Townhall Meeting with Iain Conn

This Friday, BP Indonesia employees get a chance to meet one of the executive director of BP global, Iain Conn. Mr. Iain Conn is an executive assistant of BP's CEO Lord John Browne. In the townhall meeting, Mr. Iain talked about several current important issues around BP. It is clear from his speech he expresses very much concern about safety in BP's operation. He said that BP is not about money or profit or production, BP's top priority is safety. Safety is above all else. After the pipeline incident in US, clearly BP's reputation is falling down. So to handle this issue, the promotion of safety is very important. He also said that in the next 6 months it will be a hard moment for BP since there will a be a hearing in US regarding the past incidents. Most newspapers will write bad news about BP.

Mr. Iain not just talked about serious things, well there is a joke about BP vs ExxonMobil. He told us that one day there is a luxury limousine elegantly run on the streetroad but the driver and the passenger are elderly people and that is Exxon. The driver look at the mirror and see a new green shiny car and in a several minutes the green car is approaching the limousine. The driver wonders whether the car will pass over him. But what happen is the green car cannot pass this limo and start losing the distance from the limo. The green car is BP. Funny ha ? I think it will be funny if Mr. Iain tell it directly to you.

The struggle on studying GRE (verbal section)

For you that interested to pursue graduate study, maybe you've heard about Graduate Record Examination, abbreviated as GRE. GRE test usually comes as a requirement in the admission process in a university. GRE comprises three sections, quantitative (math), verbal, and analytic. For most international student, specifically
those whose native languange is not English like me, the verbal section is the most difficult part. When I tried to look the sample question of the verbal section for the first time I was like, "What the hell these word mean ????" Even I didn't have clue to guess the meaning of such words.Since then I bought a GRE practice book and try to study the verbal section exercises. The exercise is simple, there are many word list from A-Z included with the explanation and example use of the word in a complete sentence. In the beginning, I was in full spirit to read the word list. But after several weeks, I found that it's boring..And since I felt it bored me, it's difficult to memorize the meaning of the words. I'm just curious whether there are any other method to learn this thing. It's important because the verbal section is my main weakness. Hope I can beat myself and try to force myself learn the verbal section.

Which direction ?

About a year ago, I was a system programmer, enjoyed all night coding, closely interacted with gcc, Java etc. Now, I am no longer a programmer, even I don't do any technical task, I would say, it's more administrative work, that I should done. In the beginning of the transition, I felt that it's hard for me. You know, being a programmer, you just sit down, wait for your project manager to come and tell you what you should do next. In my current position, if you just sit down and not communicate with others, the work just cannot be done. I have to more proactive in follow up many things, communicate with other resources to help my work to be completed. I can say, I've to develop my soft skill to survive in this kind of work. For the first time, it's not easy to communicate with others since I don't used to do it. I'm a kind of man that not easy to socialize with others until I know the person quite well. Actually, I'm not quite satisfied with my current performance and I still learn a lot. Hope I can pass this. Or should I change my path again ? It's a disturbing question for me everyday. I need direction.