another birthday

Yesterday was my birthday, now I am thirty-two years old. A few years ago, thirty meant being an adult and matured person to me. Now, I am over thirty and sometimes I think I am not as mature as I should be. I still have the same heart and soul as I was a teenage girl years ago. Inside I really don’t feel I got much older. Yesterday morning, I got surprised with my closed friends, they both sent me gifts. I got two books and a gift card for Amazon –which means more books. When I saw the UPS guy in front of our home and saw my package, suddenly I felt so good and blessed for having kind friends. Farzan registered me for a baking workshop and got me a spa gift certificate. I love going to a spa, but I much prefer not go by myself. Once I went to a spa by myself and got bored, so I left the spa after my massage was done. I think having a company make it a lot better. I am gonna ask my friends to see if any of them want to go to a spa.

As I wrote before, I started reading Llosa’s works. I finished reading Captain Pantoja and the Special Service, and have started  to read  The Bad Girl. Somehow, I couldn’t connect to the story and characters in Captain Pantoja, and ended up not liking the book. So far I like The Bad girl and enjoy reading it.

project

My sister has asked me to help her on one of her final projects. It is supposed to be related to statistics, and although she is having the course, she thought I know more! Frankly, I can’t recall what I had learnt on my bachelor, I guess most of the things have skipped my mind and the things I am more comfortable with are the math and stat courses which I had had on my high school or later when I was trying to get expert on solving math questions. As it is no news neither to me nor to anyone who knows me, I postponed working on that project, mostly hoping she would do it on her own. A few days ago, I got stressed about it and thought I might get her into big trouble, so I started to do some research. I found some interesting and some not very exciting sources, but yesterday I asked Farzan a question and he found a great source for the project. The goal of the project is comparing the existence of libraries in  some countries or regions. I chose three Farsi spoken countries, and unfortunately the result was not anything close to mediocre. Anyone who has lived in Iran would know, the average time of reading is low, there are a few libraries, but most probably there are not than many books in most of them. I found out  it is even worse in Afghanistan and Tajikestan. I was so disappointed.

To work on this project, I left the home and went to downtown Mountain View two days in a row. I have stayed in a coffee shop and worked on it. While I was doing it, I just concentrated on the project and didn’t waste any time. It took me about two days to translate and write down all the things I have found. I can’t recall any other time when I was doing a project of mine and doing it constantly and not wasting any time in between. The owner of the coffee shop asked me “what are you doing? are you working or studying?”, I couldn’t stop laughing when he asked me. I don’t know what is the reason when it comes to my own project or studying I am not as productive as when I am helping out somebody else.

PS: This is the 150th post on my blog, hooray!

Home Alone

Last Tuesday, I went to Mountain View with Farzan. I had an appointment, and after the appointment I went to the library. I borrowed some of Llosa’s works, and I started to read Captain Pantoja and the Special Service. I also met one of my friend and her sister, they recommended me to watch White Collar. It is a TV series that I have never heard of it. Netflix has the two first season on instant watch. I started to watch it on Saturday afternoon, and ever since being hooked on it. Now, I am on second season. The fourth season will start on July 2012. I need to find the third season before July so I can watch it on TV, although I am not even sure if we have its channel.

Farzan is coming back home tonight. I want to make a special dinner, maybe Kabab one of his favorite. I was on a vegetarian diet last week, I did for about ten days, thought it may help me to get rid of acne, but it didn’t. My face skin is really in a bad shape, nothing I do is helping. I am on a diet, washing my face every day, and using scrub and mask. Nothing is really helping me. I visited two doctors in the last year, I am thinking to go and see one of them again. Maybe get some facial, I did a facial a few weeks ago, but this time I want to ask my doctor to do it on himself.

Farzan was supposed to go to a conference in Chicago. He left on Thursday morning. For a long time, I wanted to go with him to visit Chicago, but so many things made me it is not a good idea to visit Chicago now. So, I am home by myself. The first night, I was a little scared. I stayed until midnight in front of TV and laptop to exhaust myself, but when I went to our bedroom and fell into sleep, there were so many noises, cars honking and so many people laughing. It was a little bit bizarre. I was too tired to wake up, instead I told myself the sound is a sign that there are people out there no one would break in to our home. Long story short, after that I got used to be alone .

Last night (or should I say morning), I woke up around 5:30AM for no reason, but then I noticed the sun rise and I couldn’t resist the idea of taking  a photo. Fortunately, my cellphone was on the bureau beside the bed. I took a shot very fast (the above image).

Today, I got obsessed with cleaning our home. It really takes a long time to vacuum and to sweep by one person. But there were a bunch of stuff I needed to store them, then I wanted to vacuum and ended up cleaning by myself. Now, I have a dizzy head and a bit headache, I don’t know it’s because of the hot weather, or it’s because I am exhausted. I want to watch TV, read a book, but they make my headache worse.

delusions in Monday morning

Sometimes, we need to accept life as it is. A lot of times, I have heard or read about wonderful people who could successfully change their lives and influence many lives. They would say if you want something and you accept to try very hard for it, you would make it surely. But in reality, we need to accept our conditions and lives as they are. Maybe it is not impossible to make a change, but it sure is very difficult, a lot harder than we would think. Sometimes, it doesn’t even worth to try and put so much time, energy, and thought. Sometimes, we better accept life as it is.

how silly could I be?!

I wanted to go to San Francisco to work with my friend. I asked Farzan to take me to Caltrain station this morning. When I got there, I had about ten minutes until the train would arrive,  and I thought it is not enough time to go to Starbucks to get a coffee. So, I went up to the  station to buy my ticket. When I got up there, I remembered I forgot to take my jacket. It looked  like a sunny day, except it was windy. I thought the train would come soon and staying up there for ten minutes is not a big deal. But after about fifteen minutes, they said the train would be late! I ended up waiting in the station for forty-five minutes. The whole time,  I was thinking should I go to Starbucks or should I wait for the train. Finally, the train arrived and I went to San Francisco.

My friend told me she had a date night with her husband and wanted to drive to South Bay. She offered to give me a ride. Since I couldn’t figure out any other way to come back, I accepted. In the car, we were still talking and thinking and I fotgot to ask her if she knows which exit should we take to get to our place. In fact, because I gave her our address when we were at her place, and she checked Google map, I thought she figured out how to take me to our home. Then in her car, I was telling her it was my first time taking that route from SF to South Bay. At some point, we understood none of us knows how to get to our home –I was so embarrassed. It took us a few minutes to find a way to our home, but since we already have passed the correct exit and she was on a rush to get to her date on time, I asked her to drop me off close to the restaurant she was going and I would ask Farzan to come and pick me up. At last, I got home, but I was dead tired. When I am tired, I better stay home and rest instead of making so much troubles for myself. I was out about 11hours today, and now I can keep my eyes open.

need a break

In the past few days, I was so exhausted, I couldn’t do anything. We are  still trying to organize our stuff. Some boxes are still in the garage. All our books are packed. We just have one small bookcase which has not enough shelves, we should buy a few more or buy a couple of large size bookcases. This evening, we finally installed DVD player and sound system. As we both are really tired, we can’t accomplish a lot. We are doing baby steps. Hopefully, everything will be finished in a couple of weeks. But for now, I wish I could sleep for one week and don’t do anything!

I didn’t have the time to read, and now I am far behind my reading plan. I just started to read Moonwalking With Einstein. I heard about it from a friend of mine, and because I am a forgetful person, I thought it may help me. The last week, we were still living in Mountain View, I bought it from MV bookstore, I used to love that place and now I really miss it. I still have not found a bookstore close to our home, and I guess there isn’t any. As Amazon is growing rapidly, most of the bookstores are closed. I love to go to bookstores, browse between shelves, check new books, … . With Amazon, Apple, and EBooks, there isn’t that many bookstore left, we are going to miss our beloved bookstores.

memoire

I lost my grandma last year, after loosing her I have no grand parents anymore, and God it feels so bad! Last year, when I heard the news on the phone –my oldest sister called me and told me about it,  I was devastated. I thought, I didn’t have her anymore, and worse than that I didn’t see her before her death. All those days, I thought how easier it could have been for me if I have been with her on her last days.

In the last few years, lots of people have passed away, the ones I loved and admired when I was a child. All those losing hit me, it reminded me that I am losing my childhood and youth memories. Then, I thought how about to write my memories before forgetting them altogether. It may be stupid and doll for others but this way I can keep all the memories which I still can remember. As I am getting older, it is getting more difficult to recall my childhood. So far I have just procrastinated and haven’t commence writing anything. I don’t have any idea how should I write them?! I am thinking to write one story at a time and then later I can make some changes and putting them in order. Another thing is should I write it in Farsi or English? I guess writing it in Farsi makes more sense, but as I am sharing personal and private stories about my life, I will talk about my families and friends as well. So, writing in English make it a lot easier since nobody knows my family here.

:\

Sometimes, life is disappointing. Everyone, Everything, Everywhere. No matter what I do, or how hard I try to work it out, nothing changes. It is just never getting any better. I dream and dream and dream, I try and try and try to forget, it is just hopeless, I am hopeless. I can’t do any better, I can’t change anything, even can’t change myself! Sometimes is always and it is impossible to stand it any longer

Projects

I always keep telling myself, I am wasting my time and my life, I am not doing anything interesting, and etc. Sometimes, I feel bad about nagging to myself and not appreciating anything I am doing. In 2012, I made a new year resolution to make monthly or weekly projects to make sure I am doing something –hopefully interesting. This way, whenever I would start criticizing myself, I can check my projects and make sure I have done something.  One of the project is to write everyday. Some days, I could write a few posts, here, on my notebook, or my Farsi blog. But some days, I really have no time and maybe nothing to share. This week, I was quite busy with work, and although I had so many things in my mind, I wasn’t able to find the time to write anything.

In March, I made another goal to wake up early in the morning. After we moved to this home, everyday except maybe one or two days, I have woke up around 8AM. I don’t know it is because of the sun light, although some nights I slept very late, I woke up the next morning even before my alarm. Friday night, we were at our friends’ place and when we got home it was after 1AM. I read a little bit to put myself to sleep, but on Saturday morning I woke up at 7:30. Last night, we went to SF to have dinner and after that a couple of our friends came to our place to have tea. Again I slept after 1AM. I was worried I couldn’t wake up early in the morning, but I woke up at 7:30AM again. I know my body needs 7-8 hours sleep every night. But, I want to sleep less and maybe going to bed earlier than midnight helps me to have a better sleep. I just wanted to give myself a big point for keeping this goal!

My reading project is not as good as I want it to be! There are some days when I have no time to read except about an hour before I sleep and those time I am so tired to read fast. Tonight and tomorrow, I should read about 160 pages to finish The Marriage Plot. I should go to Mountain View on Tuesday and I want to take the book back to MV library.