now I can say it with confidence: I am physically and mentally unable to maintain a regular 9-5 job cycle.
This is killing me.. being trapped in between the same walls for 50 weeks a year, doing the same repetitive tasks, getting to listen to the same gossip, and having the same morning conversations over the same cop of coffee.. this is not right..!!!!!!!!

This is my second year in this company.. nice, confortable.. flexible.. but very cut/paste type of place.. the best place to bury your creativity.

so, now that I have been working in research in Arts and Science with the topological media lab, and now that I am seeing how interesting and challenging this fields is.. I have to make some decisions in regards to my future.

Option A: stay as a corporate employee, and someday change my current 9-5 job to another 9-5 job, keep listening to the same gossip, only about different people.. get some income increase, buy a car, move to a bigger apartment, start worrying about taxes and property prices, start considering buying a bigger TV (cos life outside your home doesn't mean much anymore), move into the suburbs, get a dog, lose all the interesting things I have in my life.. and eventually, join the hundreds who think that Jerry Sienfield is funny, and start using quotes from the latest episodes in my daily conversations.. etc...

Option B: stay where I am for another year, then, quit or try to switch to part-time, apply for a PhD and work in academia (i.e make the work I am doing in the lab actually count for something), start worrying about research funds, government grants, conferences and papers.. commit to monitoring the latest experimentations and installations and try to build collaborations with other researchers and labs, suffer from a significant income decrease in exchange to more freedom, more travelling (my absolute joy), and better minded people to deal with everyday.. and of course, stick to my current position that deems Cable TV as the worst enemy of society, Jerry sinefield show (and its likes) as a brain-cells degrading parasite, and cars with more buttons on the dash board to be a corporate trap to drag consumers into spending all their money onto pieces of plastic, metal, and some lubricants and wires in between them.. after all, bicycles are better for the environment..

I am currently living in a semi- alternative lifestyle now.. I don't have a TV (I do have the TV, but not the cable), don't have a car, I choose my apartments based on how close they are to cinemas, theatres and bars, I consider my studies in Concordia to be a hobby, and working in the TML to be my daily dose of entertainment/cultural and mental maintainance... listn to good music and always try to see what other cultures do and produce, and selectively adapt to some of these products (mainly music)... read every book I could get my hands onto, and most of all.. refuse to adapt to any social pattern just because it is acceptable by everyone else.. and eventually deemed as proper, or normal.

These thoughts have been haunting me for a while.. ad i think that this is going to be the main topic for this year's summer break.. think, read, research, and make decisions..
who knows.. I might end up packing and going back to Damascus for a while.. after all.. this is becoming a cultural challenge for me.. just like everything else....