WELCOMING 2013 WITH THREE MOODS

2013 came while I was in three unplanned moods - examination mood, holiday mood, and ailing mood.

The examination mood developed when students were busying submitting their assignments, preparing for their final examination and submitting their dissertations. The holiday mood emerged when the Christmas and the New Year holidays were approaching and, by having set my mind to have a little bit of but a total rest, the ailing mood then came in. I was trapped in a sort of a psychological mental-rest which entailed with a body pain after cleaning house compound, a sore throat after watching tv under air-conditioning for relatively quite long hours, followed by a little fever and coughing, and eventually a change of voice - a new year gift from Allah SWT that hopefully not only erases my sins, bi iznillah, but also a chance for my wife to gain rewards from Allah SWT for pampering me, the unhealthy man, Alhamdulillah.

Amidst these moods, however, I still have to force myself to write an abstract for an international conference to be held in Turkey in September as well as revising abstracts of my ISDEV's colleagues for the same conference, recalling, collecting and preparing my 2012's accomplishments to be submitted to and for the perusal of my superior, be with Afirah and Taariq who came home for holidays, invigilating examination of my Islamic Research Methodology course, and receiving the Senior Secret Secretary of the Chief Minister of the State of Kelantan who was interested in pursuing his PhD at ISDEV.

I managed to see a doctor only on last Friday the 4th after the ailing is no more a mood, but has become a tiring obstacle to my normal `holiday' activities.

Alhamdulillah, the moods are now over and I am ready for the reactivation of my normal tasks. Among them  would be a trip to Jakarta on the 15-17th, being one of the panelists at an International Conference on Islamic Economics and Finance in Kuala Lumpur on the 30th, and writing a paper on Islamic Economics Concepts Revisited to be submitted latest by 1st February for a Conference in Turkey to be held on the 1st-3rd March, apart from marking students' assignments, examination scripts and Master dissertations, delivering a speech at ISDEV Knowledge Blessing Night on the 8th and a Director's' tazkirah at ISDEV Monthly Graduate Supervision on the 9th of January. Thank you Allah.