Work Overload

So as I predicted, the work load post-weekends away is rough. The stress is definitely building. In small part, we have a Leadership paper, a Systems Optimization problem set, an interview of a front-line worker and write-up on that interview, an Operations Management factory simulation and two plant tours in the next week...PLUS three of my teammates (including me) are heading out of town AGAIN this weekend to go to weddings. This will be the third one this summer. Although weddings are fun, they are a lot of extra stress that I'm not always ready for. This one should be a little easier than the last two as the groom is my old college roommate instead of friends of Alicia's. Even though I get along with all of her friends, it will just be nice to be able to relax with an old friend of mine for a while and forget about work for a bit.

In other news, in the LFM program students do a lot of work both in academics or in committees. I am in two committees this year: I am a co-chair on the Marketing & Admissions Committee as well as member of the LFM/China LFM Synergy Committee. Given the first position, I hope to meet all of you who are reading this blog at some point this year either at an InfoSession, Open House, Interview Fest or through the Ambassador's Program. Please e-mail me with any questions on any of these events and I will get you more information about them. Okay, I'm done with the plugs for now. The LFM/CLFM Synergy Committee is going to be a lot of fun too. In case you don't know, MIT is helping SJTU create their own LFM program. This year will be the first year of the CLFM program and so we created a committee to help connect the two programs both academically and socially. My main goal for this committee is to get as many of the CLFM students and the LFM students to visit each other and work together on tiger teams, internships or other activities. Should be a great challenge for me and our committee.

Another event that occurred recently was the bidding on Sloan classes. In order to take a class at Sloan you are given 1000 points with which to bid on your classes. I took all of my points and bid for a class called G-lab. For an article on G-lab you can go to http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/global-0315.html to check it out. I'm psyched to let you all know that I got lucky and got in! (out of 24 or so LFMers that wanted to take the class only 16 were allowed - let's hope that they all can take it after the waitlist round). Can't wait to see what kind of projects we'll be working on! Definitely come back and find out.

Well, I think that I've been slacking off enough now. Time to get back to that Leadership paper.
More later...

Weekend Recovery

Alicia and I went to Chicago this past weekend. Went out to go to a wedding of one of Alicia's best friends. Left Friday afternoon and returned Sunday night (delayed due to weather). It was a great relaxing weekend and I did very little homework. This hit pretty hard however when I got back and was behind in every class. That's the trouble with going out of town for the weekend, you get behind in everything. I am heading out of town for the next two weekends (to visit my grandmother and then to go to my college roommate's wedding) so I am getting a little nervous about how far behind I will be after that. Even so, you can't not have fun while being here. Went to an LFM dinner party last night that lasted late into the night. I'm definitely hurting this morning during class. Planning to go out to the Muddy (The Muddy Charles - an on-campus MIT bar) tonight as well. The life of a college student...though it is a bit different this time around.
More later....

Axcelis Follow-up

The Axcelis plant tour was an interesting field trip. We took a tour through their 10K clean room (yes, we got to dress up in the visitor blue jump suits with hair nets, gloves and booties). The 10K designates the cleanliness of the room based on the number of "particles" per cubic foot. This facility had 100, 1000, 10,000, and 100,000 designated clean rooms. They also showed us a sample of their product on a test stand. Very cool to see this completely new (to me, that is) technology. The whole facility was impressive to see after working in the Detroit auto-industry. I just couldn't believe how clean everything was. Clean rooms and gowns for everyone.

And one more follow-up: after my PSA of backing your stuff up ALWAYS, I finally finished my previously deleted mid-term - over 10 hours of work for a three question problem set. Finally done.

Off to Chicago for a wedding this weekend. Lots of catchup reading to do on the plane.
More later...

I'm hatin' on my computer today

SO, last night my computer "selectively" deleted my Systems Optimization Mid-Term. I say selectively because my Mid-term document was the only thing missing from my computer. After talking to customer support, campus IS&T and others, I have not been able to figure out why this happened or where my mid-term is. 4.5 hours down the drain and now I have to redo the whole thing. Let this be a lesson to you all. When you have a really important document, E-MAIL it to yourself, save it to a jump drive, cd, floppy or whatever. Back it up. Period.

Other than that, the LFMers are heading out to Axcelis for our first plant tour today. Will fill you in on how it goes.

Welcome to my blog...

Hello everyone! I just wanted to welcome you to the first of many posts on my new blog.

First off, I'd like to introduce myself. I have just moved to Cambridge, MA with my girlfriend, Alicia, and three cats, Greigh, Peek-a-boo, and Aura (who is only about 2.5 months old). We moved into our place and have been busy moving in and adjusting (re-adjusting in my case) to Cambridge and the Boston area. There is a stark contrast between Detroit and Boston, with a HEAVY bias on our parts towards the latter. We have been having a great time living in the city and checking out all that Boston and the local area has to offer.

I've now been a student at the MIT Leaders For Manufacturing program since June of this year and it has been flying by. We are already working on our summer mid-terms! Speaking of, I think that it might be time to get back to work. More later....