Last hours of 2004

May this be my path for the new year:

To have the endurance to accept what I can not change
To have the strength and assertiveness to change what I can change
And to have the vision to distinguish these two

To learn to dream
To overcome my fears of defeat
And to be faithful to my dreams

May I be my best friend.

Happy New Year.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Blogs take on the mainstream

BBC NEWS | Technology | Blogs take on the mainstream

A creature called democracy in Iran

What has always been amazing to me is the non-coherent structure of the government in Iran. We are Islamic Republic of Iran. How can you get your legitimacy both from votes of people and from God? Who is there to verify if your understanding from word of God is right or wrong? The sad thing is that after 26 years it is obvious that the one who always looses is the republic side. They have created these different filters so called different boards who basically verify if the candidates are qualified before allowing them to take part in any election. The result is that people are always choosing among worse and worst. None of those who are people's real choices are ever qualified. This is *if* people get to vote at all...I mean take drinking alcohol for example. It is forbidden by religion. You can not find any bars or wine stores in Iran. People drink but it is illegal and has punishments if they get you. In this case, if all people vote pro drinking does not make any difference. Nobody actually asks people's opinion to begin with. Same is true with women's Hejab in public (i.e. all parts of body except face and feet and hands should be covered) I can go on with examples...

Now here is the contradictory side. They need to pretend that it is a democratic country. Some of them might actually believe that it partly is...but the fact is that they need to make it look like a democratic country. Why? Because of some international pressure. My personal opinion is that they mainly need the EU to be relatively satisfied. Because of all the bans from the United States, EU is actually the one main reason they have survived after the war with Iraq ended and they gradually lost their legitimacy inside Iran and among the new generation who never saw the war but had to deal with all the limitations and poverty. If EU countries want to deal with Iran they have to be able to tell their people that there is election happening in Iran...that this government is their choice...it is a big lie but it works...The funniest yet the most impudent thing that they are doing now is to suggest the guy named Rafsanjani to run for presidency election in 2005 again. He was the main reason that the war with Iraq continued after its second year. He was president for 8 years and his terms were one of the darkest times in terms of censorship, torture and execution and above all he and his family are the wealthiest people in Iran cause they are controlling everything from oil to biscuits in Iran....after his presidency finished he ran for the parliament but he didn't get enough votes in the first run... as you can guess miraculously he got enough votes in the second run to barely make it in...But he dropped at the last minute...with all this he still wants to run for presidency...he has every underground power one can have...but to be a president he needs to pretend that he is elected...

What I did last year...

In the spirit of new year's resolution I tried to pick a new template and adjust it...after 1 hour I still don't like it. The problem is that I don't like any of the available templates in blogger. That's why I keep changing it...well; I guess I shall give up for the moment.
My last year's resolution was to take a better care of myself. I think I was successful to a reasonable degree:
- I learnt to take myself shopping( I simply used to forget that I need to buy clothes and consequently never had any proper thing to wear. I mean women always complain that they have nothing to wear but I truly had nothing to wear!).
- I moved to a new house and lived by myself for the first time in my life and managed to throw two good parties and had friends over couple of times. conclusion: my social skills are better than I evaluated.
- I learnt water skiing.
(This is very important) I learnt what I want to do as my profession. I want to have a job in development. I think this is the most important question that I answered this year. It is crucial to have a goal. To have a picture of why you are doing what you are doing...
- I started the year with braking up with my boyfriend. I think it was a very correct decision. I did it because I was not happy and now I know that couldn't be happy.
- I learnt that I have depression and I religiously went to counseling sessions...I still go and I tried to get any help I could...I am lucky to have understanding people around me...for this matter I want to thank David specifically for all the help he gave me.
- Almost last but certainly not the least...I got Juge. What a correct thing to do...it is great to open the door and see him waiting for me.
- Oh! and I learnt to loosen up and let myself like someone....and learnt what has been missing in the past relationships...
- hmm,...and I lost 8lbs:)
There are two main problems that have been created last year and I think they are mainly because of my special conditions:
- I almost remember nothing from the courses that I passed last year.
- I have created this high balance on my credit cards that I have to set a plan to pay. Hate having debts ...
Have to go and get something to eat. Will think of what I want to do for the coming year and make another post.

OK! I finally ordered the adaptor for my laptop. It suddenly died on Friday and since the CD player part of the stereo has already been dead since my last party I have been forced to live on radio for entertainment. Not an easy job. The good thing is that I am on full warranty until June 06 so didn't have to pay for the device. Hopefully I will be graduating by then and have found a descent job and can afford buying a sexy new laptop.

I read the whole story about Khosro and Shirin last night...or better say a short version of it. It is a poetic love story written about 8 centuries ago. Beautiful love story. If you have a friend named Shirin and want to know what her name stands for in Persian literature let me know. I can tell you the short version.

Cool Dude of the Day: Joseph

I found this funny. I think she has a point!

Do you want an effective way to procrastinate? hit the “Next blog” button up(at right-up) there!

The last post of this blog

I am sitting at Yasmin's studio among artists with my laptop and glasses trying to look like a hardcore engineer. Our Lebanese friend whose name I am not saying here (:P) inspected all sketches and claimed that if he would have said to his dad that he should pay for him to draw cartoons(referring to student's sketches of people in drawings) he would have said :kiss my a...! Personally I think living life out of drawing curves on big sheets (that's what Yasmin has been doing for the past 2 hours_ two parallel long lines from one side of the sheet all the way to the other side) is a very risky path. It seems that drawing human being cartoons is offered in advance level courses. Yasmin and I decided to make it a habit for long nights of work. It keeps us motivated and up.

Anyway, I have decided to close both my blogs. Some people who know me in the real life read these blogs and I found myself self-censoring all the time. I will open other blogs but anonymously. That way I can be myself.


P.S. Anaonymous friend: They take what I say word by word. I was taking a wild guess concerning what my Dad would have commented. But bottom line, you can make alot of $$$$ if you start with the right capital, and ofcourse hire people to do your job, cause puting so much time drawing parallel lines will take you no where!!!

Please help save a life

Leila is a 19 year old girl who has been abused almost all her life. She is now sentenced to death after receiving several lash penalties first one when she was only 9. Iranian bloggers and blog readers are trying to gather enough signature for this petition to save her life. You can read her story here. Please take time to read it and if you felt appalled please sign this petition. We have done the same before and I am sure you will make a difference.

Thanks