Next Please

In the last post, I spoke about my writing project. It was really an article I have promised to write for the online-magazine Majalah Sains. The magazine publishes articles in Malay, written largely by local scientists. In the past, the magazine has published a few of my articles but they come from posts if my Malay blog. The current article is the first written exclusively for the magazine and it is semi-technical. When I started writing it, I wasn't sure if it is ok if I include equations in it and had asked the editor on the matter. Once I had the green light, I continued with the writing for otherwise, it will just keep brewing in my head. They uploaded it last Friday and I was anxious to see the reception by its readers. Before it was even uploaded, I had gone through the article a few times and each time, I thought I could have done better. Knowing that there will never be a perfect piece, I just let it go. The semi-technical nature is really by design since I thought the article should serve more beyond a layman introduction to the subject. Indeed, we need more of this; as most popular articles tend to touch merely the (top) surface and almost always made the subject too easy (giving a false picture of the efforts that go into developing the subject matter).

After the article was made available online, I gave another shot of explaining the subject better and be less technical and posted the writing on my blog. I think it had better exposure that the semi-technicalarticle. The feel-good mood sets in thereafter. But as usual, once the writing is done, the feeling that one always have is that the things one write had a sense of triviality, several houra after. Indeed, I consider myself as an average person/scientist/writer, with many others are much more talented than me. This is also the reason that I stalled the idea of writing an autobiography. I come from an average family and whatever experience I have is simply a result of good accidental opportunities that I have in my average life. In comparison to others, I was never involved in things like the (different) olympiads or well-known competitions. The only competition I was in (as a group member, not individual based), is a state-level science competition during my high school. The project we took up was on detecting polluted water (so, it is chemistry-based) and if I'm not mistaken, we did not win anything.

I'm happy to have taken up the writing project mentioned above; it help me feel I am still useful. Will there be another one? I guess in a way, this depends if the magazine is happy with the one that has been written. In any case, I will just continue to write regardless (whether for publication or simply my blogs), much to satisfy my curiosity and my sanity needs.

Family matters: My third son has changed job since our trip to Kuching. He now works for Touch n Go office in Bangsar South. So far he has been travelling from home to work. It was actually tiring for him, partly due to his many late evening (online) meetings. So yesterday, we went to scout for a possible place of stay for him to rent, closer to his place of work. It is in Vista Angkasa apartments - from the outside, it seems a bit rundown but it will do if everything clicks.