More Wedding, More Teaching and Watermelon Matters

Let me begin with the easiest. Yesterday, attended another wedding in Melaka for the son of my other half's close doctor friend. The venue was in Dewan Citra Kasih, which is conveniently just near the Ayer Keroh toll. Here are pictures of my other half with her friends.

The week before was a difficult teaching week for me but I have already grown into the rhythm of routines there. As a part-time staff, we do not have a staff card like the full-time staff. The card is necessary for our teaching so that we can access the projector and other AV facilities in the classroom (see pic below). The card needs to be inserted in the slot of the panel near the rostrum. 

So for the part-time staff, we need to borrow a temporary control card (see pic below) at the library and to be returned on the same day when our teaching has finished.

So usually, I will leave my things first in the (shared) office in Block A4 and next will walk my way to Block A3 (where the library is) to get this card. Will return to office thereafter, to continue with my teaching preparation and before 9am go to the classroom where my classes are. On Tuesday, it is at the Ground Floor of A4 and on Thursday, it is at the first floor of A5 Block. All together there are five different blocks in this A complex and they are all connected only at the Ground Floor and the Lower Ground Floor where the car park is. So for Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have good walking exercises. 

Right now, I have started using my Veikk tablet to teach as the students request me to write on the board instead of using slides during my teaching. I prefer not to use the whiteboard since I will have to have lots of whiteboard markers for this. With the tablet, I could export what I scribbled as a pdf file and I now uploaded these files on Moodle at the end of the day. So my typewritten notes have to come later. Right now, I was told I'm a bit slow in my teaching. Perhaps this coming week, I will speed up my teaching and will try not to bore them by looking for extra materials to complement the text book I am using. This means I have to spend more time reading. Let's see what happens this week.

Besides all these teaching preparations, I still do my research readings but right now, I got distracted with the war in Ghazza. The place has been bombed repeatedly causing total destruction of buildings and homes. Current death toll is over 7000 people, many of which are children. I tried to follow as much as I could on this war. So when there was a blackout on the news from Ghazza, I watched the movie Farha instead, which is based on a true story. I hope they document all of what has happened particularly the humanitarian crisis that has gone for more than three weeks now. I follow news mainly from Al-Jazeera and for opinions and commentaries, I follow some YouTube channels and of particular interest the humanitarian matters see e.g. Dr. Mads Gilbert and his views on the current crisis. I still can't imagine the sufferings that the Palestinians have gone through to the extent that I felt hypocritical following these events from the comfort of my own home. I convey to my own family members to always keep the Palestinians in their daily prayers. It is always good to be aware that we do not turn to be bigots in this journey since that essentially started all these. May Allah always keep us on the right path and help the victims in Ghazza. I will leave this post with this video from a lady Jew revert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acJVBbIixwU. May we learn from this.

Wedding Weekends and Watermelon Matters

This weekend and the last, we were at the wedding events of our nephew, Kamil Zafri. Last weekend, it was at the bride's place in Melaka. We stayed at Melaqua Homestay; it was a comfortable place and it even had its own swimming pool. 

Just a day before the event, we were told that there will be a huge event at MITC i.e. a National Sports Day celebration, involving tens of thousands of people. Thus, we decided to be there quite early (even before breakfast). All my family was there, including Ihsan (from JB), Izharuddin (from KL) and Izzuddin (was in Jasin).

In the morning, we had the akad nikah (marriage contract) ceremony. 

The wedding ceremony was held in the afternoon but we stayed there in the complex, not moving anywhere due to fear of not getting a parking place if we do that. When the time arrived, we gathered at the ground level to make a procession to enter the hall. We were told that my other half and I will be placed in a special seating at the wedding.

After the event, we returned to the homestay; my children had a go with the snooker that was there at the homestay. I stayed mostly in my room to finish my editorial review of a paper of my ex student. Having done it, I kept myself up-to-date on the escalated war in the Middle East. There was already a fear of how it will spiral out of control. There is certainly a complex political dimension to the war (which I do read for understanding but will not touch), but the immediate concern is the arising humanity crisis. The mainstream media coverage has always been unbalanced, depicting the innocent victims as lesser human beings, savages  or even animals. Thus, the need to go for independent news outlet (though there are attempts to repress this; even carrying a Palestinian flag becomes a crime in some countries and not to mention that wearing a saree with red, green and black seems to be disfavoured; thus the need for watermelons). It is quite easy for us to ignore all of these and be so insensitive, given that we are a geographical distance away. The war will eventually has an effect on all of us and to ignore is not really a good option. We all remembered the assassination of a Palestinian academic right here in Kuala Lumpur not too long ago. We also knew how each Ramadhan and Eid, we got the news of how the Al-Aqsa mosque being desecrated. There may be some protest noise thereafter but nothing seems to prevent such desecration from happening again. In the recent bombings, we heard about the 'Malaysian mosque' being destroyed (see video clip). I suppose, we could choose to ignore all of these and continue with our comfortable life until something happens at our doorsteps or something severely affecting our lives even from afar. May Allah protect us from such calamities.

Fast forward to this weekend, the wedding function is now held at the bridegroom side and it took place in Putrajaya. We were there before all the guests arrived to help out on whatever that needs to be done.

Many guests came and it continued until about 4pm. Here are some photos.

The Part-Timers & War Weekend

This week, we (Foong and I) made arrangements to meet each other on Tuesday, when both of us had lectures at XMUM. I knew Dr. Foong See Kit from years back. I believe I first met him at the 5th APPC Physics Conference, Awana Genting Highlands in 1992. It was my first (international) conference in Malaysia and I was introduced to many theorists particularly those who are Malaysian in origin and Foong was one of them. I believe the other time we met was the Frontier in Quantum Physics conference in Concorde Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, in 1997. The next time, I think I met him in IAS, NTU. So, when he found out that I was also teaching at XMUM, he contacted me through e-mail. Finally, we made the arrangement for Tuesday when I finish my class at 3pm and he is waiting his next class at 4pm.

We almost missed each other; I was walking away from Block A4 and I think he just came out from Block A3. We stared at each momentarily, perhaps unsure of each other due to our changed appearance. I only saw him when his hair was still black and me, when he saw me was more skinny (we told this to each other). We went to have coffee at Zus Coffee, and chatted about the past and our present situation. By 3.40ish pm, we said goodbye to each other as he goes for his class.

Me, thereafter, rush to do Dzuhr prayers since my two-hour class starts at 1pm and ends at 3pm. At the surau (prayer place), I met Dr. Zaidan (my former boss/head of department at UPM). We chatted and prayed Asr prayers together.

It was rather a coincidence that I met all the part-time lecturers for Physics that day. 

Last weekend, a war broke out in the Middle East and I believe it was a surprise to many. Like many wars, there will be (many) innocent victims and we pray for them. I carefully followed the development and it became a distraction from my teaching preparation. There is also concern how this war will escalate and how it will affect the world economy. May Allah protect us from any misfortunes and calamities.

Varia: Lectures, HoD Meet and MJDK@Physics, UPM

I have just finished week 3 of my lectures and it seems that the topics covered seems to be on track. However my lecture preparation seems a bit slow since I'm preparing the notes from scratch. Despite I'm following the suggested text book quite closely,  still have to internalize the contents so that I have an organic way of discussing them (this really takes up time). So the third week saw me sleeping little. More often than not, I tend to be exhausted on the days of lectures (Tuesdays and Thursdays, each having four hours of lectures), collapsing on returning home. I need to improve on this (on top of other personal matters like attending to the family).

The week also saw me meeting the Head of Physics Department of XMUM, Prof. Ong Chong Kim on Wednesday. The meet is perhaps to get to know each other better. He told me of his life story; was born a Johorean and a teacher in Singapore before it was separated from Malaysia and went for his graduate studies after getting a PR. I told him that I have been to NUS a few times and many more times to NTU and also mentioned that I know Kwek, Oh Choo Hiap and have met KK Phua. Also knew Lim Yen Kheng's supervisor, Edward Teo and mentioned briefly that I met Edward with Malcolm Perry (Edward's supervisor) in one conference in IAS, NTU. Malcolm was Black Holes lecturer in DAMTP for Part III.

We also discuss on matters of Physics Dept of XMUM. The Physics Department here is still new and there is a need to promote its programme. From the conversation, Prof. Ong envisaged the (undergraduate) physics program should be research-directed. I do see this direction in the maths programme before this. Indeed, I even had my students (for the courses I'm teaching), requesting research-like modules as part of the continuous assessment.  My initial reaction is to think this will be unfair to undergraduate students as research is demanding. But on Thursday, some of the students came to show me what they have done in the past. I saw what I did in UPM before i.e. SCL module reviewing research papers could be taken as the research-like modules. In this light, I may just agree on this. Note in UPM, I implemented this as group work but in XMUM, it would have to be individual work. The other direction Prof. Ong was indicating is that one could take up more modern topics in physics as well as interdisciplinary topics to be part of the curriculum. This may help for the physics programme to be more popular. All these discussions help me to see what physics at XMUM can grow to be.

On Friday, I was invited to Physics Department in UPM for Majlis Jasamu Di Kenang (an appreciative event for our services to be remembered). The event is usually held for retirees and for this event, I was one of them, Dr. Nurhidayaty and En. Rahmat Kamid (who could not come). Speeches were made. One of the MC highlighted that there was a humourous side of me. She reminded me of the 'class' joke (sincerely I have totally forgotten about it), where students wanting to leave (my) class, by saying they've got class and my reply was (something like), I got no class. For my speech, I mentioned a few things that very few (in the department) know about me. My work in UPM began as early as in 1985 as a tutor. My work then was not just doing side work like tutorials. I was already teaching diploma subjects (including lab work - I did not mention this in the event), but I was already being asked to design a course on Biophysics (since I was located in the Biophysics lab of Dr. Salleh Harun). I think that course did not see the light of day. The other thing I have mentioned, I was once a webmaster for the Faculty. If I remembered correctly, the earlier webpages was pretty static and not menu driven. I changed that by introducing menu-driven elements using MS FrontPage (received congratulatory messages and some liked the changes made). Unfortunately, my request for FrontPage to be installed in the root directory of the server was not entertained (and hence the full features of FrontPage can not be implemented). I could have added as well (but I did not) about the format of examination of questions adopted today has some origins in what I have introduced (though my intent is not to make this as a standard). I hope all these highlights is not seen as blowing my own horn but mainly to encourage the adaptability and resourcefulness among the academics. I also mentioned my involvement in three different institutes namely, Institut Multimedia (no longer exists), ITMA (now known as ION2) and INSPEM, but I did not mention details since it will not bode well with the Department's event. Anywa, here are some pics.

In the event, I did one embarrassing thing. Dr. Adib requested me to sing a song. I was reluctant but since I have turned down once the request of Dr. Adib to perform in one function, I agreed to the request this time. I wanted to sing Hoobastank's The Reason since I have sang this song in a conference in Philippines (karaoke seems to be a favourite part of events there) and I also liked the lyrics to the song and perhaps fit for the event. During the Philippines performance, I know I have problems reaching some high notes. I thought this time, I could use my head voice (since I thought I have strengthen this part of my vocals over the years) but it didn't go well and hence the embarrassment. The other thing that I did, was to participate in a TikTok recording (my very first time) as requested by members of the department. Here it is.

Back to College

Yesterday my son went back to his college in Jasin. Just the day before, I have been trying to pay for his semester and college fees all day but the online banking security checking system was not functioning. I only got to pay his fees just during the night. Was it simply too busy during the day or there was a server problem, I guess I'll never know. 

This time round, our car boot was full of his things. He had bought a desktop computer to help with his studies (besides the laptop) and brought it to the college.

I was told it will be his last semester there before his industrial training semester. I pray that he does well in his studies.

Our journey back home saw a very heavy traffic and I thought it must be partly due to students of public universities returning to college (at least I know that UiTM and UPM will start their new semester today). Through a friend, I also found out that KL had two major events held there i.e. a marathon and a bicycle race (Tour de Langkawi) and some roads are closed.

Back home, one of our cats was sick and my other half send her to the clinic. Also, my sister in law came to our place as their car ran into problems when they were heading back to Segamat. I have to work long hours ahead now to prepare for my lectures this week. Back to restlessness.