Sophies World, finished!

Yesterday I finally had time to finish Sophie's World book. What a wonderful book it was. Loved the ending too, :) Finishing a book is like an accomplishment. Somehow you feel that you did something good for yourself. The other resolution for my current year was to read 20 books.

So far I've finished
1) Franny and Zooey,
2) Blind Owl (Boof-e-Koor)
3) Sophies World,
4) A Tale of Two Cities (still going!)

There are also two books I have started but kind of going slow. The Golden Compass, and the Freakonomics. Freakonomics is educational, but the other one is like for kids.. I might stop it. NEXT will be a bunch of good books like History of Time or the Grand Design, also the Selfish Gene.. I need to get my hands on all of these!

On another completely different note: Happy Memorial Day! We planned to go to picnic, but first, it's too hot, and second, I had wanted these two days to be MINE, to explore the tech world, iphone app writing, etc. Don't know what to do. Maybe I'll go. Maybe I'll skip it.. I can always go hicking there with another good friend of mine. In fact we had promised to go there togather.. Haha, according to what I learned yesterday in Sophie's World, in Freud's psychoanalysis chapter, I'm just "rationalizing" now.  Deep down I guess I don't want to go, that's all!

OKKKKKKK finally! The papers are both done now, and I'll have two full days to myself and my ambitions! It should be fun :)

Eat that Frog!

Sometimes you become a very boring person.. So boring you don't want to be with yourself even.. Today is one of those days, for me! I have to finish a paper, and it's a boring paper, and anything exciting I want to do I tell myself noooo wait till your paper is finished, and because the paper is boring too, I end up going about it veryyyy slowly. I guess even blogging isn't gonna make me skip that paper. Have you read "Eat that Frog" book? This paper is like one slimy ugly frog that I have to swallow before I can do anything fun in the rest of my life. Might as well finish it early!

Dear President Obama

Dear President Obama,

I was JUST about to write you a (hand written!) letter, and I was thinking how to I make the letter to stand out so that you would read it, when I heard the news! THANKSSSS SOOOO MUCHCHCHC

You just got a thousands of fans among all Iranian students. We'll go back home at some point, and we won't forget the nice gesture of this government. Families and friends are impressed too. It's a BIG BIG step, life changing for us for sure, and as I hope it will be, a medium of change for the whole country.

THANK YOU! :***

Life is all about finding your dream! Once you find it you have enough passion for it to see it come true!*

Footnote                                                            
* I'm looking for my PhD thesis topic these days :)

About those "Super Obvious Secrets That Phil McAndrew Wishes They’d Teach In Art School"

What have you been doing on (almost) daily basis for the past few years? For me, it's been ...research... and... writing! Also having ice creams in the summer, but I guess that doesn't count. :)

Why did I bring it up? So, I was reading this interesting ... guide... http://philintheblanks.com/blog/ which is about how to become a successful cartoonist. First let me confess that as much as I'd love to be a cartoonist too(among many other great things!), I guess that's not in my future. BUT, the tutorial turns out to be applicable to anything. Like, anything creative really. 

The advice says, you have to do that thing, *everyday*! You have to love that thing to be able to do it everyday. 

You have to challenge yourself, be nice to people, have fun, respect deadlines, have breaks, ... 

I suggest you guys read it. For me, it got me thinking. I realized maybe I should *write* some more, and that maybe I should be more serious about writing. It's been what I've continuously been doing in my free time after all. I've gone to drawing class, painting class... When the mood strikes, I draw. I play keyboard, and when the mood strikes I play really nice music for myself. But the only thing that doesn't need a mood, is writing for me. Wish I could take it to the next level, somehow. *Challenge myself* with something bigger, so to speak. Some time ago I was offered a column in the opinion section of an online (small) newspaper. I declined. Ohhh stupid me! You guys do not repeat my mistake at least..

Art By Phil McAndrew from his Blog

(This guy refers to YOU. YOU'RE ALL BORN TO BE STARS)

CMU commencement 2011 with Aron Ralston

Today was CMU commencement. Another year, another speech, another bundle of inspiration!

This year the speaker was Aron Ralston, (the subject of movie "127 hours"), which as I found out just recently is also a Mechanical Eng. CMU alumni!

Gosh! He is so incredible. Very funny, and wise, and ambitious, and passionate. The bottom-line of his speech was, "If you ever dream of doing something, begin it! With boldness!", also make sure you have your wits with you -"carry a knife sharp enough to cut bones!"- "have health insurance!", and don't complain! "if you haven't gotten to drinking your own urine for survival, you're still OK". He also guaranteed adversaries in all of our lives, and ended his speech with "May your Boulders be your Blessings"

I think I'll put Between a Rock and a Hard Place in my to-read list now, after Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture...

Edit: Someone smarter than me recorded this speech. (I thought CMU will release it, in good quality which I later found out they won't.  You have to PAY for that it seems..) Anyway, listen to this!

"One working website"

Is item 3 on my 2011 resolution, and I still have no idea what to do about it!

What I like to achieve at the end, is to create jobs. More and more fundamental jobs.. So now, what can Information Technology (IT) do in this regard? IT is basically a "connector", a "hub" sort of thing. Creating a "connector" kind of business should be easy on the IT side, hard on the "content" side. A good productive online business (that I have in mind) should have people, real people, working and producing something, and then this product can get anywhere with the help of the online systems, such that those people who did the real work do earn their wages too. Without this "real people, doing physical work" component, the business could be beneficial, but it could also simply be redundant. I HATE to ever spend my time on something that's not benefiting anyone but myself, and then trying to convince other people that they need this, just to get myself some revenue. Advertising websites, for example, are just out of question. Communication systems/sites could be interesting. Communication is a basic need for humans, and improving that benefits people. But it won't lead to anyone getting money other than myself, or maybe a few other developers..

On the other hand, an online business could have the value in the business that it does. A lot of softwares are like that. Even Google, for instance, is like this. Will that create jobs though? Does it allow people with little skills, to do something and get something in return? I guess this is a paradox in a sense. These systems automate things. Basically they make processors replace humans. Now the million dollar question is, is there a type of thing that no matter how much you automate it, still needs humans to go on and prosper, and that's not it, it has to be something that's needed. Something that solves the basic needs of human beings...

Man, this is so complicated. What a mess in my head..

Traveling

2010 was the traveling year: Let's see.. I went to Vermont(Middlebury), Cleveland, Orlando and Miami, then Boston, then Reno(Nevada), San Fransisco, then Niagara Falls, Chicago, New York, Miami and finally, New York!

The year before -2009- was good too, since I was getting reimbursed PhD interviews around the US... New Year started in Los Angeles, and Las Vegas later, then I went to Baltimore, then Los Angeles again(for USC interview), then conference in Stanford, and another one in Boulder, Colorado(RED), then the academic year started so no new places until Vermont in the new year..

This year, the new year started in New York City, and tomorrow I'll be flying to ... BOSTON! :) 

Did I tell you I like traveling?!! Did you notice I've already seen *most* of the US cities?! Counting the number of visits to big cities you can see that I've visited California 4 times, NYC 3 times and Boston 2 times. :) Kind of suggesting something! I JUST wish they'd give me multiple entry visa. Then I'd be the one who uses all these travel deals to Spain and China and Australia! FYI Iranian students have single entry visa, which they usually obtain after loooooonnnnng delay of clearance checking and stuff. Pakistani students on the other hand have multiple entry visa. The best I've heard so far about this is that Yes we know it's unfair. We can't change it. Sorry. :/ Nothing is unchangeable though...

P.S. Pittsburgh is actually GORGEOUS these weeks, so I don't even know why I said yes to my friend's suggestion to visit Boston. And yes I've already walked the freedom trail, and yes it was awesome!!!! 

Edit: right now, in July 2012, I can happily say that in 2011 my trips were  New York(at new year), Boston, New York (to pick up my mom!!) Niagara Falls, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Turkey (Ankara), and Iran (Tehran and Isfahan).
2012 started with me in Tehran. I went to Istanbul and Ankara after that, then Pittsburgh, and another New York city visit again, as of July 2012. Hopefully some more cities await 2012 :D

diversity, democracy, and teaching!

Aww, looking up to ~100 students in the class I'm TA-ing, (the final exam is right now!!) how can I ever get out of this diverse society of USA(or Canada, I guess), and live again in the uniform different-is-bad society like Iran?! We have a looooooooonnnng way to go in getting used to very large differences in folks you interact with, everyday, and to be honest, that's one basis of democracy, I think. Thinking of it this way, maybe the school exchange programs do make a big difference in the future generations, in countries like Iran were you don't normally interact with people out of your wavelength...

P.S. When the age gap between students and you grow larger you suddenly realize how LOVELY teaching is! If you ever thought teaching gets boring, you got it all wrong! Teaching is not about going over the subject, it's about the students learning the subject! Every class has its own students, every year, a different group are with you.. Nothing can be more amazing than teaching each kid who want to learn, what you know... I LOVE IT! (Should convince my advisor to let me TA more...or maybe at some point maybe as a postdoc or something, I should teach a class or part of it, myself!)

P.P.S. Do you know of a voluntarily teaching job in Pittsburgh?! I'd love to teach something (within my knowledge), when I have time..

Bin Laden..

Oh well, Bin Laden is dead. At first I simply assumed he might probably have been dead for a while but like any other political news it is announced at the right time.... when minds are mostly at rest and ready for full impact. My friend's FB status was "guess who's getting re-elected?"

But then today I read the random citizen's twitter update about the whole thing later, and kind of got convinced that at least the operation happened today, now whether it could have happened weeks or months or years ago, that's something I'll never know...

I need some time to write down all my own opinion of it, and I will, through time,... but still, it does put a beginning to an end to an era..