Mind Soup

During their second anniversary ceremony, Lebanese Memes honored some Lebanese people who they believe are contributing positively towards a change in Lebanon. The honor list also included: Late Actress Amalia Abi Saleh, Comedian Nemr Abou Nassar, Movie Director Sam Andraos, Crepaway's Mario Thoumy, Virgin Radio's Naji Cherabieh, Women in Front's Joelle Rezkallah and For Lebanon's Najy Sfeir. I would like to thank Lebanese Memes for this great honor and to everyone who has supported me and my work for Online Collaborative , The Social Media Awards and Cloud 961 .

Recently, everywhere I go, I've been referred to as a trouble-maker or even introduced as a mischievous person. While there's no shame of having this label, it is constantly starting to stick as a negative reputation because of gossip and word twisting (what the Lebanese call "adding salt and pepper to the story". So why do I have this reputation, you ask? It all started with an article I wrote criticizing admissions at a highly-reputable institution and from there on, people have atributed my constructive criticism to anything I wrote or even spoke about as an initiative to cause trouble or ruin reputation. This middle-eastern culture doesn't account for constructive criticism or personal opinion. We are in a culture where if you criticize something, then you are its enemy. Perhaps this is how politics works, but that isn't how I work. Think about it, when I invest effort and time in writing about some negative aspect of most topics, does it mean that ...

What better way to end a great year than to sit down and think about the great memories and opportunities it has brought you. Overall this year was a very good year, perhaps one of the best years I've lived so far. This year has been full of achievements and memories that I would like to share with my readers as a tribute to my readers. January: Though I did not know it then, this month has probably set the ground-stone for my career life. In this month I took one of the major decisions that I will ever make. During a period where all my friends were filling in medical school applications, begging for recommendations and stressing over their grades, I decided, and after three years of premedical studies, that I will not be applying to any medical school and forgo the idea of med-school. This decision has came after a lot of considerations and consultations with family and close friends. It was not an issue of grades nor the issue of time, but I had a more clear vision where I wa...