July End Varia

Last Friday was the final exam of both subjects that I have taught. The exam was held in the LY3 Exam Hall, a distant away from the five faculty and admin blocks. In the week before up to the exam day, I was struggling to finish the assignment marking. Serves me right for earlier procrastination and making each assignment lengthy; during the teaching week, I had to prioritise teaching preparation and we had the midterm exam scripts to mark and thus, I put less priority to the assignment. The lengthier assignment is mainly because I would like to get the students to do a variety of problems from each main topic. With no tutors to help (unlike the other subject) and the marking has to be made electronically on my laptop (assignments being submitted through Moodle), te marking was terribly slow.

Feeling very tired from all the work, I had my other half and son to drive me to campus on the exam day. After the exam, I waited for them to pick me up. While waiting, took the photos below for memories sake.

The largest block is where the President's office (admin building together with the library) is. All the five blocks are connected through the basement parkin and the ground floor.

The day after, we have a wedding to attend in KL. Here are some photos

I was not that well that day and had dozed off several times during the event probably due to the drowsy pain killer. We were there quite early hoping to beat the possible massive jam, since the day coincided with a planned demonstration by the opposition party. Despite the country's economy is improving, the political atmosphere does not seem to mature as it should, driven by distrust and emotive hate politics, which is rather disappointing. As religious scholars remind us, we are living in the age of fitan.

Final Classes

Last week was the final week of the semester. I had scheduled many replacement classes during the week and had a 5-day working week (note: I'm part-time and I don't have to be in campus if there are no classes). Last Thursday, was in fact a full day for me, stretching from 9 am in the morning for a replacement lecture until 6 pm for a replacement tutorial, extending an hour after the final tutorial that day. Had to bring my youngest son (together with my other half and eldest son) that day to help me carry exam scripts for the students to look at. They left me in campus thereafter and picked me up after 6 pm. While I was there, I stayed mainly in the library, the surau and public spaces near the class venue.

Being the final week, I decided to take photos after my final class for each lecture or tutorial. It probably looked silly to the students but in my mind, it would probably be final semester there (que sera sera). So here are the photos.

That Friday (the last day of the semester before the study week), I have my replacement tutorial classes. When I arrived at the venue, I was surprised that they had given me a large lecture theatre.

Perhaps everyone else had finished their classes and that most venue are free. Unfortunately, only four students came, probably they have gone 'home'. In the photo below are three of the students (one left midway).

Actually, sometimes I do feel one goes unappreciated when we do all the teaching. I don't pretend to be an ideal teacher (in fact I apologize for any shortcomings to the students). Preparing for teaching often goes invisible; the long hours that goes into it (even for basic subjects) is largely unknown to many. My other half can attest to the number of hours I put into preparing the lecture and particularly tutorials (with scores of problems to solve). At times, I can feel the jeer or cheekiness of students, thinking probably that I don't know things until I had to say something beyond what they see in the notes or books. In any case, it is fine for me if I've been looked down upon or even despised; I have been there many times before. I still have 'nightmares' how many looked at me with such despise body language. Nevertheless, I still work and do what I know best.

Having aged, I tire easily nowadays. Withstanding the almost constant backpain, saps my energy. Occasionally, I will take up pain killers like Tramadol. I was also given Gabapentin and Pregabalin for neuropathic pain. Perhaps being concerned about my kidneys or simply tired of me complaining about my pain, my other half signed me up for physiotherapy sessions in Senawang. So far, I've been avoiding this since I know it can cost substantially and I would prefer to save that money for food of my family etc. Anyway, I have gone through three sessions already and tomorrow will be the fourth one.

Cometh Juli: The Next Half?

Next week will be the final teaching week for me. I had it packed with replacement lecture and tutorials due to all the public holidays during the semester. After next week, it will be just the exams and I will be just marking exam scripts. Note that without classes, there will be no 'salary', nevertheless I need to finish the associated duties with all my classes. This week itself, I had a class in which students leaving midway and one even slammed the door behind him. As much as I can ignore this, it still disturb me. Immediately after, I thought of the following book.

Finally, I have also expressed that I wil not be available for part-time teaching next semester. Que sera sera.

I'm still thankful with whatever I have. Things could have been worse. When I attended the wedding previous week, some form of sadness came over me. None of my kids are married yet and in a way, I have to worry for this. Also, my youngest son will be continuing with his BSc studies this coming September (God willing). Given as such, I hope to continue to work in some way hopefully.

Last weekend, we went to my third son's new place of stay in Shah Alam (DK Impian, I think). The 'studio apartment' will cost him RM900 per month, which will take a substantial amount from his income. Luckily, it was fully furnished that includes even a washing machine. The room is as big as our master bedroom and thus space is rather limited but for a single person, it is comfortable enough. For me, what is important, is that he does not have to travel so far to work (all the stress, energy, money and time wasted). A downside is that he did not have a parking space and for now, he parks his car at the roadside.

Yesterday, we went to a new eatery place to have our breakfast. We were told about this place by our son in JB after knowing the viral news about it.

I had my first taste of lontong darat there. 

The food is good (though a bit spicy that what I'm used to). The place is certainly packed and had people queuing up to get a table. The place is in Rasah Kemayan and is probably hidden to many,

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.