A friend recently sent me a nice wallpaper saying "Do your work, don't be stupid". I honestly loved it. Motivational phrases like that really have an effect on me. I just bought two posters to hang on my wall one saying "When life presents a challenge, take your shot" and the other one "It is hard to fail, but it is harder not to have tried to succeed " - Theodore Roosevelt.

I think that if you're surrounded by people who are motivated then you can't help but become more motivated yourself, and if you wake up and sleep with motivational posters around you, I'm sure you get even more motivated!

I still lack motivation towards classes, things I don't like, and things I need to start doing again, like sports. Hopefully that will change, not only because I got posters but because if I wrote it on my blog and I don't do it then I'm not a man of my word!

So far, I've preferred not to talk about the economic crisis because up until yesterday I didn't really feel the impact, but just heard and heard over again about it.
Millions of jobs have disappeared and I didn't feel it until it happened to people I know.
People say we're looking at 2 or even 3 years minimum crisis, what's happening now is just the beginning.
Whoever survives this, will be stronger, whoever still stands will be the leader.
People might say that staying optimistic is the key. I'm not optimistic right now. I'm more interested in facing reality. The fact is, that those people who have families, rents to pay, babies to feed, children to support, son's and daughter's tuition fees to pay, are probably facing the biggest challenge of their life.
I know it's easier to say then to do , I'm "talking the talk" but i'm not sure if I'd be able "to walk the walk" but I hope that it gets better rather than worse for everyone that's walking that walk right now .
More talk : This is something you can't control, the best that can be done is to face it and adapt.

Last night I had an interesting conversation with a colleague in class where I mentioned how proud I am of myself because I am still managing to keep my grades up while working.
This friend has great grades too, but told me that he wasn't that proud of himself compared to what I am achieving.
I told him that if he compared himself to 3/4 of the class he might look like a king.
People set goals, and analyze themselves in relation to the goals they set, not by comparing themselves to other people.
And the key to keep on moving is to keep setting goals whenever you surpass the past ones.
Evaluate yourself now ;)

Last Sunday, while I was waiting for my laundry, I read an article from a magazine I randomly picked up.
The article was talking about how the new, young, working generation is proving itself to be a lazy generation. The article discussed several points that could be the cause of this laziness.
Two of the main points explained the fact that the new generation knows only the 35 hour work week and working overtime is not an option for them. It also explained how there is a general lack of motivation! (For those who don't live in France, in a matter of couple of years France's full-time working hours decreased from 40 to 37 and now recently down to 35 hours per week).

I am sure an enterprise prefers hiring someone that has fast learning skills and motivation over someone that has a bad ass degree, zero motivation and just counts on what he or she has learned before. You always have to keep on learning, you have to move up, I don't think being stable is an option anymore.
I'd definitely say motivation is easier to get then a degree!
Why do people seem to forget that?

For the past 2 and a half weeks, I've been traveled to an amazing country I have never been to before, seen my family and met back up with old friends I haven't seen for 2 years.
In short, I had an amazing vacation. Although I wish some things happened differently or I wish I had seen certain people who I didn't get see, but I have nothing to complain about!

During this vacation, I won't deny it, my mind was on work and I even spent some mornings working. But I took the fact that I was on vacation to the max and what made me really enjoy it is the fact that I felt I deserved it. For those of you who don't know me in a close way, in the summer time I did a 4 months internship which lead to me not taking a vacation for around a year and a half.

I hear a lot of people saying: "Damn this vacation was too short, I wish i could stay more etc..", people asked me : "Aren't you sad you're going back?". I am actually saying this with a smirk on my face: "My vacation was great, I will miss you all, I have no regrets about going back..It's back to serious now.."

Last year, I remember myself playing during class breaks. After university I'd go back home and just rest, study a bit, play and go out; somewhat living the student life.
I always envied those who had to go to work at night, come to class tired in the morning, but still come back.

This year I am experiencing somehow the same thing. I have around 32/34 hours of classes per week.
When I come back home I know there's no rest, no playing around there's just working.
I've still not come to the point where i go to classes really tired, hope that never happens, somehow it is not just a physical problem, as long as you're sleeping the amount of hours you need to sleep and eating well, you're going to be fine. It's more of a psychological problem. Seeing your friends doing what they want when they want, living the student life and the fact that you are not can affect you, specially if you have friends that rub it in your face. So far that doesn't affect me at all because my sense of accomplishment is far greater and far more satisfying.

Don't get me wrong, I am not giving up my life!..I still go out on weekends, still see my friends and I am still going to Rome, Beirut and Kuwait during this vacation.

During my 4 month internship at naseba, I felt like part of a team, a productive and dynamic team. We exchanged tasks, had meetings, conference calls, had to meet deadlines and we made things happen.

All of this may sound like nothing to a normal working employee, but for me it is awesome, as I am still a student and going to university everyday doesn't sound intriguing and interesting unless there's a project to do, limits to break, challenges to face, and obstacles to get over.

Being back part of the team made me take a deep breath and tell myself: "You have a long and hard ride in front of you. Being a student and working at the same time is not an easy task. There is no time for complaints; just work and get the most out of it while it lasts. "

I recently knew a couple that broke up and i was friends with both of them. So one friend asked me for help and advice, all I thought of was helping her take back control. What I wanted to do is make that person stronger and more independent to be ready to get back at the other person, basically by playing games.

However, this friend didn't listen to my advice although i was pretty convinced that my way would work. She dealt with the problem by being sad and in pain and eventually she worked up the courage to go out and get what she wanted without any games. She threw everything she had on the table by being honest. In the end it all worked out and they got back together.

You probably guessed what I want to say, sometimes you have it in your head to play games to get what you want. With games you can act wisely and think about every angle thereby protecting yourself. However, sometimes it's simpler to throw everything you have on the table and be completely honest and open. 

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.