty of exam questions over the years. Part of these mellowing is due to better experience of what should be tested. The other (major) part is realizing sometimes we are making our ego interfere with the real purpose of examining the students (showing how clever we can put up the questions). I remember once, a mature student (a teacher, who was also the wife of a college principal) complained how little marks she got did not reflect her efforts and her understanding of quantum mechanics (the subject I was teaching). Thereafter, I thought carefully about what should goes into the questions balancing conceptual and mathematical skills. Students actually get themselves more frequently wrong for the conceptual parts more than the mathematical parts. For the mathematical questions, however, most of the time they are able to answer (parts of) them, otherwise they can't do them at all. When our exam went online, getting a balanced set of questions is even tougher. Some have the tendency of designing questions that the students have not seen or have not experienced solving them. However, I maintained the simpler idea that one should be examining materials that they have learned and know generally what the techniques are. This, perhaps, made my exams a little bit more predictable than usual but this does not mean they are easy or straightforward, especially for the students who have not studied.

After struggling with finishing the lectures, it was time for me to mark the final exams. It took me a while to get started (with many other things in mind) since I had to sort some matters of the marking scheme of my shared course. My other half had told me that she had to go this conference cum annual general meeting in Kuantan on February 25. She wanted all of us to go along with her as part of our family holiday while she attended the talks and meeting at selected times. I wanted to get my marking done before the trip but it was just too much for me - both of my classes hit the maximum number of students (40). So brought along my work and did it partly there. Here are some pics from the trip.

We came back on the Sunday, February 27 and once we reached home, we made a small belated celebration of my youngest son's birthday.

Thereafter, I continued with my marking and was able to get all done by the deadline. Even after submitting the marks online, there were things to do, which I sought help from my younger colleague. Besides these teaching matters, I had other things to do, some of which, I just had to decline. In my mind, I need to focus more on those things which matters most.

Fast forward to March, something unexpected happened. The omicron wave was already hitting our country. As a doctor, my other half had to see many patients, some of which are not very honest with their health status. By last Friday, she was already not feeling well. She took the RTK test on Saturday and it showed negative, I also took the RTK test on Monday as I wasn't feeling that good and I had a dental appointment on Tuesday. So I wanted to be sure, I was infected and the test comes out negative (see pic below)

My other half's condition, however, was worsening and she had a bad fever and thus on late Tuesday afternoon, she took the PCR test as this is more accurate. My second eldest son who was working at the testing lab, got the results earlier before the formal report and messaged his mum that the test turned out to be positive. I was about to go to work that morning and I was unsure what I should do next. My son advised that I should also take the PCR test along with my other sons in the house. So, we did just that today and the results should be out early next morning. I was told that MySejahtera will not change our status until the next day (for Covid-positive patients) and the day after for close contacts. There was also a slight confusion on what I should do with respect to work and I was given the following info from the Ministry of Health by my boss.

Whatever the results tomorrow, I may need to take leave to be with my other half. We are trying out all possible traditional and popular remedies to reduce the symptoms. May Allah grant us speedy relief.