However, I must admit that in the last few weeks, I have slipped up a little bit. I skipped school a few times (mainly due to fatigue), I didn’t go to the gym, and I consumed carbs more than I should have. The best part though is that I didn’t gain weight, my Italian continued to improve and my stamina is much more better. The reasons for my slipping up were due to procrastinating, Ramadan, messed up scheduel. I lost concentration. As simple as that.

I am leaving for Rome after tomorrow and that’s when the one month challenge starts. If all goes as planned, this month could change my life, and that’s why I am excited. I would like to cut out a lot of things and push myself out of my comfort zone.

Here is what I am going to be doing daily:

Writing daily on RealmadridTalk

Writing daily on my Italian blog and practising Italian with my aunt.
Following my old low-carb lifestyle
Praying five times a day.
Limiting myself only to three hours of Internet, and avoiding Twitter, Email, IM and Facebook as much as possible.

The impact?

Should be huge, and permenant. If I manage to write daily on my professional blog, I am sure I will treble my statistics. It is already the most popular Real Madrid blog on the internet averaging 100 comments per post, but I aspire for more. Also in the following weeks, I should be able to reach the 9% of fat and so I can beging focusing on the second phase, aka muscle building. For that, I am going to use various techniques including reps to muscle failure, 5 seconds up, 5 seconds down…etc, it is a bit early to think about that.

When I said this month could be life-changing, I meant it. If I manage to do all of these and if, most importantly, my travel plans go as meant to, it is gonna be awesome.

But why am I writing this post anyway? Well, I want to use the blog and you, as a source of motivation. That’s the simple reason.

Starting from 1st of October, 2009, until 1st of November, 2009. The next time I will talk to you, will be when I tell you how successful it was.

See ya then!

Aunt’s apartment in Rome.

On 30th June, I arrived in Rome’s Fiumicino airport at 12:24 PM. After waiting for an hour for my luggage, I took the train from the Airport to the Villa Bonelli Station which is just 300m away from where my relatives live, so I stopped by my aunt’s place to say hi and spend the night there.

PERUGIA

DAY1
The next day at 10:30 AM I took the bus to Perugia. I arrived at Perugia’s bus station at 12:30 PM. An Italian lady and her two kids asked me for directions as they were lost. I told them I was new to the city and so couldn’t help. Again, a young Japanese student asked me If I knew how to get to Perugia’s University of Foreigners. I had the address, but didn’t know if it was far or near the station. Anyway, we couldn’t go together because I was waiting for a friend a mine. I bought my favorite pizza and then sat on a bench waiting for my friend to show up. While waiting, I decided to call my landlord to let here know that I arrived. She doesn’t speak English so I spoke to her in crappy Italian, though she understood every word I said, but I only understood half of what she said

After like 30 minutes or so, my friend showed up. We hadn’t met in person before, we were introduced to each other by a common friend. Anyway, off we went to the place I rented. The landlord wasn’t there. Damn it! I called here again and she said she’d be there in 15 minutes. Va bene!

So she finally showed up. I introduced myself to her and she then welcomed me. She showed me the house, my room and how everything works. I like the house, it is very nice and clean. It is also very close to the University (actually it is just behind the University’s building).

My room — I like it

My housemates was not there. She told me they were leaving after two days. I went with my friend to explore some parts of the city and then came home. Oh there they were, three awesome Italian language students! Teddi, Lorenzo, and Jago! They were very friendly and we clicked immediately. They even invited me to a party! The party was a lot of fun. I also got to know some other friends.

DAY 2
The next day I went to the University to complete my registration and get my ID card. I first had to take a test (it was basically like a questionnaire) to determine my linguistics and Italian language skills. It was decided that I should enroll in Level A2.

I spent the rest of the day doing paperwork and shopping. I went to bed at 2:00 AM.

DAY3
Although I went to bed pretty late the night before, I had to wake up at 5:00 AM to say goodbye to my housemates. I’ve only known them for two days but we seemed like old friends. They are really a bunch of awesome people. So we took some photos, they gave me a gift (thanks Teddi, Lorenzo and Jago!) then they took their bags and left. I wished they could have stayed longer. I’ll miss you guys!

First Day At School

University of Perugia for Foreigners.

Day 3 in Perugia was my first day at school. My classmates come from the U.S, England, Poland (two friendly 20-something pastors) Nigeria, Indonesia, China, Korea, India and a few other countries. The teacher is a very patient and nice lady. Because I sat in the front desk (as I always do), I was the first one to introduce himself. I introduced myself in Italian, then after I altered the last sentence everyone started laughing! I was like “Whats up? Did I just tell a joke?”, well it seems that I confused figlio (kid) with fratelo (brother), so instead of saying “I have four brothers”, I said “I have four kids”

After I realized this, I couldn’t help but laugh. My teacher was like “OMG! You are 21 and have four babies” — ” A single dad!” LOL

A swimming pool in Perugia’s Sport Club

Anyway, In the evening, I went to Perugia’s Sport Club to play soccer with a bunch of professors and students. I had a good game. I scored three goals and assisted three. I also felt better (because I’ve lost weight recently) and wasn’t very tired during the match. I then came home, took a shower, and went to bed.

I cooked my first dish

Italian pasta — my first dish — You don’t wanna eat that lol

Cooking is one of the skills I want to master. One reason is because I love and want to travel. Another reason is I’m a firm believer that a wife/partner shouldn’t always have to be the cook. The husband should also be able to cook and even do other household tasks. It is unfair that the wife is always who cooks. Marriage is a partnership. When you marry someone, you don’t hire them to cook, clean and do other stuff. It is about being partners — partners in crime

Anyway, last night I cooked my first dish. I had bought all what I needed from the grocery store earlier and was very excited. Since I’m a huge fan of Italian food, my first dish had to be Italian pasta. I looked up for a recipe online and followed it carefully. Honestly, it didn’t taste that bad. I mean it was pretty good (because of the cheese and the kind of sauce I added) but for a first time cook I think It was good. I also made my favorite salad.

My favorite salad

So now I have been here for four days and, oh well, I love the city. I even think it is more beautiful than Rome. If you don’t believe me, pack your backpack and come here to see for yourself.

Ciao!

I’m a nightmare, a disaster
That’s what they always said
I’m a lost cause, not a hero
But I’ll make it on my own
I’ve gotta prove them wrong
Me against the world
It’s me against the world

Me Against The World – Simple Plan

Many of my friends and relatives think I’m lucky. I don’t really know. I sometimes think I’m lucky and sometimes not. Many think I should be grateful for having open-minded parents, a fantastic job, and a roof above my head and in fact I am grateful for having all of these things. But what most of those people don’t know is that I’ve had to go through a lot to get all of these things.

One of the worst things to go through is being surrounded by people who don’t think and can never imagine you can make it in this world. In other words, they think there is a zero chance that you can make your dreams come true and this is where I’m unlucky.

Unfortunately, for as long as I can remember, I have been told by relatives, friends and strangers that I can’t do this and I can’t do that. I’m not good enough to be this, I lack this skill or the mentality to be successful. This initially effected me as a kid.

As a young kid, I wanted to be special. What I really mean is I wanted to do something extraordinary that adds value to my life and the lives of people around me. As a job I wanted to be a doctor to help people and make them healthy, and because I’ve always done good at school, I had enough credits and qualifications to enroll at medical school and I did. However, during my first year a lot of things happened. I quite soccer (I used to play for a local club), had to work as a satellite technician (for my father), and my grandmother whom I was close to passed away after doctors in Italy couldn’t save her life, and all of this effected me both psychologically and physically.

I had to take re-set exams but managed to go through to second year. However, I decided to go to another school to avoid the bad atmosphere at my previous school and consecuently I had to change profession and studied languages. Not only that, but  I also put on a lot of weight, had to wear glasses (due to setting in front of the PC at work and at home for hundrends of hours) and I changed – I mostly changed for the worst, but what changed for the good was my thinking. In that area, I started growing. As a matter of fact, I have been growing since I was very young. I was always curious and used to ask a lot of questions that my Mum and Dad had to beg me to stop asking questions about things around me. I also started learning very fast and wanted to learn everything.

Despite all of that, everyone around me was negative. Since I can’t define success as it means different things to different people, I can’t call those people successful or unsuccessful, but what was true was that they didn’t have “faith” in people around them and most likely in themselves. That’s true. I think maybe because I was too young to do this or to be that. This exists in every country and society. Young people are not taken seriously and are always brought down by others.

Now you’d be lucky If you haven’t gone through that kind of thing. It has been five years since that turning point and I’ve achieved many things that those people believed I couldn’t achieve. But let me tell you, the journey has been painful and is still very emotionally painful. There were some nights where I’d literally cry after someone had told me I was not good enough or can’t do something. That hurt a lot. There was no source of motivation other than the goal of proving those people wrong. That’s why I love Simple Plan’s song “Me Against The Word” and started this post by a segment of its lyrics.

On the 16th of May, I turned 21 years old. And at this age, I’ve achieved some good things. Not so extraordinary things such as inventing something like Google or discovering a way of curing cancer, but I made some of my dreams come true. I’m financially independent and my job allows me to do what I love doing, and work from anywhere in the world. I’m at my second year at college and I’ve learned tons of things. Many wouldn’t have believed that I could speak various languages let alone earn my living by writing (citizen journalisim) and translating (I do some free-lancing for multi-national companies on the odd occasion). One of my works was even published on Fox Sports.

Those same people are now full of surprise. They can’t believe they were wrong and I was right when I told them any person on this planet, regardless of their gender, nationality, or whatever other aspects can be whatever they want to be in this life. This might sounds a cliche, but it is darn true. Trust me.

Unfortuanetly, the same mentality exists. Those same people can’t imagine their kids, friends or whoever they know can acheive their dreams. Heck, they can’t imagine they’d improve an aspect about their life. What’s wrong with those people? Don’t they realize that there is nothing impossible. As long as you are comitted to your goal, you are gonna achieve it no matter what it is. Of course a lot of factors is involved in achieving a goal, but the most important factor is commitment, and willingness to take action and go further.

I’m surprised that those people are adults. They have brains and minds that function and is full of experiences. And I’m surprised that they think are old enough not to learn. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but hey, NO you can. Many people can prove it. Take this guy for example. He is 63 years old and he is my gym buddy. I couldn’t believe he was 63 because he seemed so active (touch wood) and committed to being healthy. He told me he has managed to keep his ideal weight for over 10 years consistently! Heck, I’m younger and couldn’t do that. You see, age is irrelevant, unless you are a few months old. It doesn’t matter if you are in your teens, twenties, thirties or even eighties, you can achieve your dreams.

So the bottom line is, If you are surrounded by people who put you down, you are not alone, just make sure you are focused on your goals, that you are comitted to them and most importantly that you know you can achieve them.

If you have an additional minute or two please enjoy one of my favorite songs – Me Against The World — I assure you it is going to motivate you

In our school they say: “I expect that you’ll not question me, even If you’ve never seen similar questions or have never taken this material — just fill the darn paper up and you’ll pass”

Although there is still one exam left next Sunday, for me, exams are over. I’ve already studied for next Sunday’s exam and so I won’t have to worry about it.

I think I’ve done better in the midterm exams than I did in the final exams. Mainly because I had more time and was more relaxed during the midterms. The last few weeks though have been very stressful for me. I have been studying, going to the gym, working, and preparing for my move to Perugia.

I hope myself and my class mates will all get good grades and pass the exams. And I hope that some of our teachers won’t be there next semester because they have proved useless and incapable of keeping up a conversation with their students.

Wish us all good luck!

For the last few years, I’ve rarely taken on clients and opted to work on my own online business. However, I’ve recently agreed to work on a website for my University and this has led me to thinking that it might be a good idea to start my own company and only accept clients who have exciting projects and concepts that I like.

I think it wouldn’t hurt, right? Initially, It is going to be a virtual company, meaning there isn’t going to be an office or a HQ. And it is likely to be either registered in Italy or North Africa and I’ll go for the easier route.

There is a huge potential especially in North Africa especially If you have connections. You can land contracts and make profits. Also there is minimal competition, but reputation is what matters.

As far as my skills are concerned, I’m more of an idea guy, but have some good background in user usability, SEO, branding, and blogging platforms. I need to brush up my programming and design skills If I want to provide tremendous value I know.

So I’d need to give this a second thought. And it is most likely that I’ll be running the company part-time, because I already have another job that I love, my online business, school and a SOCIAL LIFE!

If anyone is reading this, I’d love to hear what you think

One of my goals is so to start a conference/meetup series solely dedicated to soccer fans.

Fans like these:

The concept of the soccer meetup is quite basic. There are already many meetups for things like technology, food, history and other interests. I’m not sure if there is one for soccer though. What I want to do is to start one in every city in every country in the world. I’d like to help people in those cities start ones and network with other fans. It is not impossible to achieve this, and I’ll start working on it once I move to Perugia.

There are already hundrends of thousands of people who gather every night at pubs to watch soccer. I want to change the place from a pub to a conference or a camp.

If you are a soccer fan, then you definitely know what EL Clasico “The Clasico” is. It is a soccer game involving Spain’s biggest soccer clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona.

As you may know, I’m a huge Real Madrid fan and I’m looking forward to this game. I’m always nervous when the Clasico is just around the corner. I’m always over the moon when Real beat Barca. And I’m also always down in the dumps when Barca beat Real.

So If you are a soccer fan, head over to RealmadridTalk and check out my preview of the game.

Here is how to get your account back. It is very easy:

You just need to send an email to username@twitter.com with the following details:

1. Your existing Twitter user name.
2. The inactive user name you’d like to acquire.
3. Tell them If you want to change the user name on your existing account, or just add the user name to a new account.

Twitter usually responds in 3-5 business days, and they rarely complicate the process.

Good luck!

Now you might be wondering — why would I dedicated some time from my busy daily schedule to get involved in such a project? Well, one of the reasons is because I owe so much to this great person. I’ve learned a lot from him and he is someone that I look up to. Another reason is because I like the idea of having a community web2.0 site for the students to interact with each other, and I myself need this service. In fact I thought about creating one myself last year and wanted to know the opinion of the head of the department, but never got around to doing it.

Anyway, I’m still developing the site. I’m not building a software from scratch, in fact I’ve used Wordpress as the platform and I’m tweaking different styles. Once you hit the home page you’ll be greeted by a splash page that says : “Uniderna.com – coming soon”.

The actual site won’t be located there, but rather at a sub-domain dedicated to the English department. This way each department would have its own sub-domain and so far the only department that is interested in web2.0 is the English. The French folks are considering having one too, and I’ll be willing to help them for sure.

I have no idea what features to add or exclude, but the main thing is to keep it as simple as possible. The audience is supposedly an educated bunch of 20-something, but the majority are not tech savvy or that is what I know. The bottom line is to make the user experience as great as possible and thus I’ll only be adding basic and important features such as comments, newsletters, rss feed and a forum where they can start discussions.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

….. I know it is football you British people! Whatever it is called, it is what I enjoy doing, and after switching to contact lenses, I have been able to play it again. When I was a little kid, I’d play everyday and sometimes multiple times a day. It is my passion and I love to dribble past other players and smash the ball into the back of the net. It gives me a satisfying feeling!

However, I really need to work on my pace. I just can’t keep up with some guys (they have been playing it regularly for years), but I’m improving everyday.

I was just talking to a friend of mine on IM and he told me how awful Real Madrid’s midfielder, Rafael Van der vaart’s form is. I said he is performing under the par because he hasn’t been part of the starting eleven for a long time and this applies to everyone. Even If you are training everyday, you need to get involved in some serious action in order to improve. Without playing time, you’ll never regain your form.

This is what I have been trying to do – play in 5-a-side games = enjoy soccer = lose weight. The best form of exercise ever!

Ole Ole Ole Ole Oleeeee!