Math Physics Seminar

We had our very first of Math Physics Seminar of this fall term. The seminar was given by a visitor from Palermo University. His talk was on SUSY, intertwining operators and related vector coherent states. It was a nice feeling that the group who also attend this seminar is quite a number of people. Some were from other universities as well (the group of physics and mathematics).

For the first part of the seminar, I can actually follow the speaker and his content. His talked very clear and slow (I think this is why I found that one of the audience fell asleep) . He touched on the operator of the hamiltonian and stuff like that in quantum mechanics. The idea of susy QM came from when you can find other hamiltonian like H_{2}, H_{3} and so on when you already have your H_{1}. This is what he called the partner of hamiltonian operator. He later relate the idea with the coherent states which is closely related to what my supervisor is working on. And at this point I lost count. hehe...

At the end in the QnA session, the professor who actually fell asleep during the seminar was being the first one to ask. Oh oo...

ISM Graduate Seminar

Hi,

This week, the ISM Graduate Seminar was held at the Concordia. The presenter was from Universite de Montreal. I can assumed that it will be in French (since it was a French university) but looking at the announcement and the abstract, it was written in English. I also thought that it was a female presenter, so it would be nice for the first time to have a presenter from a lady. Then I found out that I was mistakenly took Alexandre as Alexandra. Hehehe...

The topic was interesting about Grounding the Meaning of Words in Dictionaries. No high complicated mathematics needed as he mentioned it, since he was a student of mathematics and linguistic. He used graph theory a lot in his research. Before he started, he was asking if the audience would prefer to listen he's talking in French on English. Without hesitate, I just say I prefer if you can present it in English. (From my last experience, I sit for the whole one hour seminar listening to a french speaker. Owh how that possible if that kind of situation happened again). Everyone was looking at me making a face...and thanks to Valerie when she mentioned that "well, it's not wrong to just expressed yourself". And yet the speaker did present it in English though he apologized that his English is not very good. Personally I think it was more than good. Thanks.

Note-This is not a boring seminar. I kind of love it. I really do. Using dictionaries to work on with. Where you generate and find the roots of the words (meaning the keywords using graph theory and other related algorithms).

Satu Jam Ke Belakang

Kalau ada movie masa di Malaysia dulu bertajuk Jangan Pandang Belakang, well semalam semua penduduk Canada terpaksa pandang 1 jam ke belakang. Orang biasa panggil DST (Daylight Time Saving). Malam tadi sebelum cik salma masuk tidur dalam pukul 4 pagi, cik salam dah siap-siap awalkan jam tangan ke pukul 3 pagi. Difikir-fikirkan semula rasa kelakar la pulak. hehehe... Ini kira pertama kali cik salma buat benda pelik macam ni. Almaklum, profesor cik salma kata nk jimatkan masa utk waktu siang. Sebab masa malam lama sangat, so terpaksa pilih cara nih. Nanti bulan April nak masuk Spring kita anjak semula 1 jam dari masa sebenar ke hadapan sebab waktu siang nanti lama la pulak. Oh yeah...

Satu perkara penting yang cik salma harus perhatikan ialah waktu tidur si kecik Ain nih. Kalau dulu pukul 9 atau 10 p.m. dia sudah menunjukkan tanda-tanda mengantuk. Yelah waktu gelap pun waktu kat Malaysia dulu tak berubah. Lebih kurang sama jek. If ada pun beza dalam 15-30 minit sahaja. Ikut waktu sekarang pukul 6 sudah pun gelap. Dan si Ain if nampak gelap mula nk masuk tidur. Bayangkan kalau dia tidur dlm pukul 7 atau 8 mlm. So nanti pukul 5 atau 6 pagi dia sudah bangun. Walhal, pukul 7 and 8 pagi masih lagi gelap. Hahaha... Kami terpaksa memerah idea supaya dapat melekakan si kecil Ain selama 2-3 jam sebelum dia dibenarkan tidur. Cabaran...cabaran.

Sebenarnya cik salma pun tak berapa gemar, waktu malam panjang sangat. Agak payah untuk memfokus kepada study dan kerja biasa. Gelap kat sini pun semacam jek bagi cik salma. Dengan hanya lampu yg kekuningan, mata begitu rasa perit, ditambah pula dengan rasa sejuk, mulalah rasa nk masuk dlm selimut. Walhal kerja-kerja yang perlu diberi perhatian begitu banyak. Progres seminggu sekali tajuk-tajuk research begitu lambat cik salma nak hadamkan. Ini belum ditambah dengan assignment yang bukan seminit dua untuk disiapkan.

Come on cik salma, sini bukan ruangnya untuk mengomel. Buat dulu sampai lebam (bak kata en. salam)...InsyaAllah

Totally Paranoid

OK...I am totally paranoid because of nothing!

It turns out that I'm not doing so so bad at all for my midterm. I am so relieved. It was more than half of the total. Which is OK for me. All my furious and other bad feelings have gone now. Nothing to regret for being left out from the 'discussion' during the running of the exam. I have actually tried to answer everything towards the end and believed it that it is lucky that some of them is actually correct.

However I learn it here that when you are trying to answer a mathematical problem. Please please make sure everything is written up. Don't left any tiny single idea that you had in mind. NEVER. Justified everything...

My level of courage is up now.
Thanks

Paranoid

OK, lets face it. Am I being paranoid or what. Is it just my feeling or it's nothing to do with anything. It's happened that exams over here is nothing the same like with exams we had in our country.

1. We can bring in formula (in only one piece front and back of a paper). So I wrote exactly the formula needed. But towards the day of the exams. I found out everyone wrote not only formula but also notes. Of coz in a very tiny little handwriting just to fit in both sided of the paper.

2. While exam is running, we usually don't discuss any of the question. Thus we don't even talked loud. Yeah maybe we can asked if the question really really confuses us. However in my midterm, everyone keep questioning the lecturer until they get to the answer.

But what really pissed me off is, the lecturer actually go one by one asking if they have came to point of question 2 for an answer. AND AND she didn't even asked me. Nope...she didn't stop at my place. You will never imagine that the class was actually were having a discussion instead of an exam. And it worst that I've just been left out. Totally left out.

There were just 9 of us in the class and to me its pretty small. I can hear a student and the lecturer was discussing the question in a very loud sound. For e.g.
Dialogue 1:
the lect - "Have you solved question 2 part 2?
student-"Not yet I've just finished part 1 (and she showed the lecturer her answer sheet)"
the lect-"Owh you actually has already the answer. Just write it in the form of Psi(s) and Phi(s). Now for part 2 you need to...bla..bla"
I can't help to hear again since time is running and I have another 2 parts of the question to answer. The the lecturer just went around the table asking everyone if they have come to answer question 2 part 2.

I was so confused and at the same time feel terrible about it (that shed didn't asked me) but I still want to make an effort and I just raised my hand and asked. And guess what, the lecturer just told me that "you need to make a change of variables" then she left. The discussion just continued. the lecturer even used the board to show everyone the idea. And I was so 'like terkapai-kapai', running towards time and in the same time stretching my brain to get an idea for solving the two parts. I again raised a hand to ask the lecturer, again the lecturer was just pointed very tiny ideas which don't really helps. Or maybe I asked in a wrong way. I'm not sure. But the lecturer never border to see how am I doing like the way she did it to the other student.

I just give up and wait for a stop sign to hand the paper in. I don't even bother to ask again. I am lost. So lost and mad.

So, am I being paranoid?

Lacking or Don't Care

As usual, I was meeting with 'my' professor today. The theme that I can come up with is the easiest part of the group (a book by Brian C. Hall). I can only cover 4 parts together with their many many subtopics to be discussed to. I just only prepared the materials through the night before the meeting. I note down few questions coz I know he might want to ask me later on which part will be rigoroused to understand. To have a no question at all will be not a good way to start with.

So it is fine at the end with the topic matters. Then for no reason, he asking me few types of question on MALAYSIA. heehhee...the language, the population, the religion, malaysian politics. When Islam first arrived to Malaysia, the centuries and so on. Arrgghh sudah...this is not what I was preparing for. I better start to wiki about Malaysia from time to time. I just admit to him that my historical knowledge is very bad. The truth is I was not border to take our country history in a serious way. Bad of me. It was long time ago. I can just remember Islam was brought my the Arab site. It took us one hour just to talk about these stuffs. It went pretty well and Oh my gosh he reads a lot.

Then when I came home, do some rechecked with my that so knowledgable guy and he remind me that we do learn that there are 3 theories of the arrival of Islam in Malaysia. huhu...I'm suppose to know that but well ...

Sejuk yang EXTREME

Memang cik salma tak boleh tahan. Kesejukan tahap luar biasa ni boleh menjadikan cik salma tak boleh nk buat kerja secara normal. Apatah lagi untuk memfokus kepada perkara2 penting sebelum exam midterm minggu depan. Bukan setakat tak boleh memfokus kerja penting tetapi juga kepada perkara rutin seperti waktu tidor, nak masak dll. Kulit cik salma pulak dah mula menunjukkan tanda2 kekeringan. Arghh serba tidak kena...

Tempat yg cik salma paling rasa selesa setakat ini ialah bilamana berada di universiti (agaknye sistem heater diorg) and so far di tandas rumah kediaman. Rembesan air hangat mmg rasa selesa. Tapi awas, bil elektrik bakal naik mendadak jika dibiarkan berlarutan. hehe... Pandai sistem di Kanada ni, penduduk tidak perlu bayar bil air. Hanya perlu sediakan duit utk bil elektrik. Diorg dah agak, kita akan pakai bnyk air panas. So? sape untung tuh...

Apapun cik salma kena cuba jugak teruskan perjuangan ni. Apetah lagi akhir Oktober akan dtgnya winter. Masa tuh kelas akan berjalan mcm biasa. Memang cik salma tak boleh nk jangka dan mengagak apa yg best dan tak best nye winter. Banyak org kata masa winter kadang2 boleh mendatangkan rasa depression. Entah la.

Kita tunggu dan lihat

note: eid mubarak...eid mubarak