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.
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