I went to Clinton's speech. It was really good. Definitely worth all the trouble I went through that day... First of all we had to wake up at 4:50 in the morning which I hadn't done in a REALLY long time. We went to a coffee shop near by to have breakfast and at 6:30 we were there at where the speech had to take place at 9:00.

The weather was brutally cold and you can imagine how we felt after standing there for 3 hours. We had a really good time though.

Clinton said some really good stuff. The webcast of the ceremony can be found here.

One thing I remember is that he said that he believes that the government should cooperate with other nations and act alone wherever it is forced to do so and that is while OTHERS believe that they should act alone unless they are forced to cooperate. Well, you can guess that in highly democratic Ithaca how people were excited by this sentence.
He also said that had we lived in a world that none could fight or occupy or... Then all the money that goes into defending the country, should go to education in other countries so that we create more friends rather than terrorists.
I really liked him. He is sort of a charismatic person.

President Lehman (President of Cornell) has really done a spectacular job by bringing president Clinton here. It is his first year here as the president and we have already seen some truly remarkable signs of having him here. He is the first Cornellian ever to lead this university. He was the dean of law school in Michigan. He has some great connections apparently.
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I feel so nostalgic all of a sudden. Miss home...
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I was just informed that there was an earthquake in Iran, this time not far from home! This is so frightening.
I talked with my dad and he assured me that everything is fine.
I am still worried though.
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So I changed the form of the blog. Hope you like it :)
I have also put a section for "Persian music of the day" in the sidebar. I will try to update it often. The problem is that I can upload only 5MB each time and most of the audio files that I have are bigger than 5MB.

Cornell looks so great these days. Weather is so gorgeous too. Lots of speakers are graduating and everybody is excited.

Everybody is smiling, which is nice to see. Lots of family members are here and you see boys and girls, well dressed up, going to parties everywhere :)

Oh, by the way, Bill Clinton is coming here. He will be giving this year's convocation speech on Saturday. Will definitely go! We have to be there at 6:00 to get the tickets. There will be a large crowd I am sure.

I have to go to work now! Will be back!
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I was watching we are the future, you are the answer concert on MTV2. It was held on May 16th on the streets of Rome, Italy. "We" referring to the children and "you" referring to us: citizens of the world.

There were lots of famous singers, like Santana, Norah Jones, Josh Groban and lots that I didn't know but were absolutely fantastic.

The concert was for the children of the world. It was pro peace and anti war.

Santana said: We are the other side of America, we are not Bush!... We will start peace here, with myself!

I wish people would be in peace with each other. It is a small world and it should be possible to maintain peace. Yet throughout the history people have been killing each other for various reasons: greed, land, women, power, and oil.

There are so many "good" people in the world though. There are so many people to whom there are no borders or bad or evil. Why cannot we all be like that? Why is it that we think a race is better than the other, a culture is better than the other, a god is better than the other, and...

I always thought that individuals can be free to be what they want to be and do what they want to do as long as they anticipate the same right for the other people in the society. Now if this was the case, and if everyone thought so, do you think we'd still have war, famine and hunger in this world? I don't know. It is a hard question. But I am sure that even if these miseries were not eliminated from the face of the Earth, they would be reduced at least.

I took a course in Public health when I was getting my MS in Johns Hopkins. Our professor, Les Roberts, is one of the most renowned people in his field. He told us about the things he'd seen in Rwanda. He told us that he does not recommend anyone younger than 40 years of age travel to countries suffering from such crisis. He said that seeing such scenes as he saw would change your view of life and of humanity.

Why?

Les Roberts came to Cornell a year ago for a speech. I went to talk to him. He said that he was going to Afganistan. They wanted to measure mortality rate within a 12 months period since the nutrition of the Afghanies was so poor. He said that they do not get any protein.

Can we learn to live together?

"Peace is possible around the world, and children are the obvious answer—after all, it is their future."
—Quincy Jones
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This is another Iranian Song, which is very old again.
Enjoy:
Listen here!
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Well, I am done with my exams after all. Just have to finish the paper I am writing by tomorrow. I slept 9 hours last night and had breakfast at noon: bagel with cream cheese and freshly squeezed orange juice, quite luxurious!

I got the Bridget Jonse's diary from Best Buy and watched it last night. The DVD player could not read the last track though! How annoying! I have to go and exchange it. When you buy a DVD, a new one, you would expect it to be of good quality. The computer DVD player wouldn't even open it. I am very curious now to see what will happen.

I saw minority report too, for the second time. I really like the movie. The idea is very unique I think.

For some reason I remembered my 24th birthday today. I went to Cyprus to apply for the American student visa (we don't have US embassy in Iran and have to go out of Iran to apply for Visa)

So I arrived in Cyprus a few days before my birthday. I got the visa and I had to stay for a few days before I could leave for Tehran again. That was my saddest birthday ever. That night, I was so upset that the hotel manager took me to some patissier and I bought myself a piece of cake and a musical candle.

I took them to the coast (Mediterranean) and sat there for a while. The moon and the stars were out. Listening to music, Sarah Brightman, I thought of everything. Of my life till then, of my parents, of my friends, of what was going to happen to me, that I didn't know anyone in the US and that I was leaving everything I had behind me, leaving for an unknown future. I cried for a long time. Not because I was upset that I was leaving, but because of the surge of emotions. Then I lit up the candle and it started playing the "happy birthday to you" song. The wind was blowing, so it was hard for me to protect the flame.

I know that I made a wish, sadly though I cannot remember what it was.

I blew off the candle and gave half of my cake to the couple sitting on the sand few yards away. I didn't know them, but it was beyond my tolerance to have a birthday all by myself. I had to share it with someone...


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I just found out that even Noam Chomsky has a weblog. I skimmed through and seamed very interesting. I have put his link in the side bar in case you want to visit!

By the way, Pantea just lunched her English weblog: Manifestation
I think the name sounds very blogestous!!! We shall see what she will write about.

You should also visit the weblogs of my other friends Jill and Ishani
I have an exam in 1 hour. I have been doing everything possible to avoid studying.Same is true with the Moon Goddess who just started to read the Odyssey now!

How good of students we are!
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I saw Troy. It was OK but I didn't think that it was a great movie. Certainly not so good that I buy it. I am upset with all these directors in Hollywood! I liked the story of the Iliad (from which Troy is taken)and the Odyssey very much ever since I was 10-11. I remember that in my 5th grade of elemenry school, I received a book for my birthday present. The book was called "History of the world for little children". This roughly 500-page book had very nice illustrations and was one of the most amazing books I ever read in my life. It certainly was my inspiration to go and learn more about history ever after in my life.

So it is how I learned about Homer the great Greek poet that lived (?)800 B.C. It is not known whether the Trojan war really took place or not but the greatness of this war all comes from the great work of Homer. Now obviously I have not read the Greek version of the book. I have only read story versions of it (the original form is a poem).

Who is Homer? No one knows. Even the ancient Greeks were not able to agree about when and where Homer lived. One popular account was that he was born some time in the 8th century BC in Smyrna in Asia Minor, lived on the island of Chios, and died on the small island of Ios. Greek writers also claimed that he was blind, that his real name was Melesigines, and that his father was the river Meles and his mother a nymph named Kretheis.

Though they could not agree about the details of his life, ancient Greeks did not doubt that there was a poet named Homer who had written the Iliad, the Odyssey, and possibly a number of other poems. Many modern scholars dispute even this. Scholars in the last two hundred years have established that the Iliad and Odyssey are products of a long oral tradition which became fixed sometime in the eighth century BC. How exactly the poems took their final shape (Was it the work of one person or several? Did the process involve writing?) is still a matter of speculation.

The story is like this:

The young prince of Troy visits Menaleus, the King of Sparta, and falls in love with his wife Helena who is supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. They run away together to Troy. (you can check it out on the map below!!!)



It takes two years for Menaleus to go to Troy and ask for his wife back. He gathers an army of 10000 ships and 100000 soldiers. Many of the kings of Greece helped him including Agamemnon his brother who was "the king of the kings" and had conquered a number of the Greek states to make one big country.

They go to Troy. Troy was prepared for the war as they anticipated it happen. Agamemnon surrounds the city for 9 years. But Troy had very high walls arround it and enough food so they could survive for a long time. Meanwhile Achilles, the greatest warrior of all times, was asked to join the Greek in the war on Troy. He refuses because of some dispute over a slave girl that Agamemnon took from him in the war. However, his best friend gets killed in the war by Hector the elder prince of Troy who was a very wise and powerful warrior. Achilles kills hector in the battel for revenge and drags his body along the walls of Troy.

To pass through the walls of Troy the Greek make a big horse (I think it was Achilles' idea, I am not sure though) and 100 of the best greek warriors hide in the horse. The rest of the army evacuate the city surroundings and hide somewhere close. The Trojans think that he enemy has fled and take the horse inside as the treasure of the was and for their God Apolo. At night the Greek soldiers come out and open the gates. In the morning all the Trojans were killed and the whole city was ruined. Achilles died of a poisonous arrow in his anlke and Helena returned to her husband.

Now the way Holliwood has made this great epic story happen, is to mix love affairs with the story every 10 minutes!!! The love affairs do not fit in the context of the story. Achilles is depicted like a terrorist who is just thinking of killing people. The was seems to take place only in 13 days as oppose to the nine years in reality. And in the end, Menaleus (the husband) gets killed and Helena is free to go with his lover, prince Paris.

I think it was an OK movie but I don't like to see an epic story of my country being filmed this way!!!
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I have put the pictures od Shirin Ebadi's talk in Syracuse University in my photo blog. Please feel free to visit!
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You can see the text of ebadi's talk here!
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Here is an Iranian song. It is a very old one. I hope you like it.
Marjan: Bi To- High Quality Stream

By the way, I went to Madame Ebadi's talk yesterday. She is this year's Nobel peace prize winner. Her speech was excellent. She was talking on the relationship of Islam, democracy and human rights. Basically all she said was that you cannot judge an ideology based on the act of its so-called followers. She said that although Israel does not comply with many of the UN resolutions or although many of the Bosnians were killed in their war, nobody will ever consider Christianity or Judaism cruel and in contrast with human rights.

I am not a religious person. However, I enjoyed her talk very much. There was 20%-30% of what she said that I didn't agree with but I respect that she is more religious than I am and that is how she thinks. I should mention though that if instead of all these conservative mullas we had a handful of Muslims like her in our country we would not have all these problems with the religious state. Oh, by the way she said that there could not be such thing as religious state and that the government is really a state religion in our country. I think she is very brave. She can go to jail for what she said.

One of the audience asked her about her views on the was in Iraq. She said that "Don't Americans know that you cannot give people their rights in the form of the falling bombs?"She said that after WW2 that the first statement of human rights was being written, Mrs. Roosevelt was one of the people who really cared to make it a universal code. She said that Mrs. Roosevelt's endless efforts combined the name of the US with human rights throughout the globe. She said that Mrs. Roosevelt would be very sorry to see what the world is going through, had she been alive today. She said that she was wondering what has happened since then that the countries in the world have this negative view of the US now. She said that the US should apologize to the spirit of Mrs. Roosevelt.
...Here the audience started to applaud.

Well, I should get going now. I am really sleepy!

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Well, since I was terribly bored with my 10 hours of coding today, I decided to do something dramatic for a change and that's how I started my photoblog!!!!

One might think I am crazy to start a Perisian Weblog, an English one and a photo blog all within a week. I think so too! It is either that I am too relaxed or too stressed out! Should think about it! I have tons of things to do for tomorrow. Will be back very soon.
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1. Just had a very nice dinner. Want to go to a concert tonight. The singer will sing Russian, Hebrew and Persian Songs. It's a long time since I went to a concert. I feel sad when I think about it. I used to go to concerts all the time. I do not anymore. Am I becoming a boring adult now? It's been on my mind lately.
Should think about it. Living one's everyday life shouldn't be a habbit. Should think of ways to make my days different. This concert tonight is a very fine start. Plus this weblog is also something very exciting in my life now!!!
2. Yesterday was the slope day. It is quite a blogestous event! It is the last day of classes. All students get together to celebrate this day by getting drunk! I think this is a very "Cornell" thing. Ithaca isn't a flat town at all. In fact we have lots of hills. A very steep one of those lies right by the main clock tower and that is where everything happened. The undergrads start to get drunk at about 10:00 am. The event starts at 1:30 pm and will last till night and of course there are tons of after parties!!! I took a lot of pictures but haven't got them developed yet. Will put them here ASAP. Cornell sells beer, wine and food to people for very cheap prices ($1-$2). To make it more amusing for the students, they even invite two-three bands every year. Last year it was Rock music and this year Rap. The band was supposed to be very famous. I didn't know them though.
3. The moon Goddess and I did our presentation today. The professor really liked it. She said "Nice job! You girls should be proud of yourselves!" You should've seen us with our widely open eyes. The thing is that we didn't think that she really liked us. She favors boys in the class and sometimes ignores our comments and stuff. I definitely like her more now! (How shallow I am!). This course is sort of related to what I am doing my research on. I was thinking today and all of a sudden something clicked in my mind! I am so happy: Got a new idea for my research. Should start doing it tomorrow see if it works or not.
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I didn't go to school today. Thought it might be a better idea to sit down and try to get some work done here at home since I have no classes. I have to write this proposal of mine for the A exam. It is SOOO hard to write down things that you have done yourself!!!
I came up with a good format and layout, I wrote the solution procedure, haven't done any literature review yet!!!

This is funny, I just noticed something... I tend to write about my "everyday life" in the English blog and about social, cultural stuff on the Persian blog. Might be because everyday life is associated with English for me, but I really "think" in Persian?!?!?!

I don't know. There could be a philosophical point here!
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I am so excited now because I just started this weblog last night (or maybe one could say early this morning) and I have already received a comment!
I am certainly more motivated now.

Yashoda, Pantea,HiDDi and I were out dining in the Vietnamese restaurant when we invented this new word: Blogestous!!!
Definition: Something or some event is called blogestous when it gets you to think about your blog right away !!!

I have been killing myself today to install something for my website that would enable me have polls, news group, forum, etc. I hope it works. It is getting installed now, but it is a free version so it might not be very good. We shall see.

I have so many things to do and this "blogging" has just captured my soul. I told my advisor that I will write my research proposal by next Tuesday. I have only done 3 small sections so far. Well, I am too excited about all of these blogestous things that happen in my life!!!


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This drawing was done by my little sister about 4 years ago. When I came to the US, she gave me a CD of her up-to-then works.
I miss her so much.

And this is just some new piece of news about Iran from New York Times.
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I am soooo crazy. I have a class tomorrow, I have tons of work to do and yet I am sitting here exploring my website's capabilities!!!
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Three American and three Iranian engineers are traveling by train to
a conference. At the station, the three American each buy tickets and
watch as the three Iranians buy only a single ticket.
"How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?", asked one of
the three American.
"Watch and you will see", answers one of the Iranaians .
They all board the train. The Americans take their respective seats, but
all three Iranians cram into the toilet and close the door behind them.
Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting
tickets. He knocks on the toilet door and says, "Ticket,please". The door
opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a
ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on. The American saw this
and agreed it was quite a clever idea.
So after the conference, the American decide to copy the Iranians on the
return trip and save some money. When they get to the station, they buy a
single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the Iranians
don't buy a ticket at all.
"How are you going to travel without a ticket?", asks one perplexed American.
"Watch and you will see", says one of the Iranians .
When they board the train the three Americans cram into a toilet and the
three Iranians cram into another one nearby. The train departs.
Shortly afterward, one of the Iranians leaves his toilet and walks over to
the toilet where the Ameican are hiding. He knocks on the door and
says,"Ticket, please."


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