knowledge is power

Somehow I remember this when reading the Last lecture. Knowledge is power. Thus, people who posses knowledge, bring with them power along. And luck is as simple as when preparation meet the opportunity. That is, when you truly have power, and provided the right time and places (opportunity), the luck is all yours.  

Having said this, I don’t really think that taking graduate degree is a complete waste of time. No matter the subject to take so long as you devote yourself into it. Yes, you spend two years for further study that if you use it to work instead, probably it will yield much in terms of money. But after all, I figured out that money isn’t everything.

By the way, today I just figured out that I couldn’t get something  in the near time. Considering that I do really have no control into it, even at first I do really want it, I choose to be indifferent. I don’t care anymore, I have something to chase after.

Well, kinda bad time now, and I owe to write the review of the last lecture. Some other time I guess

The last lecture

Certainly I just figured out that my two latest posts titled with ‘last’ at the beginning. Anyway, I accidentally found an interesting book categorized as new releases yesterday at the KK library. At first, I thought that the book is a novel – one of a kind- I don’t know somehow seeing this book remind me to the – Notebook – which is bestseller authored by someone I already forgot.

OK, let us set foot again to the book I just previously mentioned. It turns out that the book actually written by Randy Pausch, a professor of human computer interaction at Carnegie-Mellon University. Well, for people who have taken computer science major when in college, will know that CMU is one of the best renowned universities especially in the field of computer study. And this is what actually brings me to borrow the book from the library.

Reading synopsis, first chapter, second chapter, I figured out that this is not the kind of book intended for computer guys. In fact, this is the book about living, how some sort of dying person wants to spread the way he living to humankind species =D. This is absolutely inspiring and you get the information from the first hand, not from someone who got PhD in psychology and wrote a book of motivation as if he knows everything about the life.

“The Last Lecture”, is indeed the last lecture Randy gave on September 2007 to almost 400 students at CMU. In the lecture he gave –‘Really achieving your childhood Dreams’, Randy made a point or two about the importance of overcoming obstacles, enabling the dreams of others, and seizing every moment.

“Because sometimes we don’t realize that time is actually finite” OK, I really don’t realize that. To know that everyone including me will eventually die is really terrifying. My young mindset always tells me like I will live forever.

I will give insights and comments about the book later on, because I do really in the mood to read the book on and on and just can’t pause.

Randy Pausch is indeed a famous person. You can see his profile here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch

Great person, isn’t he? You know what? I guess he already motivates me to pursue graduate degree in whatever. I miss the smell of books in library, the laboratories, the lectures, and the assignments. I know you may say I can’t be serious. But indeed, it’s true.

 

 

the holiday

Last night I watched “The Holiday” in HBO. This is one of a kind romantic comedy. I must say that the story is very funny, and also original. Starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Jack Black, the movie offers two complete different sets – the big city LA and rural Surrey England. Surrey is indeed a great place. It’s like England in the era of dark magic. And I don’t know somehow, I really love the way British people talk, their dialect seems classy to me.

 

In brief, the story begins with Iris, who still fall in love with Jasper, her colleague at a London publishing house. She really believes that Jasper also feel the same way too. However during the company’s Christmas party, jasper announces his engagement with someone Iris already knew. And Iris feels like fall apart. And she wants to leave, try out a new world during Christmas off.

 

Another life, another scene Amanda has just recently found out that her boyfriend is having affair with her receptionist. She dumps him, but somehow Amanda doesn’t feel any sadness. She is wondering if there is something wrong with herself and decided to take a break from hectic job as movie trailer producer in LA. Provided the fact she is alone during Christmas, and she thinks her life can’t get any worse, she decided to register into temporary home exchange program in the internet. It turns out that Iris also offers her house through the same program and they both temporarily exchange their life. That is the beginning of new life and how finally they find their true love.

 

For me the most interesting part of the movie is the wonderful scenery of surrey, villages shere and wonersh. Definitely, I should go there someday. And not to forget to tell, I guess Cameron diaz is really a good kisser =D

 

morning glory

The best thing of living in remote area like this is that nature always has its own way to celebrate the morning glory. Today, I walked around the office and smell the typical kind of grass. And then after a while, I saw a really big beautiful bird, white feathered-look-like-swan around. I chased after her, but like any others wild bird,  she took step away to safe zone. I tried to capture her. - ok not physically -  with my camera. But she already noticed, and fly away. The same thing with what eagles did last week.

Welcome to the insomnia club

Exhausted but just can’t fall asleep. I need to sleep immediately, but it seems my brain can’t rest. Well, frankly speaking, I have something in my mind - a dispute - I guess the most important thing for grown up people is to know how to be grateful. Unfortunately, the thing is hard to posses.

Anyway, tomorrow will be a busy day for me. I have to keep my energy high. I have to sleep.

learn more study less

Currently I am reading the holistic learning strategy book. It’s good actually. According to it, human’s brain obtains information by developing construct, and highways that connect one to another, along with its model. Simply to say, while computers store information through routines, we human create models, interconnectivity through neurons that makes us –unlike computers - easy to recognize pattern. There are 5 steps as basic strategy of holistic learning. They are namely ‘acquire’, ‘understand’, explore, debug, and apply. At each step, test step performed in order to get clear understanding whether we may proceed or not. Anyway, it sounds like certain methodology in software development life cycle. I don’t know exactly the name is. It’s been long before with software engineering I guess.

 

Anyway, it’s a good book. Learning how to learn is the very basic thing. It’s like investing in an oil company which the price is skyrocketed nowadays. So it is worth reading during my spare time. Let see how much I improve on this =D.

Speak Up

I doesn’t take years to figure out what went wrong here. Indeed, no perfect places. People are loosing courage to speak up the truth because when the truth is bitter, you may loose your job. And for some people, loosing job is loosing identity.

Yesterday though, I managed to tell and present something to the top. Somehow I feel disappointed with the answer, though it seems so sweet on the surface, but deep inside covered beneath it, something bitter hidden. And now, I decide to reopen my cv, modify it with recent information and intend to spread it again, haha.

I don’t want to loose my will to speak up what goes wrong. But through time, it seems that my words slowly become echoes.

I feel disappointed. Is it only a feeling driven by emotional prejudice? Or my brain finally knew that the whole things become make sense?   

discipline!

I looked at a mirror and somehow in its reflection, I saw myself indecisive, indifferent and also in a brutal chaos.  People get older but they don’t necessarily get wiser. In my case, I am older, but still no change, it is the same me some years ago. Oh my…I do really need a way to get myself control over myself.

Mediocre excel engineer

For the last days, I’ve been working hard with excel. The more I use it, the more I realize that understand how to utilize excel can bring you to unexpected places. That is to say, Microsoft excel is really powerful tool. OK, probably not the tools, but the concept of spreadsheet itself. You can use it as simple database, treat it like simple programming tools, and even develop viruses by spreading macros. Surely I never realized that, it seems that my fluency in excel is far from perfect, still mediocre indeed.

 

No believe I am mediocre in excel? Last week my fellows who happened to be the project manager ask me to develop simple macro that act as a bridge to our ERP, that is Ellipse. Yeah, the reason is simple. Jakarta resources are hard to get these days due to resource conflict with global. So instead of asking for them to develop simple business object report and therefore should waiting for resource prioritization, we decided to develop our report accessing directly to and from ellipse itself instead. And that requires macro. Dude, honestly I never develop macro before. I didn’t even know the environment, and even how to print hello world. That is something as a baseline start before you begin the journey with new programming language along the way. So basically, I need to learn VB. Well actually, the language itself is no surprise if I must say. Some similarities are found among languages, and although syntax and even certain things are different, I believe that the concept of programming remains. I must say I rather satisfied with the result. I was managed to develop macro that act as a bridge to ellipse – this is something commonly under Jakarta control –

 

Today and seems two days ahead, I will busy myself with developing POC. I should gather information from reports already available in order to get certain required result. The thing is, the report I develop should be generic and dynamic depending to data supply.  And that means I should be familiar with formulas, even with advances one. At first, I feel terrible since I am not used with excel formulas. But I realize that it was a possibility to learn, so then I like it. OK, probably not really like it since I really made a mistake with some formulas usage, wrong applying criteria because forgetting the trim function, and of course with the reference stuffs. And it took me 3 hours to realize it.

 

For now on, I guess I should be really familiar with excel. It is indeed a powerful tool. Utilize this and other office tools such as word and power point, really can take you to unexpected places.

 

I am excel engineer, yet mediocre..

paradigm shift

I just finished reading the mindset book - it is the book that I previously mentioned about-. So according to it, the most important thing is how to shift the way of thinking from judge or be judged framework into learn and help learn framework.

Some important points mentioned in the last chapter:

1. Diagram of Nigel Holmes, I promise to scan and include the graphic later on.
2. List down and answer all questions below:
   1. What are the opportunities for learning and growth today?
   2. When, where and how I will embark my plan?
   3. When, where and how I will act on my new plan should there be any changes to the previous plan?

Sounds promising!