Life of an ex-USM student as a physics graduate student in an American university (part 1)

Mei Hui is an ex-undegraduate student from USM school of physics (graduated year 2010). She is now pursuing her Ph.D. in Utah University in the US. I am profoundly proud of her for daring to take up the proactive effort to make her way to the US to pursue her dream. She wrote to me from time to time. Her sharing of expereince as a Malaysian graduate student in a US physics graduate school is remarkably interesting. Her lengthy emails reflects the many constrasts between our local academic environment and that in the US. From her email, in  many ways, we understand in vivid detail our difficiencies when subjected to comparison with a mor mature society. I wish that my adopting her email to me in this blog could dissaminate some inpiring seed to open up the minds and world view of our local people.

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I started my 2nd semester this week. Still on full tuition benefits (passed cgpa 1st sem-i am very lucky in this aspect).

Life here is good. but i'll jump right in to academic stuff so you know whats here all about.

i took two classes the last semester, EM1 &class mech, Math methodes. For EM1 (Jackson) and class mech (Landau) Math Met (Arfken-my prof co author for this book and he made us use it).

E&M& class mech was a combine class because we were taught how to use the equation of motion in E field and along with special relativity as well. (he taught us this in one week be4 and came up in finals). landau book is a very good book. also there are alot more in class mech syllabus that weren't taught in class mech class. but even before i begin, please i think its a dead necessary for all undergrad student to take class mech. overhere its a compulsory regardless what field and they expect you to know. its lucky i did took it otherwise i have to waste a semester relearning them with undergrad and believe you me i had a lot of trouble trying to understand class mech, i'm always behind everyone.

ok we learnt how to modify the equation by keeping the potential level unchange in through the lagrangian, find the period too. and we do this by employing variational calculus in it, we also learn how to use the green theorem lots and lots of math learnt in math methods we used, spherical harmonics (EM), weird ways of integration i never thought of before (i can't quite remember which one now cause now it is easy for me and i dont remember which i already know and which i just learnt). then we learn the four dimension matrices in special relativity (never seen in undergrad) . and most important thing was the boundary conditions, i learnt how to apply boundary condition naturally i learn how the physics of dielectrics, conductors, new system arrangements of those two, edges and no edges (E field explode). which means i need to understand whats going on in the B field and H field. (it took me serious serious weeks of studying and banging my head on the wall to get this right because this was entirely skimmed through in undergrad).  oh one thing i learn and value the most was how to approximate equations and finding out the constant by apply fourier transform. this is the hardest part of it because even after i derive everything i need to know which to eliminate which i never know which or which constant to keep and which to forgo. in the end i get lots minus of marks because i couldnt get it down to the simplest form. this intuition and physics need to be mastered, we learn them in math methods in undergrad but never apply them except for the binomial/taylor expansion used in SP. that was it. didnt even use it for multipole expansion in EM.

moving on to math methods. i have to thank god i remembered most of math methods in USM. i was taught again everything from undergrad but with more physics in it. i dont understand whats going on in my class. usually i just space out and do my own thing. he uses 3 weeks to teach simple matrixes and 1 week in Bessel function. so i didnt really bother to listen. Arfken book is really a good book for theorist, but if you've forgotten most of the math dont expect Arfken to help at all. there's no step by step guide (i fall back to Boas).  the syllabus is mostly physics concepts. like they give you a EM/QM system with known BC conditions solve the equation. sometimes will come through bessel (spherical/ cylindrical system usually symetric) zeroth order and sometimes depending on the bessel type. then we have the helmholtz too (he talk bout it for just 20 mins and i was tested- i left it entirely blank) 2nd &1st order differential, wronskian inhomogenous method, .power series (in the weirdest way) gamma function, legendre,rieman zeta function, bernoulli generating function (this was the only thing new to me and maybe the reiman zeta functions too) . well long thing short i hate Arfken but now that i'm much better at math, i like it alot but as a study material for undergrad no way in hell student is going solve the questions, especially students that are not trained to be creative. most of my homeworks i do by brute creativity.. oh also we used math programming (mathematica/maple) in homeworks too. generating graph for bessel, solving matrices, solving long tedious gama function.. etc. he doesnt teach us in class. he just ask us to use it. oh we also learn complex analysis for two weeks too (use Spiegel, Schaum book)... we had the cos/sin/sec formulas for finding the remainder in Cauchy integral.

so beside that i work as two Teaching Assistant (discussion leader mid level foundation in astronomy class and grader for beginner level astronomy class). so i self taught myself. heck i dont want to be astronomer now.. they have their new way of SI units. got me confused alot of times.

grad school is difficult. i need to juggle so many things and classes are not easy. am always too busy to miss home or think bout anything else. i need to buck up more. the kids here are so much better than i am, many already have Masters and their technique of understanding some concepts are really mind blowing. thank gawd i'm good at math. but that only can help me so much. i dont really understand most of the math and why i do it. now its beginning to get much clearer. majority of the ppl in the department are asian (im the lousiest Asian) and non americans. so it doesnt feel like in US at all sometimes except when i go out for walks/grocery shopping.

moving on, its my second sem, i'm taking intro to particle physics and EMII. again one is thought by an Italian maybe and the other a distinguished chinese string theory professor. hope this semester i'll be able to pull through. oh and i got offered to join a theoretical particle physics group. not quite sure id jump in yet. i still want to do GR, and that professor is a little intimidating.. maybe id just wait and see.

academic aside,  we have colloquium (compulsory) every thursdays where we invite speakers from other university ( can be from field related within the department) to present 1 hour talk on their work, and grad students are encourage to go have lunch with them. we also have individual group talk, where group lecturers will present papers which the group is interested in understanding. say since i'm in the HEAP group (high energy and astroparticle physics) i can put up a paper i'm interested to talk bout, and the lecturer who is best at field will present it. its just one hour, 4 papers to talk bout and discuss. i usually just sit there quiet and watch the people debate over the paper. i also can sit in for other group talks, say the observational astronomy group/condense matter group (very very strong condense matter group here). no student presentation but we are encourage to try.

Administration. every semester i need to speak to my graduate adviser on my current progress. he will tell me which subjects i need to pursue my field, who to speak to, and help me organise which subjects to take. if i have conflict with any of the researchers (such as can't get along with the lecturer i'm TA for or classes conflicts/ switch group), he will put me first. everyone is very professional here. nobody forces anybody to stay in group. we are welcome to explore but not encourage to hop because then we have to go through a whole revamp of supervising committee. we need 3 supervisor that will judge our phd candidacy. so if we hope from group to group we must change the committee and its troublesome. also one thing i notice is, all the professors office door are open, if its close it means they'r not there or they can't talk. but most of the times the doors are always open. facilities, great facilities we have free printing (people actually print a whole book!), scanning copying. and endless flow of coffee, microwave, refrigerator, and a physics open access library, general computer and computer labs. we get our own office space, and key. access 24 hours. oh yes we have a woman in physics group too. where the women in physics group get together to help each other progress in this so very male dominated arena. if there is hint of bias in the group or favours, we usually go to them and they'll provide advise or champion on our behalf.

Thats about it. as life in Utah. pressure, everyone is just too darn nice and well mannered, mormons. i have to watch my mouth (lucky in the physics department most of them are atheist). go to church in DRESSES! so i decided to go when no one is around. great commuting! university students get free public transport (we have busses and some sort like MRT). best part is, its not like Rapid busses. we have online tracker for campus shuttle buses, and online route calculator for public transportation. just key in time depart and location, the website will calculate various options, a full itinerary how to get there. i get free Broadway passes at the U, student price musical/art performance/ football or any tournament leagues.  (oh i'm classically trained pianist so i musically inclined). Use university sport facilities for free (unlike usm must pay 50cent per person for 30 mins-badminton court), we have gym (its never empty, swim pool badminton court etc). free campus news (unlike usm pay RM1.50 ). nothing is dull here. the only thing is expansive is the food although the portion is huge. grocery shopping is way cheaper. quality of life here is good. they make sure you're not just studying but have the opportunity to explore. also make everything easy and comfortable for you. for instance you can sell back your textbook, or you can take as much classes as you want. take your time exploring other department classes. the museum is always having new exhibits. the university library.. i think its my second home. you can make book online request/reserve (and get them to send it to you at your department), unlimited borrowing books! and where they're nearly due you get email notification, there's a piano here, lost of books, anything you struck out in Amazon we have it! Starbucks concept study/drink coffee area. almost an entire level of Mac pc. white boards everywhere for you to write your ideas. place to eat and study, rooms for discussion. general reading area. its like Borders concept (dont even get me started with the public library-even more cosier!). very very comfortable,all type of chairs, sofas to suit your comfort. ah most importantly its not crazily cold as in USM library! im infact writing this email in library.

the only thing i'm missing most is my wardrobe and food. i can't get sizes here. cant get malaysian food here too. the best is chinese and they are not even spicy. heck tomyam here from a thai restaurant is sweet! i have to go for indian and say very very spicy, as in extra spicy. ooo something you all will be stunt. KFC chicken here is half the size back in malaysia. when i ordered i thought i got a lousy chicken but each time i get the same two skinny pieces. everything else is sweet. starbucks signature hot chocolate very sweet. baskin robbins ice cream sweet too.. i come here i dont get to eat all these things for cheap because of the sugar content/ or the high cholestrol count. i dont even get to shop for nice clothes because they always run out of size/ or just dont have them in size. so besides buying books, food and electronics nothing much you can do beside window shopping.

well thats bout it my update! hope to hear from you soon. i wont be coming back any sooner, maybe in 2013.

Mei Hui

Life of an ex-USM student as a physics graduate student in an American university (part 2)

The following are the original writting of Mei Hui (with some minor modification). This is the second part of the correspondence between me and Mei Hui I wish to share.
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the students (undergrad) are much older or somewhere my age. you can see ranges from 16-40 ages in class. some are very smart, majority are studying and working (to pay off student loans) and for some it is their second/3rd degree. they although results are incomparable with the asian. but my gawd some physics concept i don't even know (knowing me i thought i was all great in undergrad but i am now so humbled here). they can answer on spot in every new chapter after just a brief teaching. every time the lecturer ask something that can't be found in textbooks but is related, all asians can't answer.  for an example i sat for an intro to particle class. lecturer ask for spherical harmonic Exp (k.r), where k is wave number and r is radial position vector. what does this k.r represent.. i couldnt answer,( to me mathematically its just a scalar number) and i'm a grad student! an undergrad says it represent crest! he got it right! this are just one of the few examples. only the locals can see how it relates and how to logically explain the several possibilities. i envy them so much. i wish i can 'see' physics like how they sees it. ofcourse when it comes to math we ace them easy.  unbelievable some undergrad still dont know multiplication tables but i blame their calculators. wahh their calculator very very high tech! never seen anything like it, can plot histogram, any graph, store data equation. so during the exam they are not allowed to use their own calculators, the lecturer will provide them similar to casio 350 calculator to use. so in short why the asians are still backward eventhough scoring multitude of As... we dont understand the concepts, we are uncreative,  constraint to such narrow straight road that anything else is completely in blind area. you know how i was outcast in malaysia because i ask to much i know too much but i'm so grateful i'm inquisitive. over here i am normal and ppl back home is abnormal, and most importantly i am appreciated here. my ideas are heard and often being praised. this is where i am meant to grow. i guess somehow this is the main reason a high power decided to give me a shot in the States, to finally feel belong.  however outside from physics i'm still an outcast for peers my age. apparently i think differently and the way my logic and social skill runs dont blend in. maybe its the culture i'm still too reserve and sometimes talk to seriously. same case back in penang also, my circle of 'coffee' friends are 10years older than i am. so this my problem.


i love how they emphasise the best and suitable education program for the students.. we have a physics advisor for the new coming students.. where potential undergrad student (which is indecisive of a bachelor program) can seek council by appointment. if he is unsure bout physics, he can arrange to meet. and this advisor will tell him what he'll learn, what is required to know, how he's going to learn it, what jobs he can secure. what other alternatives he can take if he finds physics is too difficult but is still interested etc. and all this is before applying for a bachelor program. not like us, (apply, get and then regret). other department also have a undergrad student advisor. 


the staff is the most important, we treat them with great respect, and they are readily helpful. they help you how to do grants, (yes its the staff who helps you secure grants), keep up your visa status, make sure you're insured and financially ok. run your mails, and if you need you in almost all general things you can think of. same goes to technician, physics demonstration technician can run all kind of experiments, and they make their own large scale tools. such as spectroscopy grating, some principle on newton laws, planetary rotation and all kind of undergrad physics principle. the technician infact is just not any technician he knows physics. 


also every semester we have a science fair, where the physics department will showcase and try to get new ppl interested in physics. undergrad students are asked to demonstrate simple physics to get extra credits. 


oh last but very important.. everyone here regardless of status treats everyone equally. the locals holds from garbage collectors to professional jobs and everyone greets each other with respect. nobody is higher than the other or look down the other. they dont need to hire foreigners to do all the dirty works or donkey jobs because none of it is considered that way. their jobs are given proper inspection that the employee is given fair wages and if there are any places to improve or minimise their work load it is done.  the homeless you can't tell one apart from the other.they have proper clothes, well presented, and the only way you're going to find out they're homeless is when they reveal it to you. and even if there is a ragged homeless person, he/she is entitle to every privilege as a normal citizen. they are allowed to go into public library/government buildings, (not fancy restaurants la) etc. the public library is full of homeless people, reading or just taking a nap. although its a scary feeling of getting mugged, they are welcome and there's nothing to worry bout. also for people with disabilities. whoa a whole new stage. every buses (includes campus bus) has the auto thing that comes down for OKU ppl, and the bus driver is obligated to help them without needing to be prompt, every toilet fitted with OKU, everywhere where there are steps, there's also a 'slide pavement' for oku. and all oku have special electric chairs if their are disable bottom down. in classes oku are treated with respect, students will open door for them, pass notes to them. no problem. if you're oku you can survive independently here. anyways all doors have a secondary automated door so People with disabilities just press a button and the door will swing open itself. Lesbian gay tran bi people too have equal rights. there's even a whole department here in the U to defend their rights. and there's also a LGTB organisation/ pubs/ bars and a day to be proud. and in book store you can see LGTB session. 

Richard Feynmen as a role model for physics teachers

Overall, the study atmosphere among students in the physics courses in USM is not that satisfying. Specifically, the students follow a chronic pattern of rote learning. Lecturer also seldom, if not never, initiate innovative method in their teaching. Many things I attempted in my teaching initiative are a result of personal motivation. I simply enjoy the mere act of making others to apprehend knowledge that is otherwise incomprehensible.

I admire Richard Feynman, and am particularly impressed by his character as a physics teacher [Feynman’s enthusiastic adherence to physics teaching can be felt very strongly in the compilation of his letters by his son, in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman, published by Basic Books in 2005.]. His enthusiasm and ability to make his audience comprehend the otherwise incomprehensible physical laws has inspired me to be one of his “followers”. He was able to make abstract ideas tangible, complicated matters become crystal clear. He certainly was a master of making explanation and story telling, skilfully using many “tools” to assist his explanation, such as analogy, simile, humour, contrasting cases, contradictions and, most importantly, daily language understood by ordinary people. Throughout my teaching years, I have gradually acquired some personal “insight” in the art of explanation, thanks partly to the inspiration Feynman has imparted in me. I made effort to make my lectures a pleasant learning process to the students. I will devise interesting and comprehensible ways to illustrate a concept, for example, by creating funny analogy, reminding them of certain previous knowledge they had learned before but was forgotten, or even performing clown-like act. Very often I play computer simulation to visualise the actual scenario of how a physical laws is in action. Of course not every student would agree with me that I am a successful physics teacher (many still say they don’t understand what I say in the class). However, I am quite confident that at least my physics class is among the less boring ones.

Finally, let me quote the following:

It may seem incomprehensible to many that physics and mathematics are comprehensible. Therefore, I find that it is indeed a refined pleasure to be able to make people comprehend the seemingly incomprehensible. Such an acquired pleasure makes the teaching of physics and mathematics a source creativity, liveliness and enjoyable endeavour.

My weakness in teaching

I still rely quite heavily on exam to evaluate student’s level of understanding, despite frequently condemning the students for being over exam-orientated. In practice it is also the single most important way to motivate a student to “learn” albeit forcefully. I am like kind of forced to deploy exam in my teaching process. Exam serves as a bait to, and a price of penalty to be paid by, the students. Exam could be the most controversial aspect in teaching. How to evaluate objectively and efficiently (e.g., within a 3-hour time slot) a student’s level of understanding if not via paper based examination? There may be other better method, but at this point of time assessing our students via non-exam method is not an option due to pragmatic considerations. Currently in our undergraduate level evaluation system, no such alternative exist. Exam (with a 70% weight) is mandatory for theory based courses. Frankly, I know no alternative to examination. I am likely to stick to it for many years to come.

I still stick to instructor-cantered teaching style, for I don’t know how to teach in student-cantered or problem-based approaches. Everyone knows that it is extremely hard if not impossible to squeeze words or reaction out of students for responses. Having student-cantered learning or problem based learning methods necessarily requires more reactive participants, whom our students are not. Until I know of a better option, I will continue to stick to instructor-centered teaching style.

I often made mistake, including conceptual error in the lecture notes, even in the final exam questions. However, I learned from my mistake and have improved over time. I try to be a humble person, apologise and make joke of myself for the wrong physics concepts taught in the lectures. Intentionally, I wish to show to the students a role model who is sincere to admit his weakness yet able to learn and to proceed beyond the mistake made.

My strength in teaching

Richard Feynman is my role model as a physicist and a physics teacher. He enjoys teaching physics and has commented that his Nobel Prize in QED is of less significance as his contribution to teaching physics. He is a true physics teacher who finds great pleasure to make his audience understand the abstract concepts of physics to convey. He commented that if one really understands something well, he must be able to explain them well. Otherwise, he/she does not understand them.

As a subject personal judgement, I would like to make a list of what I think are the strength as far as teaching physics are concerned. First and foremost, I know my undergraduate physics very well. To me, a good physics teacher is logically impossible for anyone who does not know the subject matter well. A person who knows his physics well may not be a good physics teacher. But to be a good physics teacher he / she must know his /her physics well. By the way, in my personal opinion (which could be possibly not objective), many physics teaching in secondary and undergraduate level physics were of poor quality because the instructors simply don’t know their stuff well.
I took extra effort to well prepare my lectures to effectively deliver the knowledge and the thinking process leading to this knowledge. I bother to take initiative, sometimes innovative ones, to improve my teaching. Many different experimentation on teaching and evaluate methods were attempted. All these initiatives in reality cost me much extra work which in principle could be simply avoided with no negative pragmatic career consequences.

Liberalisme in teaching

As a matter of principle I do not agree forced attendance on students. Such stand is consistent with my core belief in liberalism. The undergraduates must be treated adult who shall shoulder the consequence of their own action. Whenever an opportunity present itself, I always grasp it to inseminate the realisation that they must always keep bearing in mind that their action always bear consequence, and they have to learn to take into consideration the possible consequences when the act. They are constantly reminded to internalise such understanding in their learning attitude.
When they are treated as respectable individuals, and when their basic rights are respected, realisation shall grow in them that it is non other than they themselves who must bear the sole responsibility for their own actions. Treating them like primary school children, as many university academics are doing right now, deprive the undergraduates from growing into maturity. Our learning culture tends to overstuffed with threatening instruction such as “you must attend the lecture!”, “you must not be late to class or I will disallow you to enter”, etc. The motivation to learn may be novel, such as learning only for the sake of knowledge. It could also be less novel, such as out of fear of failing the exams. In reality, our culture tends to over impose force, regulation and constraints on student to “motivate” learning. Such authoritarian measures, in my personal opinion, are often counter productive. Students may obediently “learn” to pass the exams. As soon as they leave the university, the learning habit simply ceases, because learning has been successfully turned into a strongly abhorring ordeal by their university system. Learning is a very personal process. It should ideally be an initiative that is spawn from within a learner’s willingness. I always tell the classes that I will treat them as adult and trust them for their preparation to bear whatever consequence resulted from their attitude. Then I let them choose whether they want to learn or leave. Liberalism here does not mean ignore them and set them to loom free without any moral constraint. It means allow them a chance to explore in their own way with minimal interference from the “authorities” who almost always tend to exercise over enforcement. Students shall be allowed to err or even fail as part of the growing pain, for the sake of their intellectual maturity in the future. If their actions lead them to deprived states, let them learn the lesson the hard way so that they can appreciate from within what is ultimately the right thing to do in the future. In relation to this, designing effective and quality exam question is essential mechanism to discriminate those who have taken the initiative to learn from those who haven’t. I constantly “brain wash” them they are always free to do anything, but they will surely sreceive the deserving consequence in the exam hall. I don’t penalise students for not attending my classes or handing up assignments. In short I don’t use authoritarian measures to force student to learn. Whether they choose to cut corners (which is allowed under my “liberalism policy”) or the down-to-earth learning attitude, the final exam grades shall judge them objectively. Penalty for not attending classes, handling assignments and paying no serious effort to study during the semesters will take place in the form of blank answer scripts in the exam hall. Reward will present itself in the form of confidently filled answer scripts, plus a brain loaded with intellectual bliss. Verdict would be delivered at the end of the day. It is up to the student themselves to determine the outcome.

Conscientious Teaching

I stand by the principal to not compromise in academic integrity. In other words, I don’t pass a student who could not demonstrate the minimum knowledge required (which is ultimately measured by his examination score). As a result, failure rate in my classes were consistently high throughout the years, at the level 30% ~ 50%. (In the USM standard, 39 marks or below out of 100 is considered partial failure, whereas a complete failure if under 24 marks). However, mostly the distribution curves were healthy (in bell shapes), despite the average is peaked at the low side (C or C-). (The only exception is a second year statistical mechanics course where the distribution displays a M shape. I reckon that was because the course was a rather difficult subject, and a large population of the class simply could not follow the highly demanding mathematics and the abstract language used in statistical mechanics.) In a way the high failure rate in my class reflects my reluctance to compromise in the evaluation standard. This is to be contrasted in the light of the fact that many courses never fail a single student, a situation which is rather contrived. Students should be evaluated based on how much they understand, not how much they can memorise. Exam questions should be designed in such a way to really sort out those who know and those who know nothing. Hence I make effort to ensure that the exams I set are objective measuring tool that manage to discriminate the students based on their levels of the knowledge gained in the courses. Often I reiterate in the class that I never fail any one. The person who fails them is the students themselves.

According to my observation, many students practice only rote learning, at least in the physics school. On the other hand many professors and lecturers, mainly for their own interest, routinely recycle past year questions in the final exams. Some design poor quality exam questions. As a result, students who know next to nothing pass and even score in the exams by blindly memorising past year solutions or the lecture notes. It’s the lectures who “allow” such the rote learning practice to permeate as norm among the students, and I don’t call this “conscientious”. Should every lecturer practise conscientious teaching, students would start to change their learning attitude and avoid cutting corners. Conscientious teaching leads to real quality learning, which is what learning and teaching knowledge is all about.

“Self-reading initiative”

In one of the linear algebra classes, I attempted an unconventional approach which lasted for a period of three week. In this initiative, a text book on linear algebra (Matrices by Frank Ayres, Schaum’s Outline series) was selected and students are directed to prepare and study the few selected chapters before coming to the class. Assuming that the students have done their preparation when they entered the class, I would only conduct a very brief introduction to these topics (say for 10-15 minutes). After the brief introduction, I would make the students to attempt problems (which are made known to the students on or before the class) DURING the rest of the lecture hours. Of course I will be guiding them and give hints of how to answer the problems. In the following session (i.e. the next class to come), I would discuss the problem sets attempted by students in the previous session in a more detailed manner. Randomly selected students will be asked to pass up the solutions for grading. Ideally, all students must make preparation for the pre-scheduled topics before coming to the classes, in which they will be forced to attempt questions without going through any formal lecture on these topics. Hence, students will have to understand the contents of these topics by doing the reading and studying for themselves before going to classes, failing which will result in their failure to submit the solutions when asked to do so. This initiative is a bold attempt to provoke self-study pro-activeness in our fellow first year students who are used to the chronic habit of spoon-feeding. Such initiative hopes to promote an active form of learning, (although somewhat forcefully) in which student themselves shoulder a major portion of responsibility in the process of acquiring knowledge. In comparison, learning through lectures (which is the most conventional way teaching is done) is a relatively passive mode of learning. In this initiative, I have to spend quite a bit of effort to specially design a set of original “designed questions” based on Ayer’s book. Ayers’s text book is, like many great mathematicians, highly condensed, precise, no-nonsense yet “unfriendly”. Its “explanations” were mostly in the form of concise mathematical statements beyond the levels for most first year students. My job was to interpreter the theorems using my own approach, basically to illustrate the essential ideas of the theorems via working examples. To this end, a coherent set of problems specially were designed, which were then attempted by the students under my guidance during the lectures. In this learning process, instead of me spending all the time on lecturing, students were asked to go directly to attack the designed questions, after which they will acquire the essential ideas of theorems Ayers tried to tell in his otherwise incomprehensible text book.
I find this approach effective and deliver real understanding, as students were actually playing an active part in the learning process. And it was not as boring as in other mathematics classes as the students were occupied: They were forced to attempt these questions during the lectures as names would be called randomly asking the “lucky ones” to present their answers. I would call this initiative a successful one. However I reckon that not every subject is suitable to adopt such teaching approach. The relatively simple structure of the linear algebra concepts make it easy for students to study by self-reading. In Ayers, the topics were presented in the form of a sequence of theorems, hence was also quite easy to design questions to illustrate them one-by-one. The successful case on linear algebra could be just an incidental result. If this “self-learning” method were to be adopted for other subject, a lot of extra preparation could be required. Anyway, I derived a good sense of personal satisfaction for initiating the experimental approach of teaching. I think many, if not all, of the students in the class had enjoyed a unique learning experience in those three weeks of linear algebra course.

Invaluable reward gained as a dutiful teacher

Preparation of lecture note is a learning process for the instructor even if he / she have already knew the subject matter for many years. Personally I took the preparation of lecture process a re-learning opportunity to gain new insight on the physics and mathematics already known or unknown to me. Say for example, I know nothing except by name the term “vector space”, “basis set” in linear algebra, or “grand canonical ensemble”, “chemical potential” in statistical mechanics. Now, after lectured to an audience of ~ 100 students in the linear algebra and statistical mechanics classes, I claimed to have understood these things quite well, despite my knowledge on these topics were effectively zero before undergoing the painstaking lecture preparation process. I used to tell my statistical mechanics class that in terms of knowledge gained, I was the person who has benefited the most from my own lectures. Incidentally the knowledge I taught to the statistical mechanics and calculus and linear algebra classes turned out to be very useful later when I embarked on my research topics in computational condensed matter physics. Hence it aroused in me the realisation: the eventual usefulness derived from the teaching process is indeed an invaluable reward to those who bothers to take teaching seriously and dutifully.

My lecture notes

For the undergraduate physics theory courses I taught, the most complete reference source should be the text books. However, the sad “tradition” in USM is, many students rely only on lecture notes and never read the text books. Lecture notes are a tool I used to assist my lectures. Their content usually was narrated based on existing textbook materials with additional modification and improvisation by me. Well aware of the habitual trend of students to rely heavily on lecture notes for scoring exam, I warned against being too dependent on the lecture notes. At best my lecture note only serves as a summary of the subject matter, in addition to being a material projected on the screen used for lecturing purpose. I took serious effort to make the lecture note to at least fulfil my own criteria. For example, I would never want to put in any statement I myself did not understand. The set of lecture notes forever undergo a constant process of evolution, correction, modification for improved quality. Usually a complete set of lecture notes for a course could cost me up to effectively 200 hours or more. It is also not uncommon that I made major modification to the existing lecture notes, or even a re-write. This happened for example in the first few years when I first taught the Calculus and Linear Algebra course ZCA 110, where I had written four effectively new set of lecture notes until they settled into a stable version.
As I have come to realise it after many years of observation, physics classes are almost inevitably dry, boring and sometimes, scary. In terms of physics analogy, it has unusually high thermal fluctuation that tends to disperse then to coagulate. Personally, my core belief is that physics is not a dry or boring subject. It is intellectually lively, interesting, and relevant to the real world. It is thus always possible to make a physics teaching process fun and interesting, if one bothers to do it. The actual presentation during the real lecture is of course the single most important criterion that determines whether a physics lecture is boring or interesting. On the other hand, quality of the lecture notes also affects quite directly the quality of a lecture in progress. As a matter of personal policy I always try to factor in two important elements. First there must be as much “fun” elements as possible into the lecture materials. Second, the course material should prompt the students to see distinctly the relevance between the theory they learn and the real world they are dwelling in. To achieve such effects, I adopted the strategy as proposed by Tony Buzan, the creator of mind mapping to attract our mind’s attention. According to Buzan, our mind gets attracted most easily to colourful and graphical objects, as well as objects that provide ample space for imagination. To this end, my lecture material are packed with graphics, cartoons, animation, questions that arouse curiosity, comics, physicists’ bibliography, poems, literature quotes, history and philosophy of physics, and other content that is surprisingly unexpected for a physics lecture note. As an example, I would use the movie Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers to illustrate the concept of simultaneity in my special relativistic class. See figure 1.

Figure 1: The two towers as appeared in the movie “The Lord of the Ring” were used in a scenario to illustrate the concept of simultaneity in the special relativity class.

Figure 2: A comic that makes fun of the equation E = mc2. The appearance of the humour in a typically boring physics lecture note adds a pinch of human touch to the learning process.

Figure 2 is a slide from my modern physics ZCT 104 notes, in which I slot in a funny cartoon to poke joke on the famous equation E = mc^2.

Figure 3: The bibliography of Heisenberg, one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, as appeared in the ZCT 104 lecture material. Students learn some physics history in addition to the uncertainty equation.

Figure 3, also a slide taken from the modern physics lecture note, mention the controversial role played by the physicist Warner Heisenberg during World War II in the Nazi camp. I would usually tell interesting stories and inferences derived from these figures in the lecture hall when they appear on the screen. This story-telling part is what the students like best in during a lecture.

Figure 4. A suspense-creating question was asked in the beginning of the topic. It would get resolved only towards the end of the lecture after the students realised what time dilation and length contraction, as predicted by special theory of relativity, really meant.

Figure 4 is a “classic” slide from my modern physics course designed to prompt some suspense to the audience, “Can one travels through a distance of 200 light years within one’s life time?” The students would be kept in a suspense mode until the end of the topic when they fully comprehend the idea of time dilation and length contraction as predicted in special theory of relativity.

The style of my exam questions

As an unhealthy tradition, students like to memorise formula, facts and solutions of past year questions when they go into the exam halls. How would you make them not to do so in your paper? First, you don’t’ recycle your past year questions. Second, design questions that genuinely test the level of their understanding. To put this into practice, in most of my final exam questions for the first year students, I would include a multiple choice question section, which contained between 20 – 40 questions. It is comprised of non-calculative questions that can be answered without a calculator, designed with the intention to test the level of understanding on the theoretical aspects of certain specific physics concepts. This section is “notorious” among the students because one will have very little chance to pick the correct option without having any in-depth knowledge and logical thinking of the particular concept being tested. In addition, these questions were never recycled, hence you can’t answer the questions correctly by only memorising the past year questions. All of the answers and occasionally the full solution to these multiple choice questions would also be uploaded online. On top of these, the solution scheme may also indicate the source where these questions were adapted or inspired. A large percentage of these objective questions were original. After a few years of teaching Modern Physics ZCT 104 for example, a large body of objectives questions have been accumulated. Students were advised to go through them as an effective way to deepen their understanding on a particular topic. The solutions were themselves valuable examples to illustrate the application of the physics concepts taught in the course. When I designed these exam questions I bear in mind that these question sets would be made as a source of knowledge for the students in the future. Understandable, preparing these multiple-choice questions demands quite a bit of thinking effort. To make matter worse, these questions were also required to be translated into Bahasa Malaysia, which often meant another whole-day work for me.

Experimenting the best way to assess the coursework

Other than giving short quizzes and test, throughout the years I have also tried to devise various not-so-conventional ways to assess the students as a continuous effort to optimise the quality of the assessment. Below are some examples of my attempts.
Open book quiz was administered right after the lecture on a chapter is completed. Usually open book quiz means the solutions are not directly available in the text book. Open book quiz free students from the almost compulsory practice of rote memorisation. On the other hand, despite having the textbook available for reference, students found themselves being challenged very hard in these quizzes, and were forced to think harder. However, this attempt did not work very well. Except a few students who could think out the box, most students who were average in their learning and thinking model failed to answer well these challenging questions. The overall coursework grade for the class was so poor that I never give open book quiz again in other classes.
The “Sample Questions by Students” initiative: Students were invited to design some samples of formatted objective questions based on the topics covered in the course. These objective questions were required certain criteria, especially, they must be original (no cut-and-paste from existing resources), conceptually correct, creative, and “interesting”. Copy cat or boring questions were filtered and rejected. Once accepted, the designer of the questions would be given bonus points for the coursework. The accepted “designed questions” were edited or corrected by me, and then stored in a question bank which, like all other course-related material, was accessible online. I also promised the students to adopt some of the selected designed questions in the examination as an incentive. This initiative promoted a good sense of participation in the teaching and learning process. In addition, to design an original objective question demands thorough knowledge about the subject matter. Creating sensible questions to someone deepen the level of understanding on a particular concept in the questioner, a wonderful and interesting way to make a student become learned. A student who attempted to design a question inevitably must also get involved in an in-depth learning process. Overall, in that attempt 143 designed questions were received. Not every ones found this initiative inviting, only about less than 20% students sent in their questions, of which many are copy-cat. But those who are enthusiastic found the initiative an interesting learning experience. One thing for sure, the initiative has successfully aroused the sense of participation in the teaching of the course, at least among those who submitted. Now, the down side of the initiative. To filter through and edit tons of submitted questions, of which many were copy cat or simply nonsensical, from a large class (or around 300 students) was an exhaustive task. The expansive cost of time and effort consumed had demotivated me to exercise it again in other semesters. Nevertheless, it is otherwise an interesting assessment method which I would still like to implement in smaller classes, with the condition that extra assistance from tutors becomes available.

Assessing student's learning

Assessment is split into two parts in the courses I taught, i.e., 30% coursework and 70% final examination. The simplest way for coursework assessment is via tests which usually lasted for one hour each. Final exam is a necessary evil to measure the level of understanding by the students, and is a standard 2 or 3 hours written examination. There is little flexibility how the final exam is carried out. Fortunately, coursework assessment has more space to manoeuvre. I make good use of coursework assessment as a means to gauge, force and motivate students to learn continuously through out the semester. As a means to motivate students to revise their lecture content continuously, I devise a so-called “what get measured get done” tactics. Two tricks were employed in this tactics. The first trick is to implement weekly quizzes, and then instantly update the coursework mark and tests/quiz solutions online. Students check the solution of a quiz right after it has taken place. The latest statistics of grade distribution in the form of distribution curve would be updated once the last quiz was graded. Occasionally I would comment the latest grade distribution curve in the class as a tactic to alert the class of their overall learning progress. The key words here are “instant” and “latest online update of grade distribution information”. Thanks to the availability of web-based application, the release of the most updated coursework information delivers some immediate psychological impact to the students (that they are constantly “being measured”). The strategy has successfully imposed certain extent of positive impact in the learning attitude of the students.

SMS as a tool for lecturing

Our Asian students are traditionally a quiet breed, never speak or ask in public, especially in the lecture hall. Lecturing in USM is “easy” but unchallenging because you never got any query from the students publicly. On the other hand, they students keep smsing when the lecturer was speaking. Then I thought why not I get them to sms me instead of to their friend? My hand phone sms alert tone start to ring intermittently amidst the lecture, as I announce my mobile number to the class to encourage students to ask questions via sms. This trick works very well, and I got frequent questions from the students via sms when I was talking. When my mobile phone sms alert tone ‘interrupts’ more frequently, I feel a non-vocal rapport established between me and the anonymous sms-senders who sit among the students. This, I reckon, is one of the best ways sms can be used for more noble purpose than forwarding junk messages.

Throughout the last 7 years in USM, I have attempted many ways to incorporate electronic / IT related approaches to enhance the teaching of physics and mathematics subjects. Having no quantitative data to quantify the effectiveness in adopting electronic and IT approach in the teaching process, I dare not claim that these approaches is a more superior way to teach physics and math than a conventional no-computer approach (though I personally wish to think so). For sure, all these attempts take time to prepare, and demand quit a bit of computer know-how to implement. But ultimately, what truly matters is the personal motivation to make physics / mathematic comprehensible to the students.

My experience of using Java animation in the teaching of undergraduate physics courses

We adopted Serway as the physics textbook for the first year physics undergraduate in the School of Physics, USM. The textbook comes with a load of Java simulation in the form of attached CD given for free to the instructor by the publisher. In these CD the physics instructor can find for every chapter computer simulations to demonstrate the evolution of physical systems under some specific physical laws such as conservation of momentum, energy, and Newton’s second law. Traditionally, these laws are taught and explained using figures and oral explanation by instructors, while the formulas are rote-momorised by students. The symbolic mathematical equations, which encode a profound amount of constraint on how a physical system should behave in space and time, make no sense to many students as they can’t make connection between these equations and the real world. Now thanks to the Java simulation, the students can visualise vividly how the energy make-up of a simple harmonic pendulum changes with time as the pendulum oscillate. The students can also see with their eyes what happen to the energy make-up as a function of space and time when the pendulum is displaced with different initial amplitude. When I was a student in the 1990’s an era when PC was still not a commonplace, the only way I visualise the simple harmonic pendulum is by making blind guess in my mind and were sometimes lead to wrong pictures of the real situations. Now the Java simulation has become so well developed and easily available. It is a very wasteful act of a physics teacher to not make use of these Java simulations for undergraduate level physics teaching. Adopting simulation in my lectures for the 101 Mechanics and the 104 Modern Physics is my policy. Computer simulation is one of the most effective tools to convey the physical relevance to our word as depicted by the abstract mathematical symbols. A physics teacher who is really enthusiastic about making physics comprehensible to his/her students should be one who shows Java simulations in his/her class.

My experience with "Easy Note Taker" in my lecture

Some lecture halls in USM are so huge that at times I develop the fallacy of conducting a concert in a 50,000 capacity stadium. Even in the moderately sized ones writing on black/white boards is something students hate me doing, for the simple reason that the writing appears too tiny on the board. I once tried to write on the transparency over the over head projector (OHP) as a way to display enlarged hand writing. But the strong light on the OHP hurts very badly my sight and causes nausea. Taking heed of the complaints by students who can’t read the writing on the board, I took the initiative to purchase an electronic gadget know as “Easy Note Taker” using the money from my own research fund. The gadget senses the movement of an electronic pen and displays the writing traced out on my laptop which was projected onto the screen. In addition, these writing can be saved as electronic copies that are kept in my laptop as a reference or be uploaded to the course web site.

Moodle: The online learning management system

In the earlier years I built my course websites in the server in the School of Physics (and elsewhere as well). These were very simple websites that did mundane things like displaying texts, files and links only. The Moodle, introduced in USM around 2007, offers much functionality that is much superior to those course websites I built earlier. Moodle allows many course-related events be managed online smartly so that lecture hours can be spared for only lecturing purpose. If a group decision has to be made, Moodle is the platform to do it much efficiently than counting the show of hand in the class.

One of the very useful services offered by Moodle is the online assignment submission function. Lecturers can enforce the deadline for last submission, grade the assignments online, and display the grades very conveniently. This means of assignment submission is efficient, saves papers (and trees). I reckon that every lecturer who requires their students to submit assignments should all do it via the Moodle as a contribution to saving the Earth.

The Moodle also provides a function called ‘Wiki’, in which students can freely edit an encyclopaedia-like entry related to a particular concepts or keyword related to the course. Students are encouraged to edit or add in Wiki entries, so that the content of these entries can be perfected over time as a result of collective effort. This is such a wonderfully new concept for teaching and learning, thanks to the brilliant invention of the Wikipedia model. I tried to encourage the use of Wiki in my calculus and linear algebra course once. Except a few rare enthusiasts, the Wiki drew little response from the students, probably due to the lack of familiarity to edit Wiki entries (so was I a stranger to edit Wiki entries). Anyway, I gave it a go but failed to achieve any admirable effect. Despite the failure experience, I reckon editing Wiki by students as a strategy for collective learning could be very effective if it is properly made used of.

Complimenting a course with a website is not the most important factor for a successful teaching. Nevertheless the adoption of such a smart means, as I have experienced it first hand, certainly helps to make good teaching a more plausible task.

Course websites

The first website I build was for the course ZCT 104 Modern Physics back in 2003. It was also the first course I taught in USM. Back then having websites for the courses were not a norm in USM main campus albeit the fact that many overseas universities already practiced course websites as early as mid 90s. I took the difficult first step to build my first course website in spite of the unfavourable conditions then. As late as 2007, USM finally pushed for the implementation of Moodle, an online web service where lecturers can drag-and-drop course-related material online fairly easily. I reckon they should have done that much earlier.

I insist on having a website for each course I teach because that is the way to go for effective and efficient course material management. By now I have accumulated many course websites, which are archived in my person webpage. These are documented teaching experience and activities I had practiced throughout many years in my teaching career, accessible by anyone anytime and from anywhere just a click away at http://www2.fizik.usm.my/tlyoon/teaching. The archive serves the purpose as a reference for my present students who wish to peek into the teaching activities in previous semesters. It offers the historical information of how the same courses were conducted in the past, thus preparing the present students psychologically what to expect in the present semester. In particular the students find it interesting to read about the discussions held by their seniors in the forum of the same courses in previous years. As these discussions were specifically revolved around a particular course they are currently studying, there is a sense of relevance when the present students read them. This contributes positively to the process of teaching in the class.  Reflecting my core belief in transparency and liberalism, all of the course webpages I put up are configured to be viewed freely by anyone in the world without the need to key in a password.

            Ideally, I try to make it such that students can access all possible information related to the course online for everyone’s convenience. Such practice saves me the trouble to reply students’ SMS request, e.g. where and when will a test happen, or what topics are to be tested. With the course websites fully loaded with essential information, students have no reason to complain of having insufficient material for their learning purpose.

Transparency is the core guiding principle when I put up the course websites. All information is supplied transparently. The essential contents include:

• Synopsis and course-related information. This includes the course synopsis, all relevant information such as the reference text books, exam format, important dates (tests, holidays, extra classes), lecture-by-lecture schedule, criteria for grading, advices and best practices for the course, etc.
• Electronic copies of lecture notes and the latest tutorial problem sets.
• Past year questions, usually completed with full solutions and marking schemes. The inspiration when designing the exam questions are usually derived from various reference sources (mostly the text books and test banks). In the solution schemes, the sources of the exam questions often will be quoted. My purpose is to provide transparency to the process of how I designed the exam questions. This offers the students a window to track their lecturer’s thinking path when designing the questions.  I reckon that such information is beneficial to the learning process for the students.
• Latest solutions to the quizzes. These are uploaded, usually immediately right after the quizzes. The immediate release of the electronic solutions is a spree to the eager students who can’t wait to know the solution to the quizzes they just sat.
• All-in-one course material. I take the trouble to electronically bind all the latest lecture notes, tutorial questions, past year solutions and other course-related material into an all-in-one pdf version, which are then uploaded to the course website. In addition, I would also send the softcopy to the photocopy shop so that the students can purchase the hardcopy there.
• Announcement. The course websites are the best place to make announcement. News spread in the cyberspace almost faster than the speed of light these days. Dear (many) teaching academics in USM, still sticking paper notices outside you offices in this Web.2 era?
• Records of past year performances of the courses. These include the records of the grade distribution and the formal reports of the overall exam performance. The formal reports contain information like weakness of the students and the comment made by the lecturer on the overall course performance. These are all “confidential” information not usually available but are very much sought after by students. When made publicly known, the historic statistics with an average 45% failure rate in the last two academic sessions sends the strong message: If you don’t want to be part of the statistics, you better start working now. It is a psychological trick I use to ‘motivate’ the students, albeit in a threatening manner.
• Forum. This is one of the most important components in the course websites. It is the main attraction for students to visit the course webpages. Here, students read their peers’ posting, chit-chat, ask stupid questions, or simply drop a line for fun. Some ask serious questions, debate over certain opinions, or seek quick answers to their assignments. I am usually the central participant in the forum, aided by the occasional appearance of a few active online students to heat up the ambience. A typically reserved student could turn out to be quite out spoken and daring when going online. Meeting and discussing physics with the students in the cyberspace paves an alternative channel to interact with them. The students get to know my character and personal style better if they bother to read my postings on the online forums. It is of my opinion that a student’s awareness of his / her lecturer’s personal trait and teaching style helps to boost the learning and teaching experience. To encourage participation I maintain a free speech policy in the forum. As long as their postings do not violate the obvious social constraints, I never interfere. All kinds of topic are sanctioned, such as advertisement, expression of fear for the courses, or even blatant objection to my teaching style. I try to talk like one of them, using the SMS-like or even broken language to make them feel comfortable to express online. Maintaining an active course-related forum has many obvious advantages to jack up the students’ interest about the course. However, involvement in a heated forum could take up around one to two hours per day of my precious time.

What it takes to be a good physics teacher

I was recruited as a lecturer to the School of Physics, USM since 2003. Since then I have been deeply involved in the teaching of undergraduate level physics courses. The courses I have taught include mechanics (the ‘101’ physics course, which is an almost universally a course any undergraduate level physics student must take), modern physics, thermodynamics, linear algebra and calculus, and statistical mechanics. I am not only a physics instructor but also a mathematic teacher. Teaching physics and mathematics could be full of fun as well as challenges. Public regard learning physics a daunting endeavour. In fact to explain physics is even more so. Richard Feynman[1], the legendry physics Nobel laureate and great physics teacher used to say “… if I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn’t have been worth the Nobel Prize”. As a physicist and a physics teacher, my core belief is, physics and mathematics are comprehensible. Ironically, many physics students still regard otherwise.

In my opinion, a physics teacher who can make physics comprehensible requires a few qualities: he / she must master the effective techniques in delivering ideas, the knowledge of the subject matter, and to have a passion to deliver the first two. You can’t be a good physics teacher if you lack any of these. For example, P. A. M. Dirac, one of the most important physicists in history and whose contribution to physics is at par with that of Einstein, is said to be the most boring physics teacher. He used the most economical and concise mathematical language to lecture physics to students, but never bother to elaborate further in plain language. Most were left in a state of confusion when Dirac left the class. As physicist, Dirac has the most profound insight for mathematical beauty in a physics theory, but he has not the passion to deliver what he apprehended to grass-root level physics students. On the other hand, one can never teach beyond the level of his understanding. If that is how much one knows, that’s about how much one can teach. In the teacher-centered setting, this would mean a good physics teacher is logically impossible if he / she know too little of the subject matter.

In practice, many physics teachers merely spoon feed formulas which are to be blindly memorised by students, and recycle past year questions in the final exams. The level of comprehension of the core ideas are not usually tested rigorously. In many instances, exams mostly require students to vomit the model answers as memorised. The ability to score the highest grades in physics exams is rarely translated into a reasonable comprehension of the complete idea behind what they have memorised. In my personal opinion, the best way to show whether learning has truly taken place is to demonstrate the ability to apply the knowledge content in research projects, and to correctly explain them in such a manner that others can comprehend them.  It is also in this spirit Feynman defined a person to have truly understood a physics concept.

        Teaching physics to a class of undergraduate students finally boils down to how to convey a foreign, and often abstract, concept to the audiences. To achieve this, various effective techniques and tricks can be innovated. Throughout the last few years as a physics teacher, I have innovated various tricks and techniques to make undergraduate physics a comprehensible subject. Along the way, I feel deeply that to deliver good teaching I must know my subject matter well. Not only that. Genuine motivation from within is also a mandatory fuel to make me stayed innovative. Innovative methods in teaching may be merely strategies or convenient tools dressed up by fancy technologies. But what essentially drives the implementation of these tricks is personal passion.

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[1] For the wonderful life of Richard Feynman, see the bibliography by James Gleick (1992). Genius. Vintage Books. Feynman’s three-volume Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964) published by Addison-Wesley is a legacy that has strongly influenced three generation of physicists since the 1960s.

My first week in Delft

Delft is a nice, small and historic town. I think it is also much nice than Melbourne or Sydney. It's old, and the canals add much beauty to the scenery. I enjoy cycling around the city and jog along the canal. Most of the time I cycle or jog alone. Occasionally I went out with some new friends here. People are very nice and interactive, esp. those graduate students from our group. I think the fellowship in the research group is healthy and delightful. Some foreign graduate students really take effort to organise group activities. I tell myself that I will join this activities as much as I can during weekends.

Yesterday night my 'boss' invited three of his research guests (me and two Americans) to his house for dinner, which make a very memorable experience. The interesting part was that we began our dinner at around 7 pm, and chat until 11pm at night. Since it is summer the sky gets dark only by 10 pm. The host played some classical music in the dinning hall, and occasionally there were long quite moments where everyone was just listening to the classical. Wow, I never experience such kind of moment. In Penang, in a gathering of similar kind, I usually won't 'allow' moment of silence to happen. But the experience last night was different. its romantic and special to me.

For the last few days I managed to do something that I almost can't hardly do successfully in Penang: I manage to wake up early (typically before 8 am), and manage to do a short period of mediation after waking up. My plan is that I wish to change as much as I manage some life style or daily habit, and also to raise myself to a higher intellectual level during this sabbatical leave period. I think in Penang I was always very 'huaxin' - flowery heart-ed, and can hardly able to concentrate for long hours to do extended period of study or thinking. Here I will try to change that. I actually admire the westerners who generally has good degree of concentration and discipline. By associate myself with many such intellectual I wish to also gain more such quality.

09 June 2009 6:15