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OP's problem was discipline. I don't he doesn't realize that working on OSS would be better, but he said he can't seem to do that.

Frankly it seems like OP is more depressed than anything - alone and isolated in a strange place.

> The kind of projects he'll get to work on will almost always be the usual Odesk "clone XYZ in $X" tripe.

He knows that much and noted it.

What he wants to learn is discipline and getting shit done no matter how much it smells. Having a boss breathing down his neck might work.

> Working on an open source project instead would be much more constructive and would get him engaged with experienced developers who could teach him a thing or two. If he's still a student (and it looks like he is) GSoC might be a great way to get started with this.

No. In an OSS contribution (or most GSoC) if you lose yourself nobody will care much, it's your loss. You're completely missing the point.

I did some projects from both oDesk and HN. They were quite similar. oDesk projects I've chosen were more interesting but quite short and HN jobs were longer but not so great as you would expect from HN.

What's HN in this context?

Hacker news monthly job topics.

How do you go about building a portfolio? Do you do free/cheap work for people, or do you just make things you think people might like or be impressed by?