Adam Bader

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!

NO! THIS IS NOT ME!!
I’m seriously considering starting my own company in the web development and social media space. The main reason is, for sometime, I have been approached by individuals, entities, and even friends to help them build their online presence.

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

I have lots of goals and I’m going to accomplish all of them. As a matter of fact I’ve accomplished some, but there are still a lot of goals to achieve.

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.

Real Madrid Vs Barcelona – EL Clasico.

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.

Lets assume that you have been living under a rock and haven’t heard about Twitter. Okay, that isn’t very awful, but if you are a celebrity or if you own a well-known brand, you really must register yourself on Twitter. Chances are that someone has already registered your brand and maybe started impersonating you (which could really hurt your image). If that user hasn’t updated their account in the course of six months, it will be very easy for you to get their account. If they are an active user, however, Twitter might ask you for more information such as legal documents or any another information that proves you are the owner of the brand.

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!

A while ago, the head of the English Department at my University asked me If I was willing to help him start a website for the students of the Department. I right away answered: “Sure, I am in”.

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!

I’m finally done with my mid-term exams. I had the last one today and it was a Literature exam. I’m the first one to admit that I’m not a big fan of Literature but I have to study it. What makes it worse is having a boring, and stubborn instructor. She is a good lady, and she knows what she is talking about, but she doesn’t know how to “teach” others. I’m not the only one complaining, actually the whole class is complaining too.

Anyway, the final exams are around the corner, and then comes the summer! Yeah! I can’t wait!

A while ago, I broke my glasses while playing football (soccer). I was very frustrated. I mean I want to play football, because it makes me happy, and it is an excellent form of exercise — It is something that I enjoy doing.

Anyway, I decided I’d give contact lenses a shot and see If I find them comfortable and effective. Now having been wearing them for a couple of weeks, I can say that I enjoy the freedom they give.

I can play football, I can do whatever activity I want without having to worry about braking my glasses or anything else. However, wearing them is a bit of a problem for me. In the first few days, someone would help me put them on, but then I started trying to wear them by myself, and I can fairly say that I’m getting there. It now takes me 10 minutes to put on both lenses, I’m still a newbie, I know!

Though, I’m seriously considering to have a LAZIK surgery in the summer. I know many people who had it and they can see properly now, but some of my friends tell me that I shouldn’t take any risks and stay with contact lenses/glasses. Guess, I’ll take the risk, as I have always done, and will have a LAZIK surgery when I go back to Italy in the summer. I’ve already done my research on the subject, but still a doctor’s opinion is extremely important.

So now to end this rant, I’m going to show you some photos of Adam without his big geeky glasses.