End of Year Events

It has been a while since I last posted on the blog. Much due to many unfinished work and many of my posts in the past require some thoughts (took time to collect my thoughts). Thus, this time round, I will keep my post short.

Many things have happened since. On 10 December, the Institute's Director retired and I am currently made as Acting Director (like the Malay direct translation: Berlakon Pengarah) until the university appoints a new one. My guess this appointment will be so when the dust of restructuring settles down. My own appointment as the Deputy actually ends on 31st May 2019 and am looking forward to it.

Last few weeks, I finally got the official letter that my research grant proposal was unsuccessful. So it has been more than two years, I am without a grant. Given my near retirement, personally I thought perhaps I should stop trying to get one - much of my research expenses have been from my own pocket and am still surviving. However getting a grant is a KPI, which more or less forces me to keep trying, perhaps to the benefit of my students.

Third, my scheduled trip to APCWQIS 2018 in Kolkata was cancelled much due to my personal mistake of not finding out more about visas. I had thought that being part of Commonwealth, I could get a visa-on-arrival like in many other countries. But I was wrong; I was stopped from checking-in into the flight and went back home disappointed. Quickly I wrote an email to the conference chairman, saying that I can't come (otherwise, I would need  to apply for a visa and buy another set of tickets). Essentially I lost the ticket (purchased from my own pocket as I have no grant) and added to this is my international roaming package, which the service provider told me is not refundable.

In a way, it is a blessing in disguise, since almost immediately I fell sick with flu and cough. Perhaps due to this, my back pain worsened. So last Saturday, spent my birthday mostly in bed. My other half, thinking I would be in India, had earlier arranged a trip to Rompin and was left with my youngest and the eldest who is working during weekends. Did celebrate the night before with my family.

Oh yes, just after my India trip failure, my other half decided to get another furry family member, which is a munchkin. The cat has since grown attached to my youngest since he was always around playing with the cat. Here are some pics:

Today is Christmas public holiday and I'm still struggling with all the marking I need to do.  I did not get to do much of my work after all during the period. Tomorrow will be back at work and my calendar is already full for the rest of the year, it seems. Despite this seemingly gloomy post, I'll make a cheery end with Seasons Greetings to my blog readers and have a happy holiday.

Uncertain Times

By writing this post, I would like to clear the air in times where things are growing uncertain. In fact yesterday, I was reminded that I should speak my mind out, so that people know where I stand. In a way, I have been down this road a few times, whatever uncertainties there are, I have less anxiety now compared to the past.

First, the current director will be retiring soon and I am expected to take up her role until the university appoints a new director. For me, this has always been an uncomfortable situation. If I push myself to the forefront too much, some may interpret such moves that I am looking forward to the director's position. If I don't, some may say I'm not performing my duties. So yesterday when I started giving ideas in a meeting (talking more than usual), it is simply because I thought these ideas could actually help the institute. I have always believe that institutes are good ideas to help propel research and be symbols of prestige. All of the rest of the world seem to think so even if some of us do not. So whether I have a position or not, I will support the institute. So whether the community of mathematicians wants me or not, I do support institute for mathematics even if some will claim duplication of roles. I have said these in the past, even to the previous director, that the institute should provide new opportunities for researchers to go beyond the status quo. An easy option is to go interdisciplinary and by this, I do not mean simply just how mathematics are applied to other sciences but even within the scope of mathematics, we can find subdisciplines interacting with each other and often lead to revolutionary mathematical ideas. While I am on this note, let me just say this: despite I belong to the physics department, all my degrees are from the mathematical sciences department. In the past, I have misplaced my degree certificates but now I have found them and get them scanned. Here they are:

My PhD thesis can be found here: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/6053/ , The pdf copy will show that my PhD was from the Department of Mathematical Sciences. It is embarrassing for me to show this but I just want to have the certs stored somewhere in my personal blog. But I guess these do not really matter for those who don't want me to be there. When I first heard that why should I be appointed as MJMS Chief Editor and not someone from the Maths Department, I can gauge how acceptable I am to the community there. My personal wish when my Chief Editor term ends in December this year, I would prefer not to be reappointed. Present moves of establishing another mathematical journal is not necessary and MJMS be best given to a "recognised mathematician". In the case of directorship, I guess the same feeling must be there. That's why I have mentioned to both past and present directors, I have reservation whether I will have the support if appointed. But this is secondary to me, I prefer to be known more as a scientist than an administrator.

Second, some restructuring is expected of the institute. I can't reveal much here but there will be changes. Such changes invite uncertainties. It is funny to see the coincidence between these two uncertainties. During the first change of director, it coincides with the point that we are about to announce MICEMS. Now, we have the restructuring exercise (note: we have restructured the institutes a few times in the past, but this time I think it is a big change). I also get to know that remarks are made by some others that the institute may grow "unstable" when the present director steps down. It is certainly discomforting to see such confidence they have in me. To me, I will put in efforts to see the institute to progress (and not destabilize as some would like to say) even if I am not in any particular administrative position. As I said before, the institute is too important for our science to grow, more important than any wishes of any individual.

Growing Sour With KPIs: Case of Mathematical Sciences

I'm very much well aware that I am not a prolific researcher (producing large quantities of papers is totally unheard of in my area) and certainly administrative matters is not really my cup of tea. But I do care about the development of science particularly theoretical sciences in our university and the country. However it seems that I have been classed unconditionally as a non-performing academic, which is pretty depressing.

As far as I know, I have never stayed idle with respect to research. I believe I have contributed in putting a theoretical physics group in place from being virtually nonexistent in the university. I have ventured into areas that many fear of doing so and tried to open opportunities in such areas. Some of these are quantization, quantum theory on punctured surfaces, hyperbolic geometry, quantum foundations, mathematical aspects of cosmology, complex networks, symplectic geometry in quantum information. Many times I have been asked to examine thesis and review papers on difficult  theoretical subjects. With potential oversea partners, I have tried my best to make things work and show others that we are doing some form of respectable theoretical sciences. I have also contributed in the progress made in Malaysian Journal of Mathematical Sciences by adopting LaTeX platform, an online submission system and a better international outlook. But I guess all these did not matter much. I don't like to make excuses and I know there is a need to improve. I try to stay above politics and have avoided rubbing shoulders with those highly ranked so that things are more favourable to us. Being classed as a non-performer and believing in leadership by example, it is perhaps better to consider that I be relieved of my current position as deputy director and chief editor of a journal and leave these to more deserving persons.

Being in administration for some time, I understand the tendency to follow KPIs by numbers as an easy way to monitor progress. Wisdom would however will tell us to be cautious about this and consider the details of research culture in different sciences. Even within mathematical sciences itself, there are variations. Mathematicians worldwide have been concerned with the blanket use of metrics to assess research and there have already been a few statements issued about this:

• From American Mathematical Society, https://www.ams.org/profession/leaders/culture/CultureStatement09.pdf 
• From International Mathematical Union, https://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/CEIC/ICM_2014_panels/Evaluation_of_individuals__FINAL.pdf 

On citation statistics, there are a few publications on the variations in different sciences:

• Robert Adler, John Ewing & Peter Taylor, Citation Statistics,  https://arxiv.org/abs/0910.3529
• Gregory Patience, Christian Patience, Bruno Blais & Francois Bertrand, Citation Analysis of Scientific Categories, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844016322800 

On making publication measures as a target, we have to remember Goodhart's Law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Recently there is a study that shows that Goodhart's Law are already in action for academic publishing metrics:

• Michael Fire & Carlos Guestrin, Over-Optimization of Academic Publishing Metrics: Observing Goodhart's Law in Action

I believe the management and decision makers are perhaps aware of the issues I have mentioned above, and my wishes for them to be highly wise in their decision and policy making.

For me, I hope the current incident will not kill my passion for science and my wish to continue to contribute in wherever I can (in a natural way).

Goodbye Puteh

Today, our cat Puteh died sometime early in the morning. My other half being more attached to the cat was really sad about it. For me, I had a mixture of sadness and sense of relief given that she had suffered a lot. Puteh was diagnosed with kidney failure about two weeks ago after which we bought her an imported medication (which we need to get from Bandar Enstek and if we need more, we need to get it from Singapore).

Before that, we saw her eating less and less with some weight loss but we soon realise that she began to be less active and brought her to the clinic. She became weaker sometime early last week and almost unable to walk. It was only two days ago, she became almost immobile and began to ooze out blood when sleeping. My other half did all the nursing and cleaning her up until last night.

We actually got Puteh sometime end of 2008 from someone else. So she was with us for almost ten years and probably she was three to four years with the original owner. Thus they say if Puteh was human, she would be about 98 years old (multiply by seven, what I was told). So she was pretty old and had lost some teeth beforehand.

Here are some pics when we got her.

Puteh unlike others, is very timid and is not too active. She will often sleep with us in our room and around 6.30 pm would actually go down and wait for my other half to come back from work. Here are more pics when she was healthy.

A more recent picture with the other cats is the following (probably about one or two months back):

These pics are when she began to fall sick:

These are some pics from last night when my other half nursed and cleaned her up:

This video was taken a few nights ago:

It was a coincidence that all my children were back during last weekend, in time to see Puteh before she goes. This is a pic during Saturday's lunch.

This morning, we buried her in our backyard. She will certainly be missed.

Growing (Old) Pains

Apart from a series of long weekends last few weeks or so, I have been taking extra leaves due to my physical ageing conditions. Probably much due to highly stressed situations (which I will blog in future posts), my blood pressure has been high for the last several weeks, particularly diastolic pressure is typically 90 and easily gets into the 100+ range. Usually, such rise in pressure is accompanied by headaches and even chest pains (which is worrying for me due to diseased heart). In a bad spell, I would just need to lie down and occasionally my body simply shuts down in the form of drowsiness or unattentiveness. In such situations, I prefer not to come to work at all and prefer to rest or work at home at my own pace. I don't put up these stories for pride or need of sympathy but more for my own cautionary awareness of my state of health and others to understand if needed.

So last Monday, I decided to go to a private hospital to check-up on my health conditions. The weekend before I had abdominal pains and occasionally some chest pains. I could not do any work simply because I was too tired trying to bear the pain. My other half had suggested to me to go to the hospital a few times then but I knew then that I would simply be warded on Sunday only to receive doctor's advice on the next day. So we decided to go on the Monday instead. By then, the pain had subsided but we still decided to go for the check-up. The specialist we saw is my senior during school and university days and he specialised in gastroenterology, He advised me to go for endoscopy but since I had some chest pains and have history of diseased heart, he had to consult his colleague cardiologist before doing the procedure. I was then warded and did immediately some tests; the MRI scan was done during the night - I guess it was too busy during the day. The next day, I met the cardiologist and he explained that there were some minor blockage in three veins on the left part of my heart but it was only 30-50%. I knew this before from my last check-up and there was nothing new. He advised me to simply continue with medication and there is no need for invasive procedures. The other test I was waiting for was endoscopy. However since the abdominal pain has gone, my specialist friend gave me two options, to simply continue some prescribed medication and be discharged or wait for another day to do the scope. Worried that the hospital charges are already high, I opted for the former. Indeed when discharged, the bill had already gone beyond RM6500. This was more than I expected and had to use partially the credit card. Why I did not use insurance? I have given up on medical coverage when an insurance company decided not to cover my back pain hospital admission years ago and gave excuses on me not declaring the problems I had. So whatever policies I have now are for other purposes. Why not use public hospital? Well the private hospital was the closest to my house and they had already medical records of mine. In addition, I was prepared to pay to a certain extent but was surprised to get the amount stated above. Regrets? Maybe. The supposedly endoscopy that I wish I have did not happen and the cardiac tests simply gave reports that I have already known before.

With the above now made known, I hope to dispel any ideas of me trying to take more long weekends off. If last week's leave was indeed my attempt for a longer weekend, then it is certainly very expensive one for me. When I take leaves, normally either I'm really not well or I have something personal to do urgently, and this can be near the weekend or even in the middle of the week (my record of leaves should show). As much as I like to stay at home, I do love to do (academic) work in a stimulating and harmonious environment (unfortunately, not readily available sometimes at office). By the way I was anxious to come to work today (Monday) to discuss directions of the institute with respect to possible restructuring.

Am I making up all the pains for my convenience? I wish I can easily say no (or even yes) but there may be subtle psychological influences that make the situation as such. All this while I am trying to understand my bodily functions. The chest pains that I am feeling could be attributable to two different ailments: diseased heart and my gerd (gastroesophageal reflux disease). Essentially I can't tell which is which. Some people tell me that pain of a heart attack are pressuring or squeezing pain and not of sharp pain. I have experienced both, most of which are sharp pains but occasionally pressurizing pain. Whether I have suffered a heart attack, blood tests have not shown this. So I do not really know what it is. Are they all symptoms of my abdominal problem? Statistically, it seems strange to have more than 95% of the sharp pains coming from the left side of the chest. I would have expected naively, they are a bit less biased to which side of the chest. So I don't know what is really happening and whether I should be worried.

What I do know for sure is these pains I'm having are getting more frequent and I'm a bit concerned. I don't wish for me to depart so soon or unexpectedly. I wish I could live till the age of 90+ (like our prime minister) and still considered be useful. I have many dreams that I wish to pursue but old age has made me realise that some of these are statistically impossible.

Should I attribute these pains to work stress? Again, I have no clear answer yes or no. Certainly over the years, work has become more stressful and less enjoyable. Note that I don't long for those years back in the 80s and 90s where things are more laidback, nor do I want the current situation of chasing KPIs regardless of what is considered natural or not. I do know that I prefer to work within an environment where we are allowed to be creative on what we are passionate about. I hope whatever future we design allows for these things to happen. Otherwise, we may just be misleading ourselves in conforming to numbers (KPIs).

That brings me to a nice paper I saw yesterday about Goodhart's Law. I think admin  should read them.

From XPS to Vostro

Two days ago, I received my new laptop from Dell after almost a two-week wait. The model bought this time is Dell Vostro. The decision was made after seeing a promotion deal in conjunction with our independence day today. My previous laptop was an XPS 2-in-1 Ultrabook, bought about four years ago. Before that it was also a Dell XPS without the tablet and touch-screen ability (and it served me for about seven years) and the one before was a Dell Lattitude (a desktop replacement). While XPS is still the top-of-the-line among Dell models, I thought I should settle for less this time, essentially just to cut cost.

The purchase was necessary as my old laptop had screen problems, beginning with the appearance of stripes, then a cycle of bright and dark screen states and finally before the new laptop arrives, instances (and later prolonged periods) of the screen turning completely dark. Had to purchase an appended LCD monitor while waiting for the new laptop to arrive for me to continue to do work.

Finally my Vostro laptop arrived and I started to install needed softwares and restore needed files, just in time for important meetings the next day (note: our meetings have gone paperless and the need of use of laptops).

Installing LaTeX took me the whole night; found out that I could not install MikTeX and thus instead I installed TeXLive (yet to try this out). Fork out my own money to purchase MathType for Microsoft Office (now on subscription), an equation editor with LaTeX capabilities, since most of my old and admin documents are in Microsoft Word. Despite what people think of MS Word, the software expanded with the equation editor MathType, can actually produced LaTeX-like documents (just use Euclid type fonts instead for the normal tTimes Roman fonts). Finally, got myself the software Mathematica with a personal license (without subscription). This is quite an investment but there was an offer that goes along with Wolfram's 30th anniversary. While I'm not a heavy Mathematica programmer (though my students are), I have been using this scientific software ever since I came back from my PhD. At some point I tried to campaign for the university to take up campus-wide license for Mathematica, but unfortunately it was unsuccessful (engineer-related community tend to use Matlab and those in maths tend to use Maple). Today, the Malaysian universities that have campus-wide license for Mathematica are Universiti Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Petronas and Monash University Malaysia Campus (lucky them).

Some may ask why not buy these under research grant. Well, first and foremost, I have been without research grant for almost two years now. Secondly, during those early research years (1990s) when I had research grants, I did acquire laptops using my research grant but then someone cynically commented that the laptop usage is not just for research but has been used for personal matters. Thereafter, I have always bought laptops using my own savings, to keep a clear conscience, apart from a few years back when I bought a laptop for the students (group usage). I do not really agree with what the person said since it is essentially impractical to divide work-personal computer usage since most of the time we tend to do things seamlessly. In any case, the computer use has always been mainly for work more than anything else. Anyway, now, after spending so much for the laptop and the softwares, I will be in the saving mode for at least a few months.

Ten Books

Many of my colleagues or family members will not see me without a book or a paper with me most of the time. Even when I go out to eat with my family, I will always bring something to read. I can't stand the idea of doing nothing or lepak (apparently now an English word) or spend more than ten minutes conversing without purpose. Will try my best to read wherever and whenever I can even before dozing off to sleep. So when the Education Minister tweeted about listing ten favourite books, I thought it's a nice idea and will play along.

It is difficult for me to select any favorites because I tend to read a lot in diverse topics and one can't really compare when it come to different topics. Also most of time, I buy books for references rather than reading them cover to cover and besides that, I tend to read papers more these days. Hence, I will just simply list what I have read for about 70% of the book and keep returning to them when needed. Some of these will be pretty dated because I use them while I was a student. In no particular order, they are:

1. Relativity, Groups and Topology II, edited by Bryce DeWitt and Raymond Stora. This book contains lecture notes on theoretical physics from the well-known Les Houches school. It is about 1000 pages long and I would be kidding to say I have really read even half of it despite being interested in almost all the contents. I include this here is because this is where Chris Isham expounds on his canonical group quantization programme. Even though the notes are more than twenty years old, I still ask my research students to read it.
2. Chris Isham's "Lectures on Quantum Theory". I didn't quite use this book while I was a student but I find it extremely clear and contain technical gems in it. Again I always recommend this to my students who are studying foundations of quantum theory.
3. David Bohm's "Quantum Theory". I find this useful in explaining wave mechanics of quantum theory. Note that this book is on conventional quantum theory and not Bohmian mechanics. The book I have is handed down to me by my late second eldest brother and was published in Japan by Maruzen.
4. "Quarks and Leptons" by Halzen & Martin. This is a book that I had as a present from my eldest brother even before I really learn particle physics during my undergraduate. The book is pretty dated by now but it is the one I used to learn particle physics and even quantum field theory very quickly. Note: Alan Martin was one of my lecturers in University of Durham.
5. Felsager's "Geometry, Particles and Fields". I bought this book while I was in Cambridge and found it useful to help me build concrete ideas on differential geometry in relation to field theories and particle physics. At the time, it was published by Odense University Press but presently is published under Springer.
6. Geroch's "Mathematical Physics". Another book bought in Cambridge (Heffers Store). I didn't quite use it while I was a student but I found it unique, giving a bird's eye view how mathematics is used in physics. It gives my first contact with Category Theory.
7. d'Inverno's "Introducing Einstein's Relativity". When I first learn general relativity during undergraduate, we had to use difficult books like Misner, Thorne & Wheeler or Stephani & Stewart. We even refer to Spivak's 5-volume set for differential geometry. I do not recommend these for the beginners. When I started teaching, I found the book by d'Inverno to be more friendly for students.
   
   Now the above are really technical books but I do read popular materials, self-help books and religious books. Among them are:
8. Casti's "Paradigms Lost". This is a great popular science reading that deals on the big questions of science and the open questions of disparate nature. 
9. Covey's "The Speed of Trust". I could have listed his father's more well known book of 7 Habits. I prefer to highlight this book instead due to the problem of trust in our society and in our organization. We spend too much time and energy to neutralize distrust, which could have been used in much more fruitful way.
10. Al-Attas' "Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam". S.M.N. Al-Attas is a well-known local scholar on Islamic philosophy, education and Malay culture & history. Have read most of his smaller booklets but this one seems to be written more comprehensively and coherent.

Note, the above just give you a glimpse of books that I'm reading. Would not really call them favorites but more accurately the books that have influenced in my early learning days. There are many,many more books that I wished I could have read as extensively as the above and I hope I will get the time to do it. 

Aside: Sometime back, we used to joke about if we are allowed to bring a single (technical) book (or two) to a desert island, what would it be. My choice would be Analysis, Manifolds and Physics which cover most of the maths you need in physics. It has now a companion volume.

Finally, here is a pic of me with a small part of my book collection.

#MALAYSIAMEMBACA

The Friday That Was

Last Friday, we had a meeting at Securities Commission for some research project we have agreed to take up. The idea of this project was mooted during the time when Prof. Maman Djauhari was our research fellow at the institute. It so happened to get the MoA done took us almost two years and when it was signed (December last year), Prof. Maman has already left. Nevertheless, we still take up the project given that too much effort has gone into it, partly feeling responsible and there is national interest in it, but also partly we wanted to get the experience working with industries. We presented what we had and discussed what is probably missing, noting that real-life problems are much more complicated. What we thought to be a short meeting, went up until after 12 afternoon (noting it was Friday and we had to go for Friday prayers). Also explained to SC, apart from Sarah, we have many other intervening duties besides the project (this juggling of duties, often goes unappreciated; each new project taken up will often take many hours away from us). This is the pic of us at the lobby (courtesy of Dr. Chan) - from left to right: Azam (SC), Daniel (SC), me (UPM), Dr. Chan (UPM), Sarah (UPM), Wong (SC); another member not present (due to IQRAC preparations) is Zurita.

On the rush back to UPM, we saw an accident involving a schoolkid who was sitting at the divider of the highway while her parent/ brother (unsure), the motorcyclist, was lying a few meters away from her. It was horrible.

Somehow all that afternoon, I felt uncomfortable. I was supposed to chair another meeting later after the Friday prayers. Soon after the Friday prayers, my eldest send me this pic of swollen feet of Izzuddin (my youngest):

He told me that Izzuddin fell down the drain. My wish then was to go back almost immediately. Instead, I asked my eldest to call up my other half who is a doctor and will know what best to do. Me, I stayed on for the meeting since there were some decisions need to be made in order for some students to prepare for their thesis submission in time.

After the meeting, I went straight to Columbia Hospital where my other half already took Izzuddin to. Was informed then that Izzuddin had broken his leg and there is a piece of bone disconnected from the main. If we had insurance for him, they would probably recommend surgery. As I arrived, they already had him plastered and was bout to go home.

The pic might not show much but there is a risk; if the bone is not joined back within two weeks, he may have to go for surgery.

This leg is the same right leg he broke a couple of years back but at a different part. I was in tears during the last time, when a ping pong table fell on his leg. Can't imagine the pain! I really blame the school for not properly supervising the task (kids moving a ping-pong table). We claimed for the school insurance but in the end the claim was unsuccessful. It is not the money that matters but I felt that the school must own up some responsibility. In the present case, I guess my son is to blame for not being careful and fell into a drain. However, I was disappointed to know that it was only his friend that had helped him and they together walked all the way back home (several hundred meters) with my son limping with his friend's support! Again, I can't imagine the pain he had gone through. My son (or his friend) should have informed the school but him having a reserved personality, not wishing to trouble others did not. All the walk might have caused the displacement of the broken bone. Again I wished that the school be a bit more aware of the situation to help. However to be fair to the school (to which I'm humbly grateful) my son had his trial PT3 exam (which is supposed to start today) postponed until next week so that his condition will be slightly better.

My prayers that he will not go through any further pain and difficulties. He has suffered enough. He has already broken his leg twice, broke his arm once, had deep cut in his head after being pushed and his collar bone broke once while he is still learning how to walk.

We (three of us) were scheduled to go to Kuching, Sarawak for IQRAC 2018 last Sunday. But, we decided to forego our tickets just to be with our youngest.

Friends, Present and Past

(Updated: 2 August 2018, 10.30am)

Everyone needs a friend to help ease life better, to share our ups and downs, even if the friend is simply our family member. Most of my current friends are those whom I meet almost every day, among students, colleagues and staff; not that sociable beyond this circle. While not sociable, I try my best not to make enemies though sometimes difference of opinions can get intense. These days, particularly in social media, people sometimes use difference of opinions, unfortunately to create 'enemies'. My own take on difference of opinions is to use what we know about solutions in maths as a guide. Many times, we can't find solutions simply because the (mathematical) system is overconstrained, allowing too many variables into it. If we understand mathematical modeling, we can sometimes ignore some variables (making it less constrained) or allow variables to be parameters, for us to find tractable solutions. Sometimes we even find multiple or even infinite solutions and to this, any solutions will do. Thus, in the complex sphere of human life, I do take difference of opinions as facets of multiple solutions (whether which is the best depends on criteria (or parameters) adopted) and am happy to leave it at that.

But this is not what I've planned to say in this post. Being completely immersed in my work and in my present circumstances, I tend to lose contact with friends from the past. However, I had some pleasant surprise in the past months, when some of my past friends contacted me through the social media or whatsapp. One of them was Moha Lhousni, a Moroccan friend I met in Durham University who contacted me late last year. He was a school advisor in Morocco but has now retired. I'm happy that he contacted me; I still remember our deep discussions on civilization and I still keep his thesis on  the topic of Discourse Analysis of the Holy Qur'an (seemed to have misplaced the thesis). Here is a picture of me and Moha in London.

Another long lost close friend in Durham, was a fellow theoretical physicist from Palestine. Dr. Maher Rashid. I was happy for being able to talk to him over the phone last Saturday using Messenger. He is currently the Associate Principal of Cedars Academy in Leicester. The contact was actually made possible by Dr. Qasem Nawafleh (also friend in Durham) from Jordan. Here is a recent picture of Maher and Qasem:

On the subject of Durham University friends, I have been added to WhatsApp group "Alumni Durham" where I get to know some people I've met while I was there and of course those whom I have heard their names. I guess in part, the group was created after our present Minister of Education, Dr. Maszlee Malik, an alumni of Durham University. got appointed. He was in Durham more than ten years after I left. I'm not sure whether he actually read the chats that we have there but I look forward to see any good changes in our education system under him.

Other friends that I get to reconnect is Hoe Chee Liang, who was a student when I joined UPM. He has settled down in the US and formed a company known as Cita Education. Since we both are very passionate about theoretical physics, mathematics and education, we talked about possible long term collaboration with his company. With his company, we hope to promote theoretical physics here in Malaysia (perhaps more later).

Another reconnection was with friends from my former school SMSPP. Was already in touch with some of them through Facebook but now I'm added to their WhatsApp. Part of the reason in recontacting me is a future get together, to which the idea of me playing drums back with old school friends was mooted. Unfortunately, my schedule was not favourable to the idea. Would have loved to meet them and also perform. Here is a picture of me playing the drums while I was in Adelaide:

On 18 July, INSPEM had organized Hari Inovasi 2018 to honour the high-achievers of the institute (both academic and non-academic). We also invited those who had served with INSPEM before and this time round we had Dr. Mahendran Shitan who was one of our heads of laboratory. Knew Dr. Mahendran even before I joined the Institute and in fact way back to the days in Bintulu. While he was with INSPEM, we often discuss with each other on arising problems of the institute and possible resolutions. I guess I really missed those moments. He is now retired and looked much happier. Here are some photos of us with him:

Finally yesterday, due to a workshop that we had attended in Ministry of Education in Putrajaya, our group from the institute met my former science officer Nor Yusniza there. I did not realise she was working there before that. Here are some pics of us at cafe Gloria Jean near the entrance: