Cairo trip

I took 10 people to Cairo on my visibility mission. Belanja sendiri since gomen and uni have no money. I'm glad we went. Macam2 kita jumpa. Egyptians are like Msians, very friendly and hospitable. Kita asyik makan free je sampai tak termakan-makan. Everyone nak belanja kita, alhamdulillah.

Duit Geneh dia pulak rendah. Raya katak but tak sempat shopping or sight seeing except  the pyramids and Egyptian Museum to see mummies (and Firaun). Ada high drama pulak kat museum tu. Me and Prof Maliah. Maliah terkejut I boleh jadi firaun bila I marah. Haha. Gara2 ticket collector tu mengambil duit lebih and having done that, we were asked to pay more to see the mummies.Nantian Saka I menjelma. I naik hantu. Haha. So the supervisor suruh tiket collector tu kira balik duit to match jumlah tics sold and voila..ada duit lebih and that was returned to me.

Maliah dah ajak I blah sebab takut kena katuk dgn polis yang berkeliaran sebab I had caused a drama gitu. I said no way I'm leaving..I dah penat bergaduh ni..moh kita pi tengok Firaun yang even in his death, menyusahkan orang dan terus mencekik darah..nak tengok mayat dia pun kena bayar mahal.

We laughed but went anyway.

It was worth it. Inilah kebesaran Allah.Mmg dlm Quran Dia dah cakap jasad melaun tu dipreserve utk jadi ikhtibar org yang hidup.

Sampai ini, I dok terbayang kereta kuda dan roda yang dijumpai di Laut Merah. Strangely kat museum tu not even a note to say this.Cuma dia tulis Firaun ni memerintah lama.I tanya my Egyptian friend pasal tak sebut jumpa dalam laut mcm Quran cakap. He said para archaeologists tu semua bukan Islamik pun.

But we enjoyed the trip cos'dapat masuk Al Azhar Uni (berusia 1052 tahun) dan Uni Cairo (lebih 100 tahun). Kita juga jumpa orang2 IIIT Cairo yang hosted us for 3 days..makan free, bwk pi pyramid free, kereta free.Duit tak luak, alhamdulillah.

I nak pi lagi ke Cairo if Allah izinkan. Kali ni, nak duduk kat hotel tepi Nile tu.Happening gitu.

IIIT Cairo

Prof Khaleq and team at IIIT Cairo

Minister of Awkaf handing over his books to IIUM

With Deputy President of Cairo Uni

With the Deputy President of Al Azhar Uni

Group photo with Awkaf Minister (a Prof of Islamic Studies from Al Azhar)

At Al Azhar

Lunch at the Club with people from various industries

With Prof Nadia and Prof Khaleq (two lovely people)

Poet Professor Deputy Prez. giving me that special Al Azhar
plaque

Satu petanda: Nantian Saka 2

Lebihkurang setahun lalu di waktu sebegini, saya mendapat rasa sebenarnya muyang saya Nantian Saka telah meninggal di dalam Perang Paderi. https://i-glass.blogspot.com/2018/04/nantian-saka.html
Tetapi saya masih berharap untuk mengesan apa jua sejarah tentangnya.

Di dalam kekalutan team penyelidik kami ingin menyudahkan penyelidikan tentang Rao di Tanah Melayu (iya, agak lama saya tidak bercerita tentang hal ini..basically kerana hambatan masa, perubahan hidup saya dan terkini, perginya seorang teman dan juga ketua penyelidik kami aruah Dr Wan Suhana yang meninggal dunia lebihkurang 3 minggu lalu..segala-galanya came to a halt for some time tetapi kami harus meneruskan pejuangan yang belum selesai ini)..ya di dalam kembalinya saya ke pangkuan research ini (ada 2 papers dan novel yang tersekat itu yang perlu saya kerjakan), saya terjumpa lagi satu makalah mengenai adik beradik Nantian Saka yang berhijrah hampir 180 tahun lalu ke Tanah Melayu  (sekitar 1839). Saya masih berharap akan ada terselit namanya di celah-celah nama yang banyak itu. Saya bagai ayam tanpa kepala, lari ke sana..lari ke sini tercari-cari sehingga akhirnya saya tewas kepada realiti dan saya menangis terisak-isak di depan laptop saya ini...Muyang memang dah mati. Dia mati menentang Belanda dan mati mempertahankan Islam. SubhanaAllah..bayangkan pengorbanan itu. Dan bayangkan juga bagaimana keluarganya yang lain pergi berhijrah..bukan untuk mengelakkan maut kerana ajal itu di mana-mana tetapi menyelamatkan apa juga aqidah yang boleh diselamatkan agar tidak mati kufur.Inilah yang saya pilukan.

Because...we take things for granted. Islam yang kita terima sudah terletak. Sudah tidak dicabar. Siapa lagi yang akan bercakap for it sebab makin ramai dari kalangan kita yang menghasut untuk kufur..hijab itu menindas, hijab itu old fashioned, tutup aurat itu kolot.

Semoga kita semua selamat. Alfatihah untuk para syuhada. Al fatihah untuk Nantian Saka.

People Managing

If you are trained as an academic, you will know how difficult it is to be thrown into the deep blue sea and not knowing how to swim.

I had that first experience not long after my return from my PhD and then quickly made a Head of Dept. What did I know about managing people much older than me, managing men, managing events, managing money - to be made and to be spent (within a certain specific period) and on top it all, working for your career development, raising a young child, yada yada.

I should be past all these, right? Right!

Cuma how do you deal with staff yang very creative in explaining what should be done but not done and end up not doing much? After talking to Miz H (she used to work with Shell for 10 years but quit because she got bored doing the same thing despite the good pay..wahlau), she said she knew that kinda personality. Biasa they need more skills sbb if they have skills, they would be kept busy doing work. Wow..I never thought of that - that people culas cos' they actually don't know what to do (takda system doing things). If not, things would be in order, said Miz H. tak payah kejar2 nak itu ini. Just use your shared folder platform and fetch what you want at a touch of a button.


Part 2: this is the day after. We spent all afternoon at Putrajaya semalam ..learned much about freelancing work online. I think I know what to do after I retire now. Within a couple of months, boleh dapat RM700K okay? Clients everywhere around the world..tax pun bayar di US. Berangan is good.What do I do with all the money bila kita pun dah dekat nak mampos? Haha. Seronok je learning something new.

From LIMA19 to Finnish Dinner and Kebangkitan Harimau Asia

Tak terkejar saya kerja at the new office. Every day is a new day. If only my body is  20 years younger. I told Prof M, masa I muda tak nak jadikan I Deputy Rector. She said masa you muda, you bodoh lagi. Haha. Dapat le selepuk.

So I had to ganti Rector to go to LIMA19 last week. First time since its inception many years ago. Hari I pi tu khas untuk traders only so ramai la Raja2 dan menteri2 dan PM hadir. The crowd pun tak padat. I was well looked after by the young staff yang ada for their product exhibitions. So selamat la I sebab dia orang tolong angkat bags segala. Syukur alhamdulillah.

It was an exciting time. Macam pi concert tengok air show tu semua.Bising sebab lalu dekat atas kepala kita. Then we naik kapal combat USA (yang dah lapok..maybe they are trying to sell it off to any 3rd world country ke). And I saw kapal terbang yang Pakistan tembak jatuh jet India. Fuiyoo, unmanned.I thought LIMA was a male thing. Aleh2 tengok I pun suka. Pelik.

So ada la beberapa MoUs I helped sign on behalf of the uni. I was also shown kapal pertama buatan Msia. Canggih manggih OK? Budak2 muda je behind it all. Sangat bangga ..patut le Tun M tak balik2 dari pagi ke petang round2 exhibition tu. The day before pun dia datang.

Then I attended the Finnish dinner at the Ambassador's place.Baik dia tu. We chatted about trout fishing in Finland and Iceland and Norway.He pernah jadi duta kat Iceland so kita pun bertukar2 nota on Iceland.Very friendly chap. Makanan Finnish pun sedap. Salad dia sedap.


Yang paling best dapat mendengar talks by Tun M and Syed Sadiq at the Konvensyen Kebangkitan Harimau Asia (entah kenapa I selalu nak tersasul "kebangkitan harimau tua"). Although, kekadang byk juga I tak bersetuju dgn cara Tun M ni but pengalaman dia bagus didengar. Very humbling. Dia cakap dia bukan pandai sangat. Tapi dia rajin mengulang-baca buku2. Kekadang sampai 10 kali sehingga time exam, dia boleh nampak text tu sebijik-sebijik, siap dengan gambarajah. Haha, so cute cara dia cerita. I was seated very tepi tempat dia lalu (sengaja dipilih gitu utk mudah tangkap gambar). Aleh2 dia berenti betul2 di hadapan saya. Dia tengok saya, saya tengok dia. I was like nak salam ke tak, nak salam ke tak then I decided to salam sbb rude if I didn't sebab semua salam. :))

Sadiq has a lot of potential.Won't be surprised if he make it to PMship nanti.Better than KJ banyak kali.

Back at work, I kena start cracking on so many things.