I wish I had time

School is killing me these days. Bear with me.

In the meanwhile, work on your English accent and hear the correct pronunciation of words:

http://www.m-w.com

The Internet

Internet. This ongoing, infinite source of information. Every hour you go online and learn ‎something new. Internet. The jewel of our generation. Without it we feel like we haven’t ‎showered. Without Internet we’re in the woods. Imagine a computer without the Internet. ‎What else but Solitaire? Internet is our gate to the infinite world. Look at an alley in a ‎Tokyo suburb or talk to someone from Australia. Show your cousin what your room ‎looks like or browse the infinite pool of pictures of people you don’t know.‎

Internet. Without it we’re bored. Without Internet we cease to learn, be entertained, or ‎communicate.‎

Random thoughts

The comments on the post further down reached a limit where I honestly gave up reading. For that reason, I decided to write something new. I can't really think of anything to say so I'll just write randomly.

Elections are coming up in Canada and I am planning to vote for Liberals. So what if I'm not a citizen. The Canadian government seems to love me from the day I set foot on this land and has been sending me Election cards even when I was an International student.

"Smoking is actually good for you." Except that we all know that's not true. Grape and double apple will not save you once you're diagnosed with cancer. So try not to smoke too much. I have personally put myself into a self-rehab program.

URA coming my way: I managed to get another Undergraduate Research Assistantship for this term. This term it is more exciting and as part of the work which is regarding the user interface of tablet PCs, I am getting a USB tablet that I can play with. I might actually put up some art work here later for you to see.

Warm winter is what we call the summer, really: It has been a real nice winter this year with the average temprature (non-scientific/personal experience based) seems to have locked at about 0 degrees Celcius.

Valentine's Day is about a month away. Save some money. Book some restaurants.

Iran's first match in the World Cup is scheduled for June 11 against Mexico.

I don't have much more to say, except the request to keep the comments peaceful. This ain't no colosseum!

Adobe Takes Over Macromedia

This might be old news but I just found out that Adobe has acquired Macromedia. I noticed this when I visited Macromedia's website to download Fireworks 8 when I realized that Macromedia's logo is replaced by Adobe's and next to it the following words: "Formerly Macromedia".

I have always been a Macromedia fan, and although Adobe is without a doubt one of the best software companies in the world especially in the field of Graphics and PostScript applications, I wonder if the merger will produce better software.

I always used Photoshop and Fireworks side by side as there are features that each are able to do best. We'll have to wait and see whether the products will be changed or remain untouched.

Whatever the result, I hope it ends up in better software for users.

Persian Pride

You have “Persian Pride” written with bold letters on your jacket. You have a 2 meter flag of Iran hanging from one side of your room to the other. You raise your head and sing along “Ey Iran” when it is played. Yet, you don’t do jack for your country, or your culture, or even what you believe in!

You don’t know jack about its history. You don’t exactly know what 7-sin is composed of. You don’t care what the roots of your language are. You can’t even read or write Persian even though more than half of your education has been in Persian.

YET, you nag 24/7 about how most Persians outside of Iran suck. You think all Persian friends suck. You nag how Persian communities are disorganized. You nag how you’re fed up with religious activities of some club on campus. You nag how the DJ at the Persian party sucked. You nag how your country is bathing in crime, prostitution and drugs. You nag and nag and nag.

I wish I could spit out what I have to say to you, but I guess my tone makes it pretty clear anyway.

And Yes! Damn right this is about ISAW.

Cultural Shock

My Evil (!) prof was saying how cultures differ and how such differences affect our interactions in the public. I say evil, because I am taking a religious studies course (RS 100L) called Evil.

He was explaing how different cultures have different expectations of personal space. You know, the space that you expect to have when you're having a face to face conversation with another person. He explained how South Americans stand up very close to each other to show that they're friendly, and if you stand back they'll be offended, while it is quite the opposite in the North American culture.

His talk reminded me of when I came to Canada. I can't recall having a problem with personal space when I came here, but I do remember how I found greetings to be a problem. In Iran, saying hello and goodbye is very important when interacting with people you know. If you walk into a room and don't say hi, or meet a friend and not say hi it is very disrespectful. Saying goodbye is also the same. We could be offended and say: "Ajab adamie! ye khodafezi ham nakard. eyne GAAV saresho andakht raft biroon!!".

In here though, when I was in my 1A term and hung out with a couple of white people, I realized that saying hi and bye is sorta arbitrary and optional. Like my buddy would come in and sit beside me and not even say a word; or just start up a random conversation. Or at the end of the class, at times they'd just get up and leave, without saying bye.

Another interesting cultural thing is that in Iran, or in Tehran at least virtually EVERYONE will look you in the eye as you're walking in the street. But in here, it is almost as if people are making an effort to prevent an eye-to-eye interaction. In the rare cases when it does happen though, they react with a brief smile and continue their way.

I find these differences interesting, and I'd be eager to hear of any other experiences you guys might have.

2006

Tomorrow marks the first day of my last term in University of Waterloo. Finally, after 6 years of studying for a bachelor’s degree, I will hopefully graduate at the end of this Winter of 2006.

Happy new year too, by the way. We celebrated the New Year’s in Toronto with a group of barobax. Many thanks to those who organized the event including Hootan whom I believe made a great effort in putting everything together. I got on a limo for the first time and it was interesting. We partied at club Inside, which had a couple of floors and DJs and was packed with a highly energetic crowd. It was nice. “Jaye baghieye barobax khaali”.

Barobax HQ is undergoing some changes. With Ameen going away for his co-op job at IBM, and Ehsan replacing him from the US of A. We’re expecting some additions to be made to the party floor (A.K.A. basement) of the HQ, mainly the additions of a few Shishas (A.K.A. Ghelyoon, Hooka, Hubbly-Bubbly, Nargila or Water Pipe) by Ehsan.

I must admit that the Poker addicts got me involved too. I’m expecting some future games to take place at the HQ, although Hootan and Hamed’s place will continue to serve as the primary Poker House of Barobax.

Some Barobax must have returned from their co-op terms and ISAW is expecting to hold this terms election on Thursday, January the 5th. I guess it would be a good idea to follow that up with a re-union at Williams. Future announcements shall be made and comments are welcome and appreciated.

I wish you all the best in 2006. May your pockets be filled with money, your hearts with laughter and your transcripts with A+’s. Happy 2006 barobax.