I've recently had a lot of flashbacks, memories of when I first moved to Lebanon for my first year in university, memories of when I moved to France last year. All these big changes in my life were for one purpose : "Making my opportunity window wider"

I recently had a presentation for an English class and in that presentation we had to talk about our summer vacation.
After hearing the whole class talk about their vacation, my turn came. I had a small paper with a basic structure and key ideas of the things I wanted to talk about written on a small paper.
As I was standing in front of the class, all worked up, I started the speech with this phrase : "First thing's first I had no summer vacation.."
During that speech I got a bit carried away with what I did this summer and at the end I talked about my goals.

After that I realized that it's been 2 years since I spent Christmas with my family. I haven't taken a real vacation. I always worked to "widen my opportunity window". I recently achieved my biggest goal for this year which is being completely independent from my parents.
Now that that's done, I am taking my Christmas vacation this year and seeing my family and friends.

(too bad I am not going to be able to see a person I was really counting on seeing and someone who was real support in rough times, but I'll manage to make it up, that's another goal!)

Not too long ago, I was coming back home from work and there was a bunch of teenagers (probably 3 years younger) in front of the entry to my building.
One of them was sitting on the stoop, so excused myself politely to go in, he pardoned himself and moved out of the way.

That time I was coming back home from my internship, meaning I was wearing a suit, which probably drove him to ask me this question.
The teen asked me "I am sorry to bother you but what do you do in life? You don't have to answer but I'd say your a lawyer, but yet you look so young."
I chuckled and told him : "No no, I am just a computer science student and I'm doing an internship".
I sensed in two seconds two really opposite emotions on that person's face, one was a smile because he totally wouldn't of guessed I was still a student and the other was disappointment and sadness. This made me curious so I asked him : "what are you thinking of doing?"
He replied with an even sadder tone : "I wanted to be an engineer but it's to late for me."
I was completely chocked, hearing something like "it's to late for me " from an 11th grade kid!
I refused to hear that from him and told him it's never to late, there is his whole future in front of him and now is just the beginning.
And whoever put this into the kid's head whether its the school system or his parents , demotivating is seriously not the way to go.

When I told that kid that Einstein, Bill Gates etc.. were all average students (the same argument I used for years after giving my school report card to dad !) . School isn't always right, if they told you you can't do something , keep trying. If one university rejects you, try another one. Until you get what you want don't quit.
I didn't say a lot of words until i saw a smile back on his face, he said he will do that and keep me updated every time he sees me again coming home.

A hint of hope can sometimes turn around a whole life. People might say it's not good to give false hope, but there's no such thing as false hope; everyone can change.

I recently heard news of a close friend of mine starting her own small business. She's in her second year of university doing marketing and most surprisingly she's in Lebanon.

I tried once to get something of my own done in Lebanon but gave up as soon as the team I was trying to assemble discouraged me and told me that it wouldn't work in Lebanon. They were probably right; I had chosen the wrong time and I wasn't persuasive enough.
I am sure this friend of mine probably received the same type of discouragement at the beginning, and heard a lot of phrases like : "it would never work", "you're to young" , "focus on university, it's not the time for these kind of things", but it didn't affect her, she still went for it.
Even if her plan didn't work out the way she intended she thought it would still be a great experience and guess what? It turned out better then everyone ever thought it would and it's just the beginning.

She was convinced this would work and it's a trend everyone would be into.
Her idea revolves around designing unique personalized scarfs. This might sound simple, but believe me keeping it up while studying in university at the same time is a real hard task.

She might not have it in mind to keep this as a full time job after university, but she is making this happen to save enough money to be able to do something productive later on and permitting herself to be more independent of her parents.

These days, people who think like that come around a lot less often.

If you want to check out her work :
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=27294274546

Now there's someone who's choosing her future and not just going with the wind.

Not too long ago, I had a really interesting conversation with a former colleague of mine.
In that conversation he made it clear that there were 3 types of people in the corporate world :

Type A : the ones that work their ass off.

Type B : The ones that sit and do nothing and are happy about it. The type of people that get into their position by kissing ass, pretending to be someone they're not, or by having connections and getting where they want without really deserving it.

Type C : The ones that destroy other people's work. The type of people that have a degree in criticizing everyone else's work without bringing any of their own ideas to the table.

As a student you can already see in these 3 types of people in class; they are already being formed. You can tell this, not by looking at the grades or at their previous school achievements, but by their behavior: the way they talk, the way they consider people around them etc.

A small example I encountered of Type B : " This summer was great , I didn't do anything during my internship, I slept all the time."

I'm not going to cite any examples of Type C, but i think they're a lot more frequent then Type B's.

Changing to an different type is always possible.

Why Type A is the best :
Working all the time doesn't bother him or her. They love working and love being productive; work is an important priority.
At the end of the day, he or she likes to feel like something was accomplished, even though he or she might feel tired. There's this amazing feeling of accomplishment that surrounds that person.
All that feeling of accomplishment urges him or her to spread it, and at the same time brings on more challenges.
This amazing feeling of accomplishment is the adrenaline rush he or she will want to have systematically.
As a result great things are achieved.

Type A rocks!

Today was my last day at naseba, Monday I start classes again.

I kept on working until the last minute and after that we all had a drink to say goodbye.
I came to the company with goals to achieve:
Earn everyone's respect and not be treated as an trainee but like an employee. Done.
Make the most out of the experience. Done.
Prove to everyone that I was able to handle the hard work. Done.
Take up challenges. Done.
Climb higher on my mountain. Done.

I came to the company with 0 experience in web applications, 0 experience on the Microsoft developing platform.
I remember when I first got the chance to be interviewed. I started learning/researching by myself so I wouldn't feel like a fool during the interview.
The first day I started, I got simple tasks compared to what I can do now, but at that time I didn't know how to do them. I set every day goals
to learn more and ask for more work.
I became an 18/24H learning machine. I would come home from work and instead of resting I was researching. I didn't rest until I felt I was at ease with what I was doing.
My task was to develop one project and I had until mid October, which meant just more than 3 months. The project finished in a month and a half.
In the four months, I assisted on 3 projects and developed 2 big projects when I was only supposed to develop one.
I don't remember at any point telling myself " it's ok you're ahead of time, you can rest now". I always wanted to go even faster.
And I admit there's still a lot more to learn.

I wouldn't say these 4 months were a turning point in my life because I already knew what I wanted before I started at naseba, but I'd say it was surely a life changing experience and for that I thank my colleagues and naseba.

Although, me starting classes again might slow my climbing, I already managed to get something to do after my studying hours, which will allow me to get more experience and still climb at almost the same pace. (more information might be available later on)

People ask me:" So what are you going to do to celebrate the fact that your internship is over?", I reply: " like what I do every weekend, go out, see my friends, clean my studio and reflect on what I want to do next".

Thank you naseba for the great experience you have brought me.

While reflecting on what I posted last night, I noticed the last post wasn't good and I didn't really believe in it.
I am changing the "Never say no to dirty work" to "Stand up for yourself when you know it's your time to shine."

I am sorry this post is really direct and doesn't contain any details, I am sure some of the people I know will understand what this is about some will not.
There are things you need to do in order to keep on going, even if you feel its not right for you to do it, don't give up.
Never say no to "dirty work"..It's all part of the climb..

"I wish I had your motivation", I hear this a lot.
It's weird because most of these people like what I do and look up at it as something really good and I am sure they want it but don't understand why they can't get it!
Isn't it obvious?..you don't just have motivation .. you choose whether or not to be motivated.
Setting some goals and not just talking about it, taking small steps to enable bigger ones..
Getting that motivation is an everyday task, keeping it up is on a longer task time line but still...you always control it.

I am going to put it this way : Everyone is the own boss of his or her own motivation.

This week was a busy week at work. Like always! After all, it's not interesting to work somewhere where you spend your time at the coffee machine chatting all day!

Many times, when handling a project, you might face decisions that look a bit like this : " Do I just do the thing I am asked to? " or " Do I do what I have in mind, which is what I've been asked to do plus the extra work which would be accomplishing it the perfect way?" .
A lot of people might go for the first choice, the easy one, " do what you're asked and that's it."

I am the kind of person that likes to hear from a boss : " Great job! " Making my work unique, showing my motivation and dedication at all times is what I aim for on a daily basis.

I finished recently a really interesting project which will be launched in a couple of days, a project where I had to sacrifice hours of sleep to turn my project from "Just alright.." into "Great!".

I admit in order for the project to be "great" you always need people who will dedicate themselves along side you. 
For that I thank my co-workers for being those people.