Destination Hamburg

Insya-Allah, if everything goes according to plan, I will be leaving for Hamburg, Germany in about 11 days time. This will only be a short working trip but I hope the trip will be meaningful. I will be participating in an international conference entitled "Health Related Issues and Islamic Normativity" organised by the University of Hamburg.

There are eight speakers from Malaysia, most of whom are people I know personally. So I guess I will be surrounded by familiar faces there. Nonetheless, I do look forward to knowing and networking with people from other parts of the world during the conference.

It has been a while since I participated in an international conference outside Malaysia. If memory serves me well, the last was a conference I participated in was the one in Cairo, Egypt in 2006. Since leaving the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia in late 2005, opportunities and invitations to conferences are very few and far in between. In a way, I am glad that I have more or less kept myself in the academic world. Otherwise I would have probably been very much out of touch with the academia.

Frankly, I feel that I should participate in international conferences on a more regular basis. It is one way to make sure that I do not lose that academic touch. Mayhaps I should just jump into the academia on a full time basis?