Rest of January

Thought I should one last post for this January. Despite my retirement, I kept myself busy with reading (both religious and mathematical) books. Had spells of bad back like today and took (normal) pain killers. If it is really bad, then Tramadol is taken, but this will make me sleep for most of the day and the sleepy feeling lingers a few days after.

Most of my time at home are spent on organizing my collection of papers. Accumulated too many papers and there is a sense of regret of doing so. Had so many research interest and once I got deep into a topic, much of past papers will be dug up. Will explain about my research interests in another future post. It took me quite awhile for me to figure how to arrange the vast amount of papers (classifying them appropriately was a problem since some papers may trigger a few different areas of interest). Right now, I have thought out the following arrangement of papers. Nearby my working desk, are the active topics of research and papers I considered valuable and may look them up in near future. In the store room, near my room's balcony, I will have my quantum papers (quantization, quantum foundation, quantum information) and mathematical papers, which I may or may not refer to. Other papers on network science, general relativity & cosmology, high energy physics and other mathematical papers will be stored in the upper parts of my book cabinet shown below (above the books). These are probably less frequented areas of research at the current state of interest (they may change, of course, dependent on what my future job is). The upper shelves are harder to reach and I often need the red ladder shown below and even this is not sufficient to reach the topmost shelves properly.

Note that I have not even started rearranging the books as yet. In fact, I have another collection of papers at my son's balcony (see below) that I have not touched yet, but I'm targeting to finish the arrangement of these papers before Ramadhan, God willing.

While going through all these, dug up some of my old notes from my random readings of papers before I got busy with all the admin work.

Now with more time at hand, will restart these random readings and note taking and hope to blog about them, Also, I dug out some books that I have not seen for ages (kept at the inner parts of the store at home as well as in my previous office).

Most importantly, I retrieved back my certificates, which I had misplaced during the renovations.

Some probably think that I'm hoarding a lot of books and papers, perhaps showing my ambitious nature of acquiring as much knowledge as I can. However, I think it runs in the family. I remember my father collected a lot of magazines and he kept details of our family neatly in the diary - a skill unfortunately, I have not really picked up. My late eldest brother was a book collector himself and he had kept many technical reports and papers too.

To a lesser extent, my other brothers and sister did too; and some inherited the skill of keeping records of our larger family. My musician (youngest elder) brother had an extensive music and magazine collection. When he had to move from the quarters in Jalan Davis, I helped kept some of his music tapes and magazines with me. Some I had to bring to the office of not enough space at home. When I had to clean up my office end of last year, I asked for his permission to dispose some of these. At home, initially I wanted to donate music magazines to a friend. Since during clearing out our store rooms, we had other things to dispose off, we hired a person to help recycle them elsewhere.

Felt guilty disposing all these; I still have interest in music but not as deeply as my brother.

Moving on to other things; recently, I was contacted by an old friend from Adelaide days. He was my house-mate for a major part of my student days, i.e. Ahmad Suhaimi Mustafa. He is living right here in Seremban 2 itself; he said that he waited until I was not busy (retired) to contact me. We had a nice chat at a local mamak restaurant.

The other house-mate then was Abdul Halim Ramli (now carrying the title Dato') working at Customs Department. My step-sister used to inform me about Halim some time ago but I did not manage to contact him properly then (and knowing he's a Dato', I tend to be shy). Anyway, we are planning to meet up some time in the future, God willing.

The Second Week

It has already past two weeks in the new year and three weeks after my retirement. Not much has been done apart from trying to settle some financial matters. Life seems to move at a slower pace though my other half 'complained' that I'm still doing 'academic work' and sorting my collection of papers. Can't help it given I have still continuing students now under Dr. Nurisya and some unsettled research ideas that I wish to pursue and I probably will try to find (part-time) work some time in the future. For now, my other half and family are planning for (some of) us to go for umrah. Last weekend, in fact, we went for a crash course of umrah in a mosque in Sendayan. The prolonged cross-legged sitting somehow got me into a bad back pain episode and for a few days, I simply rested on the bed.

Still handling car woes that I have mentioned in my last post. Got the quotation for Malibu spare parts two days ago and they cost a fortune. Had to go with these replacements as I will be needing the car in good shape for future work and family travel. As for the car of my son Izhar, he has send the blue Aveo car to the workshop to get it fixed at least for the car to be able to be brought back home to Seremban. For long-term solution for him to commute to work, we have booked him a Myvi. With the help of the salesperson, we are able to get one quite soon from Perodua HQ (for otherwise, it would have been a four-month wait), perhaps one that got unsold from previous orders. The car arrived some time middle of the week.

The car was ready for us to pick up (after registration with the Road Transport Department) yesterday evening,

Izhar has yet to see the car physically (still using my other half's car). My eldest (the one holding the mock key) helped drive the car thereafter. During the Chinese New Year holidays, Izhar will be returning my other half's car and pick up his new car, God willing. We have yet to think how to bring the old Aveo car back home.

As much as I am trying to do work home, I seem to have trouble to focus with our new cat Kiki, getting quite close to me. Was merely trying to comfort him before (being new) and then he got quite attached to me.

Here is Kiki trying to distract me from my prayers:

Car Woes in the New Year

It's already a whole week into the new year. I was trying to settle in my retirement phase of life but somehow the week was somehow centred around car woes. In my last post, I have mentioned that the car that my third son is using ran into overheating problems. Had the radiator fixed, but the problem did not end there (expected that there will be engine problems thereafter). Earlier this week, the car went into another overheating problem and he had to wait for the car to cool down before sending the car to the workshop. He reached home after 10pm that day. I can only imagine the frustration and the tiredness that he went through. The next day, he went to work using Grab services, further adding expenses and with relatively small livelihood, it will be hard for him. Using public transport has connectivity problems and they tend to be unreliable.

To my mind, that blue Aveo car probably has come to the end of its useful life. The car is as old as my youngest son, roughly 19 years old. Scoured my old photos to see if I kept a photo of the car - that's why I suddenly uploaded some old photos on FB - and I only found this small photo at my other half's clinic when she started out in Seremban.

At one point, this was the main car I used to go to work - labelled by a staff at INSPEM as the 'faded blue' car (biru pudar). Yet to decide what to do with it. In the meantime, we have booked a Myvi car for our son to use (the expenses will be partially shared accordingly). It is difficult to get a new car quickly due to the long queue of car bookings after the pandemic. Hopefully, the car will arrive soon. Also after retirement, there seems to be a lot of hassles in making a car loan. I hope the (hire) purchase will go smoothly for ease of my son to go to work. Temporarily, he has to use my other half's car first.

My main car (Malibu) seems to be having problems as well after the long trip to Kedah. My other half noticed that the car is dripping oil on the floor of our car porch. We got it immediately checked with our local workshop to see if the matter is serious. Well, there seems to be problems with leaking absorber in the back tyre and also leaking near the drive shaft. The local workshop could not do the repair as the spare parts are difficult to get and the car is full of (computerised) sensors and recommended we bring it to the authorised workshop that services Chevrolet cars. 

So yesterday, we had one full day spent in Malacca for this matter. We had the car serviced but we had to wait for the absorber bush and drive shaft boot parts to be ordered first (which means we have to come another one more time). Extra expenses to be considered, right at the end of completing the installment payments. I remembered the day I posted a pic of the car on social media when we first got the car (see pic below), somebody commented that the car is not even ours i.e. owned by the banks. Alhamdulillah, it is now ours. I felt a little strange with such comments when it should not have been their concern. The choice of having such a car was made by the family, replacing some problematic MPVs we are having. It is not meant for show. But I have to say, it is the most comfortable and satisfactory car that I have experienced driving (which is good for my bad back). The only downside I can think is the difficulty of getting spare parts and its servicing due to its computerised sensors.

Let's hope that the car does not run into serious problems and I get to use it until I find no need for myself to travel (and perhaps the children inherit the car in good conditions).