Freedom!

Aye, 'Braveheart' ranks up there with 'Gladiator' for me. I liked the movie very much despite its length, but unlike the other films I've been watching, it didn't feel long at all. Looking forward to watching 'The Corporation' tonight.

 

I've gone ahead and downloaded several other movies from BitTorrent, or whatever films that I've not seen that are ranked in IMDb's Top 25. That's on top of downloading gigabytes after gigabytes of songs, and I actually have to delete quite a bit of stuff from my iPod to fit everything in. I'm going to keep only the songs that I like instead of the whole album from now onwards, then, I think I can have a variety of songs left that I can access whenever I feel like it. I'll keep the entire album for select artists, which shouldn't be a whole lot.

 

One thing I failed to say in my last entry was that through Scorsese's films, I think I've developed a greater appreciation for Rober DeNiro, as much as I admire Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel Washington and Nicholas Cage. DeNiro can truly convince his character to the audience.

 

Anyway...

 

The office's rather quiet. Most of the Supply Chain team is on a business trip, leaving me with wrapping up whatever that I have left to do and making sure everything can be taken care of for 2 weeks before my friend comes in as my replacement. So needless to say, I've had a lot of time to do a lot of reading and researching. I'm planning on taking one or two online classes the next time I'm on a work semester, so that I can complete the classes that are required, but ones I'm not entirely willing to take. If I am to take these classes like psychology, social science electives and database systems as a transfer credit from other universities, they would not count towards my GPA, so that's another incentive (I never liked those subjects and was worried they would hurt my GPA, rather than help). I thought of taking a distance learning class, but that presented limited options for classes and that would also bring about time constraints, coz I would actually have to go to class at a specified time. The only university that I could do that was with Georgia State University. I don't mind, they offer a lot of classes that I can transfer, but the thought of having to go to a 3 hour class after long day at work puts me off. Plus, there's the chances that my commute might be delayed unexpectedly and that might present problems on test days (and these things somehow always seems to happen on those important days). I've done some research and it seems like University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Indiana University at Bloomington, University of Washington and North Carolina State University at Raleigh seem to be the best options (and at a relatively cheap per credit hour rate). If I manage to pull this off, I think I'm on course to graduate just in time for Spring 2008, and won't need to take that extra summer that I initially thought I would have to take to fulfill graduation requirements. Plus, taking classes online would be flexible in terms of time commitment and whatnot. My estimation would say that if things go as I plan, I wouldn't have to take a 21 hour semester this coming Fall, and will only need to average 15 on the regular semester until I graduate. That seems very good. If I decide just to get a nanomaterials certificate and not a minor, that figure drops to 13, just barely full-time. So I guess I'll just need to make sure I can do this with the Registrar's Office once school starts, confirm the transferable classes, and I'm good to go.

 

I finished reading Jeffrey Liker's 'The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from The World's Greatest Manufacturer" last week and it was a very insightful book. Not only in terms of Industrial Engineering and Management, but also in terms of Manufacturing, Efficiency and general pointers as to how to make processes flow smoothly. Though the book concentrated mainly on manufacturing issues, I believe the principles can be applied in almost any way. Simple principles that can enhance business flow and improve the functions within a company, and beyond. As I discovered how Toyota rose from the brink of extinction to almost outnumbering Ford and GM, it also taught me how history, tradition and ethics can play a huge part. It was vital that I read a book, as I am interested in going to either manufacturing or supply chain/logistics industry, and it gave me a broader perspective than what I have picked up through my time with RubberNetwork.

 

Now, I'm reading a book on 401(k) (investment option that's provided by RubberNetwork - even for me, as an intern!) I knew that investing a sizeable amount from an early age would be greatly beneficial in the long run, but when I was first presented with the plan, I knew jack, so I didn't participate. Hopefully, after reading up and understanding how it works, I can put this to my advantage, even before I work as a full time employee. Some people I interviewed for major research told me that they wish they knew more about it, so that they could take full advantage, so it stuck with me to make sure I learnt it myself. Over the Fall semester, I'm planning on learning more about it, so by the time I come back to work in January, I'll be set to go. During the work terms, I'll enhance my knowledge of supply chain by reading about Six Sigma, RFID and Lean Thinking.

 

I bought way too many books, coz I just got so caught up in how much there is to know in the industry. But I honestly think it's better for me to know about all these things so that I'm prepared for work when I graduate, instead of having to juggle work and also to be learning completely new things when I start working. It's all for me to gain, and nothing will stop me. The plan for now is to graduate, get into a massive corporation, earn about 5-6 years of work experience, get an MBA, and take things from there, hopefully getting into the Global Supply Chain/Logistics industry. With globalization fully kicking in, and increased manufacturing throughout the world, this will present a lot of opportunities. And that may allow me to travel to a lot of places.

 

Time for me to leave for today. Tomorrow's my last day for this working semester. It'll be weird for me to be stepping back to school. But that's another 2 weeks to go.