Construction at work

Construction at work, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

First day back at work and it hit me like a ton of brick. After the long morning ward round, it was Day Care. I then attended a meeting at the Faculty that took a chunk of the time in the afternoon. Back to department after that to pick up the letters in my pigeonhole. It's nearly Shawal and it was filled with cards as well as letters requesting for donation. After a few letters, I then realised that it was time to leave.

While at the Faculty, I realised that there are many construction taking place at the moment. There is the student area being build in the green quadrangle walking towards Dewan Jemerlang. The seems to have flatted the area and filled them with land. I wonder what building they are constructing.

Understandably, security has been tightened as many of the construction workers were Indonesian migrants and they actually live on site. I may be painting it with a broad brush here but there will be security issues here. Not just properties but the hall of residence sits right next door to the faculty. These foreign workers will also able to access the are in and around the campus. Another unexpected problem is parking spaces as some of the kerb are now closed. My MOs had to walk sometime half a mile to get to work. It doesn't only waste energy but also work. An unnecessary hassle in my book.

The meanest air asam boi in town!The area where Emima cafe used to be has been cordoned off and the construction of the new staff restaurant will start soon. It used to be my main joint for breakfast before the kitchen caught fire and it has to be closed as it was deemed to be unsafe. Fair enough!

When I arrived home, I was greeted by the news that Jane was dead! This morning when Anita was about to clean the tank, she was found motionless. Nope! She did not perform CPR nor administer mouth-to-mouth. No sock was given either. It seems that after berbuka tonight, we will be heading back to the pet shop to ask about what to feed Peter. We might have to buy a new mate for him as well. I wonder what we should call her?

Tried to Leave Early

Jam coming out of University Malaya, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

Was on call yesterday. Managed to get home for Berbuka, then came back to UMMC for my evening rounds. Luckily, the bed situation was reasonable. We did not have to struggle too much except from the usual difficult cases. I reached home at around midnight.

The queue at the DUKE toll plazaWas rather late getting up this morning after a heavy sahur. Sorted out my referrals in the morning as I will be tied up in the afternoon. We had our two-monthly 'Transplant Meeting', followed by the Medical Department Meeting. This will be the last for Prof Wan Azman as he is stepping down from the end of the month. The meeting finished just after 4.30, and I went straight home, thinking that I will be early enough to escape the traffic.

Unfortunately the traffic has started building up. However, I still managed to reach home, have a shower, then went to Pasar Ramadhan. After Berbuka, I went out to Bukit Bintang to pay up my credit card bills at branch of UOB there. The crowd was quite heavy, and surprisingly, the majority was from the Middle East. I would have thought they like to stay back during Ramadhan since there are feast almost every night. Sorted out my bill, and felt peckish. Had coffee at Starbucks, then some ice-cream, and before I know it, it was already 9.30. Time to head home. In the meantime, I managed to do some window shopping as Anita's birthday in coming up on 9/9/9. Better get something good for her.

Got my stickers sorted

The Tools of the Trade, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

UM was really stepping up their quest to limit traffic in campus. By tomorrow, those without car stickers will be turned away, or asked to park at the entrance and use the university bus around campus. That should ease the traffic and the parking issue somewhat I hope.

I received a rather stern email from the Chancellery the other day. Basically telling us that we will be slapped with monetary fine should our cars were found parked campus without stickies. We are talking RM100 here for first timer, and RM150 after that ....... Argh!!

My in-laws left for Kota Bharu earlier today for the weekend. Idlan is getting restless since we haven't been anywhere since his holiday started on Monday. Need to plan about something for the weekend. Anita actually bought a book about places to visit around KL!

Tale of the Garang Pak Guard

Kelby Walk 34 - Tools, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

UM has been trying to tighten up its security for the past couple of years. Back in 06, there was a security incident that put the establishment in a bit of bother. One Saturday morning, a few robbers managed to drag away a teller machine from the student union building and got away with plenty of cash. Apparently they came in posing as contractors and using some heavy equipment managed to drag the whole machine out.

Since then, many measures were taken to tighten things up, but none were really implemented. From this Friday, all cars entering the campus has to have a sticker, otherwise, the driver will part away from their RM50 notes ..... and that is steep I thought. I got another 3 days and just did not have the time to get myself the stickers. The parking office is only open from 8 to 5, and there is no way that I'm driving away to the other side of the campus, losing my parking spot along the way!

I drove in this morning and was stopped by the security guard. I didn't have my stickers. Stern words were exchanged. Apparently from now on, undergrads are not allowed cars in campus. The final years were exempted. I was given warning to get my stickers sorted out. It looked like I will have to start my morning round late. I emailed a suggestion for the parking office to close late, maybe until 6.30 for the next couple of days so that people like me are able to get the stickers sorted out. I am yet to receive a reply. They just need to work the extra hours for the next couple of days I thought .....

p/s: The pic above was taken last weekend during my photowalk, somewhere in Kampung Baru.

Moodle ..... Schnoodle!

_MG_8086, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

I have always been interested in integrating teaching and multimedia. I saw an email about e-learning module and decided to see what it has on offer. Managed to get the hang of it pretty fast, even though the facilitator thought that being a Medic, things can get too complicated for me .....

The interesting part was about converting the slides into pdf and uploading those as lecture slides online. I have plenty of lectures in my laptop, and the main worry is, should I lose it I will to build new ones from scratch. Integrating it into my teaching will be a challenge though as I often times do not have control on the syllabus. However, since I have been running the revision course for the Masters Students for the last 5 years, I night start there. I might actually collect and collate the lectures and tutorials from my colleague and then publish them online as a reference for the participating students.

Another avenues that might have some prospect is publishing our weekly CME at department into the department website. At least in the future, should we need to refer concerning a particular subject, we have somewhere to go to

p/s: The picture above was taken on our last trip to Cherating. We stayed at a place called Eastern Pavillion. This is just outside our chalet there.