Today it was 25 December, the Christmas day ... it was the first time I saw Christmas in a Christian country ... we had been invited from the university to a church - United Reformed Church - in Kingston where I am studying ... I went there with one of my friends ... unfortunately we didn't take part in the religious ceremony, but we went for lunch and had a very good time ... and this is the photo I took in the entrance of the church ...

Václav Havel ...

Peace be upon him ... he will always be remembered and admired ... he left, but what he did towards human rights and world peace besides his success in writing plays - one of the most beautiful literary genres - will remain forever ...

Is it true to say what a bad world we're living in ? Or would it be better if we said what bad people are living in or running the world? ...
I woke up at midnight thinking about the bad news I hear everyday: the suicide bombers who everyday kill or hurt lots of innocent men, women and children in a bazar or any other crowded neighborhood in Afganistan, Iraq, Pakistan; a father who forces her 30 year old daughter to marry a man of 60 who hurts the girl badly everyday and the consequence of this marriage which has been the girl's killing the man and then becoming hanged for this reason ... and lots of other news ...
No, the world is not bad; beautiful happenings are also around us everyday, but it's reaaly difficult to enjoy this beauty while the bad happenings exist; at least I can't enjoy easily ...
The world is not bad, but unfortunately it has bad people in it who don't let the world do what it really wants to ... its duty: making peace and beauty everywhere ...

Congratulations to him on winning the Noble Peace Prize!
He reallyyyyyy deserved it!
Looking forward to seeing peace & comfort in every country, every house & every soul !!!

The main reason I decided to teach English and chose it as a permanent job was my great interest in languages, especially English ...
At first I had no idea how difficult it would be ...
Teaching takes a lot of energy; the teacher should have full concentration & control of the class for about an hour & a half with almost very little time for break ...
In spite of these facts, I love my job & wouldn't change it for another one ... and I believe that any job has its own difficulties ...
I watched a film on TV about the miners having been trapped in a mine, death was near & they were saying to one another about their feelings toward this job in which there is no development & no hope for a brighter future !!!

I'm not much of a pet keeper ... I've always loved animals ... of course from a distance ... but this time it was different ...
About two months ago a cat gave birth to 5 babies in our yard ... she was looking for a safe place for them and we made one for her & her little kittens ...
Since that time she & her 3 sooooooo lovely kittens (two others disappeared) have lived with us in our yard ...
They are really cuteeeeeeee, I love, pet & feed them ...
These are some of the photos I have taken of them ...

I enjoyed seeing the beauuuuuuutiful parks in London ... green, green, green with impressive and marvelous flowers and plants ...
I think the main reason for this beauty is the rain which almost never stops there ... and of course the nature is taken care of in the best way ...
Here I have put some photos I took of the parks I visited in London in summer ...

The war will be over anyway ... the pain will remain forever !!!
(Gaza & Israel, January 2009)

At last Obama won ...
I don't know what will happen & how he'll act ... but I'm glad, because at last the world got rid of Bush ...
I'm glad, because he's the first black & African-American president in the US ...
And I'm glad, because I love his ideas as well as his ideals, which as he says are democracy, liberty and opportunity ...

The age of technology ... and mainly computers ...

In the past we used to have albums for our photos ... a simple tape recorder to listen to music ... lots of cassettes ... there was no fear of losing them ... the albums safe in the cupboard ... the tape recorder on the table ...

Now they're all in a box called computer with the everyday threat of viruses attacking them if there is any problem with the installed anti-virus ... and that's what happened to my laptop before going to London ...

I don't know what happened ... but it stopped turning on & everything disappeared ... fortunately thinking that this might happen one day, I had put all the photos and films in an external hard disk, but not my music ...

I had chosen the best for myself and I'm glad my friend helped ... they hadn't been vanished ...

I had a veeeeeeery good time in London and I enjoyed myself a lot ...
At first I was not in the mood for going, mainly because I was alone this time and of course because of the death of my grandfather...
I have taken every touristy trip with my family and had no idea how it would be without them or
anyone else: it was perfect, although I'm sure it would be greater if some one else were with me and we could share everything with each other ...
By the way, I was not alone there: I just TRAVELED alone ... I met my friends and relatives there ... most of them were busy working ... I passed some of my time with them anyway ...
A few days before going, I lost my grandfather ... he lived to a ripe old age, but a dear is always a dear and it's too difficult to bear their loss ...
I was so depressed and maybe it was the main reason I was not in the mood for taking my trip to England ...
In my next entry I'll write more about my trip to London ...
The photo is of my grandfather ...

Today is "Valentine's Day" ...
I don't know why Iranian girls & boys celebrate it these years, but whatever the reason is, it's beautiful, because it's about LOVE !
Coming home from work this evening, I was surfing the net and browsing "The New York Times" ...
I saw titles about "Valentine" and having a look at their pages, I found this beautiful poem relating to Valentine's Day which is written about LOVE:

Love:- What a Volume in a Word:
An Ocean in a Tear,
A Seventh Heaven in a Glance,
A Whirlwind in a Sigh
The Lightning in a Touch &
A Millennium in a Moment

_ Martin Farquhar Tupper

It's worth visiting its link; the texts are interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/02/14/opinion/14opchart.ready.html

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A realllllllly noble man ...
His death made everyone shocked !!!

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Among different works of art, I've always enjoyed music & theatre more than others, esp. because they are performed on the stage ...

In this way, one can see the process of creation of the art from the beginning to the end ... This usually doesn't happen for other works of art ... though it might be possible, it's rare ...

One usually doesn't see the process of a work of art from the beginning to the end: we don't feel like sitting beside an artist & see what she is drawing or sitting beside a novelist & share the experience of writing with her, we prefer seeing these works when they're complete, but it's not the same with music & theatre: we see these works from the beginning to the end & share the joy with the creators as well as the performers ...

During the creation of a painting or a novel, the creator is allowed to make any changes, but it's not possible when a play or a music concert is performed:the creator has created them & now there are the performers who with great talent, concentration & attention perform it ...

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This is "Hamid Aameli", the old famous story teller on the radio of Iran ...
He died of lung cancer the other day ...
He was one of our besttttttt family friends, so nice, kind, knowledgeable, and modest ...
His family, relatives and friends lost a really great man ...
Peace be upon him ...

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The news was so sad ... so shocking & sooooo painful ... Her assassination is by no means acceptable, never ... never ... never!

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The Wise Owl

A wise old owl
Sat in an oak.

The more he saw,
The less he spoke.

The less he spoke,
The more he heard.

Why can't we be like
That wise old bird?

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At present I'm reading "Gulliver's Travels" ... As everyone may know, being shipwrecked, Gulliver is thrown to a country called "Lilliput" the inhabitants of which are as small as his fingers ... The way the text is written, the English used, the spellings of words & the grammar is sometimes completely different from what we see today (first published in 1726)

Moreover; what happens to him & the way the small creatures in "Lilliput" behave towards him is interesting and sometimes soooooo funny that makes me laugh out loud ... After finding this monster (the small creatures call him " Man Mountain" ) & taking him to the emperor of "Lilliput" :" ... the emperor held frequent councils to debate what course should be taken with me ... and I was afterwards assured ... that the court was under many difficulties concerning me ... my diet would be very expensive and might cause a famine ... sometimes they determined to starve me or ... to shoot me in the face and hands with poisoned arrows ... but again they considered that the stench of so large a carcase might produce a plague in the metropolis ... and spread through the whole kingdom ... " ... " ... an imperial commission was issued out, obliging all the villages nine hundred yards round the city, to deliver in every morning six beeves, forty sheep, and other victuals for my sustenance ... " ... " ... it was ordered that three hundred taylors should make me a suit of cloaths ... six of his Majesty's greatest scholars should be employed to instruct me in their language ... "

While I was reading, enjoying and laughing, I was thinking about how Gulliver sees these creatures and how these creatures see him, for them everything is big, strong, strange, serious, frightening and important ... things that are so trivial, simple & funny ... I was thinking of the life of human, I imagined we were those creature :for us, our life & what we see,do and face may seem serious, important, sometimes strange, sometimes funny, sometimes so valuable and sometimes even full of meaning ... but if a "Gulliver" exists, how will he see our life ? Does a "Gulliver" really exist ? Of course I should wait to see what will happen at the end

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