The Trip to Mentakab

I should have updated this blog about our Mentakab trip last Friday (it has been a week!). The trip was meant for a wedding of my other half's nephew. My eldest drove us there while my third son drove himself independently there due to his afternoon appointment at his place of stay. I, too, was supposed to submit some final exam questions in person at the Exam Unit in XMUM (they cannot be emailed) but I made a request to do this on Monday.

We arrived there in Mentakab sometime in the afternoon and we took our lunch at the Go'Bang Maju, whch I thought was pretty unique - they have us picked whatever dish we want and placed them in a trolley for us to pay at the cashier counter (see pics).

We stayed at the Mass Boutique Hotel, which is quite close to the venue of the wedding. We also went to the Pool Villa where the other in-laws are staying.

The nikah ceremony was held at the CAC Wedding Hall at 9 am. It was made that early because the qadi (the official religious officer who oversees the wedding declaration and vows) has several other weddings to attend that day. So we were there quite early.

Later, the rest arrived (see pics below).

For the nikah ceremony, it was in a room with limited seats and only close family members were there. I'm not a very sociable person but I try my best to strike some form of normal conversation (see first pic), but the topic that was raised is the war in Middle East - luckily I followed some of independent news on the war.

In the afternoon (around lunchtime), the wedding reception was held at the bigger hall downstairs. Below are some pics.

We went back home in Seremban early next morning to allow us some time for rest. We also take the opportunity to try out a new Middle Eastern restaurant, called Aladdin, treating ourselves after the long journey.

Difficult Weeks

I have been very busy in the past two weeks and aggravating the situation further is a few episodes of bad back. Workwise, I have been busy marking the midterm exam scripts, which totals around 350+ scripts. I also have set up two sets of final exam question that went through a vetting process and today I have to alter these a bit before being endorsed by the department. At the same time, one needs to prepare for the lectures and tutorials. I was new to the tutorial classes and for each week, I will have scores of problems to look into and the best part is that the tutorials tend to become lectures with the students tend not to prepare for their tutorials. Tried to get the tutorials to be more interactive but in the end, it will be only the same set of students that are speaking up. 

To spice things up in my classes, I tend to digress into additional topics or even additional problems beyond what is needed for their courses (aware some of the students are familiar with the basic calculus topics). This includes me using WolframAlpha to demonstrate visually some of the mathematical problems, which I hope, will build up their intuition of mathematical techniques. I have also brought up the dimensional nature of the variables involved particularly when the techniques are being applied to economic problems (often ignored by mathematical-minded persons). Despite all of these, sometimes I felt it is difficult to impress my 'demanding' students. Recently, I had one lecturer from Foundation Centre contacted me to allow him to sit in one of my class. I was surprised and thus when I met him, I asked him why he was interested to sit in. He then revealed that one of his ex-students is now in my class, Not sure what has this student told the lecturer but I sincerely hope they are mostly goof things.

With all these works, I do seek some form of relief in entertainment and others, to keep me away from being being bored or stressed out. Of course, the current horrible war that has just erupted about a week ago, certainly has distracted me from work. I would update my own family on this, and was particularly worried of where this war is going to go. Hope it won't be further escalated and that the world economy will not be affected too much while we are still recovering.

I'll end with a happy note. When my sons came back home, we will try to 'celebrate' by going out for special meals. There was a hipster cafe (Nasken Coffee) just opened in our neighbourhood that we went to. The food was ok. The service needs improvement but I observed that this is mainly due to the new staff are still adapting to the system.

In a few hours, we will be travelling to Mentakab for my other half's nephew's wedding. I would have to bring my work on this journey, unfortunately.

Make Our Travels Safe

Yesterday, the whole nation was shocked by the news of a terrible accident of a chartered bus carrying university students back to their university campus, after they spending their Eid holidays. Knew about it, after reading the Prime Minister post in social media. At the time, I had just arrived at the basement car park of my workplace for a 9am class. The Gerik accident had 15 students killed (may Allah grant them forgiveness) and others injured. 

Kept thinking about the news while I was teaching. Just about a month earlier, there was another accident that killed 9 FRU personnel in Teluk Intan.

Both news reminded me of an accident which involves our close relatives on my mum side (see below paper clippings), way back in July 2015. We were very close during my younger days as we (me and mum) tend to stay in their house whenever we 'balik kampung'. May Allah grant them forgiveness and blessings.

While still perturbed by the news and I was driving back home from work, a car tailgated me when I was overtaking slower cars in the fast lane of the highway. My thoughts then, even with this terrible news today, people are still driving recklessly. Not sure what was on the mind of the driver from such tailgating (are we racing); does he/she felt invincible in the car and that he/she has complete control of the vehicle driven? There is a Malay saying 'malang tak berbau' (misfortunes or calamities have no scent).

On the same day, my son in JB is travelling home to be with us since he could not come back during Eid. Alhamdulillah, he arrived safely that evening. These days, I worry about my children travelling and I, myself tend to feel vulnerable whenever driving. Indeed, I would prefer that my family and me not to travel too much given the tendency of reckless driving, particularly from the heavier vehicles. I sincerely hope that actions will be taken so that our roads and highways are safe for all to travel.

Eid-ul-Adha

Our Eid-ul-Adha celebration is pretty simple. We went for Eid prayers at Masjid Hussain quite late and we had to pray outside on the walkways.

After the Eid prayers, we had our simple breakfast before we headed off to Kepong to visit my sisters-in-law (wives to my late eldest brothers). 

We took the route near FRIM to get to Taman Ehsan. We reached around 11 am and met Kak Long (wife of my eldest brother); her eldest son was at work, but Aisyam was there (about to go to work in the afternoon). We took photos near the spot where she had extended the living room around a year ago.

Her slouch around the neck area seems to be more noticeable. May Allah grant her good health and her sons take good care of her.

Next, we went to the house of Kak Faridah (wife of my second eldest brother), which is just around hundred meters away. As we were there, we met with her eldest son and family as well with her brother who used to work in Brunei. Unfortunately, we did not take pictures there. We had a long chat and we were told that her eldest son and his son had some heart problems in part due to a certain degree of curvature in the back. This, to a certain degree runs also in our family. I have my own scoliosis that had led to my back problems. May Allah help us overcome these conditions and grant us good health.

Reflections Before Eid-ul Adha

Have not posted anything for two weeks now. I have been busy with marking the mid-term exam scripts of one subject while carrying out teaching duties in normal working hours. Have just finished around 100 exam scripts and exchanged exam scripts with my colleague (Dr. Athirah) just yesterday. Note that for the shared course, each of us is marking specific questions to maintain consistency. Before the exchange, I had about ten scripts left for me to mark. I finished them off while resting in the car (note part-timers don't have an office and I had classes in the morning and later in the evening that day).

I jokingly told my younger colleague (who at the time was communicating with me) that incovenience is 'a way of life', reflecting that we have to go through many inconveniences in life (often not of our own making) and we are required to be patient while facing them. At the risk of belittling whatever problems and inconveniences that each of us face, mostof our inconveniences are nothing compared to what Ghazzans are facing (May Allah help them). Yet, we have this quick tendency to 'complain' for whatever small inconveniences that we face as if we forget that patience is virtue. Recently, I had this inconvenience of my students from both courses being booted out of Moodle (without notification) and my quick workaround is to manually reenroll them back. Not sure what is the cause of this, but the workaround of reenrol solves the problem at least (I thought). But now, I was told that this has led to a more serious problem of students not being able to submit their quiz answers in time. Without knowing what is the cause of the problem, I have to come up with an alternative way for students to submit their solutions (was thinking Google Form and Google Workspace), for a quick workaround.

Some other reflections: In this holy month, I have this constant fear that whatever 'good' that one think one does, the deeds could be thrown back to our faces due to impure intentions. Our self-worth and potential for good deeds are often conflated with ego. To not do this, it requires constant self-check. Working against this is social media platform that helps one do the opposite. On the other hand, there is this wish for us to educate or inculcate positive vibes with others (as social beings). So besides self-check, constant prayers for us to be guided is necessary. On questions of justice/fairness, we are not omniscient and as such our sense of justice is at best partial. Passing hasty judgments are thus prone to errors. On questions of leadership, since one can't read the heart of others, the best that one can do is to base it on past actions and consistency (habits). Words are often cheap and actions speak louder than words. On pursuit of knowledge, care must be given to one's intentions. There is a danger of breeding sense of superiority, which leads to arrogance.

Enough rambling, about a week ago, my third son bought me a Macbook. Perhaps this is due me 'complaining' about my old laptop in the family WhatsApp. I was thinking of only replacing the battery and possibly reformatting the hard disk to make C drive larger. I didn't expect him to buy a Macbook. I used to say to my younger colleague that Mac is a rich man's computer. In any case, I'm thankful for the gift.

At this stage, I have not quite used the Mac as yet since I need to get comfortable with it first (two fingers to scroll, three fingers for something else that I can't remember and the colour buttons). Also, I have to find adapters for me to connect the Mac with projector and the tablet to write things. So probably won't use this in the current semester. I was also advised by my son to get used to storing files in the cloud, something which I;m not comfortable with at the moment.