We are waiting for the arrival of the newest member of family. My wife is supposed to deliver our baby any time. We have already gone to hospital two times, she has got strong but irregular contractions, might be tonight or tomorrow. This is a girl, I guess we call her Denise, in Turkish (Azari) means Darya and as a common name it exists in French and English as well.
We miss Ryan very much, we are reminded of him and his birth every day all these days. Even though I do not believe in any thing specific in any religion, it is almost impossible to deny the existence of heaven whenever I am thinking of Ryan, I can't accept he is gone or lost.
Anyways I hope her sister is as nice and beautiful as he was, a good reminder of his charm.
In our discussions with my other son Danial, we have concluded that Ryan has gone to Neverland and he has a good time with other boys who will never grow up, we worry a bit about Captain Hook, but Ryan can handle him, he was a smart boy,

Publish

It is Christmas now and everybody is crazy about it, exactly like when we were kids and just before the new year, Shab e Eid. One thing that our kids miss for sure here (abroad, out of Iran) is the notion of extended family and the related new year celebrations, They neither belong to the mainstream Americans or Canadians nor to Iran. Something in between, as a parent it is too difficult to manage that, since we are not offering our kid a proper and adequate excitement for Norouz (it won't be the same anyways since you won't have the holidays and the big family), I am giving in to Christmas, at least he will have some excitement every year, same time as anybody else.

I don’t believe in any religion as they are presently around, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I believe in something, I don’t know what it is yet; I won’t try to explain it, I’ll wait till the understanding comes to me or if not I am just happy to know there is something even though I can not characterize it.

The other day my son came home with an artwork from school, which was the famous sign of Judaism the candleholder, because of Hanukah, which is around Christmas time. There is one Jewish (he is from Iranian background as well) student in his class. I did not like that; I understand the Christmas fever because of its festival value and the fact that the absolute majority of Americans are Christian, but why Hanukah should semi officially be celebrated in a place where people try to mention religions as rarely as possible?

Another strange thing was that because of the presence of a Jewish skater called Sasha Cohen in some school in California, in order to not offend her, kids did not song the Christmas carol!

That does not make sense to me, this way after a few decades you will see Hanukah as the official new year celebration in US and in order not to offend Americans with Jewish background, Christmas will be banned.

Do you wanna piece of me?

I was watching a program about a new book by Jimmie Carter the ex president of the United States. He has written a book about middle east and the present political turmoil in the region. The impression I got from the interview was that in his book he has put more responsibility on the shoulder of Israeli government and instead of pointing finger to Palestinians, as is traditionally the case in America regarding the middle east conflict. In the book he talks about what concessions and compromises Israelis should go for if they want peace . He has guts, this is very different from what is norm and almost everybody says in US, this is specially very unusual given the fact that Carter has been a president of the States.

We have a little bit of push pull with my son Danial these days,

He is a first grader; he is a good reader but not so good with arithmetic ( addition and subtraction). I am telling my wife that we should not force him to get into a box that is smaller than him or not his shape, just because it is considered to be the norm. Another thing is that mathematics is not just the arithmetic operations, not the same thing at all.
The school he is attending reminds me of the style we had in Iran, very demanding even for grade one, not as relaxed as Canada.

In Canadian system they give kids time to discover themselves, no rush to achieve or over achieve the ambitious goals set by the school.

I always thought a stricter educational system, something between what we had in Iran and the Canadian Style, would be just right, but I am not so sur any more, I think in Canada, kids have the opportunity to enjoy the childhood and grow in peace, on the other hand the Canadian achievements in terms of industry and other fields are no less than any other country.

I read in BBC that the UN secretary general Kofi Annan had said that the situation in Iraq is worse than when Saddam was in power, for Iraqi people of course.
I believe that, beside this fact, Alqaidah was restricted to Afghanistan now they are in Iraq as well.

Some presidential something (advisor or angry guy) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6206480.stm in Iraq did not like that statement and has responded angrily to Annan, not that I like Annan or I believe he has performed as he should in his post, but that the reasoning and the statements of the Iraqi official is baseless and somehow funny.

One of his remarks reminds me of the jokes we had for some of funny Iranian political figures.

The Iraqi official has said that the condition for Iraqi people has improved seven times compared to the Saddam era. God knows where the number seven is coming from.

Is the relationship between Israel and Palestine the same as Iran or Turkey and Kurds? I can not make the one to one correspondence, it looks like the Israelis are under this impression, and they feel like that!

This morning we were watching Sesami Street, before my son went to school, the subject of the show was the family and what families do together. One thing that I like about Sesami Street is the multi racial and multi cultural approach they have got by showing people from different backgrounds involved in American life, not just the blonds. This morning when they were showing kids and families they showed a gay couple with their kid as well. I don’t like that; I don’t know how you could explain it to your kid, what is normal and what is not? It all depends on who you are and how you think about certain things; a gay family is not a fact unlike "brushing your teeth is good for you", which is a fact.

I believe that it is very important to make kids understand that not everything, which is shown on TV or told in school, is right and kids always should be critical and use different resources to deal with different concepts and especially new ideas,

Meanwhile in case my son asks about the kind of reunion we saw on TV this morning, I will tell him that a gay family is fake, is not true.

At the same time we continue to watch Sesami Street that is a great program.

Unlike Canada, here I am not feeling I can write about all my reflections, just like good old times in Iran. I self-censored some part of the last post I did, then I felt bad about it, here you go:

One thing that bothers me is that all the antiwar campaign even from the leftists, is focusing on the American army casualties and the war expenses for the tax payers, to some extent that makes sense, it is the natural way you can connect to American public opinion, at the same time the Iraqi civilians are suffering as well, as a result of a war that is not their choice. I would mention that as well.

Last night I was watching a TV documentary on PBS about the brain injuries that American soldiers sustain as a result of a nearby explosion, and the fact that almost always such conditions are not paid enough attention to. I remember the same phenomena during the Iran/Iraq war and we had lots of these people coming back from the fronts and even though they looked alright they behaved strange and screwed-up, we used to call them Mouji (translates into Wavy, referring to the explosion wave), there was so many jokes and funny stories about them, after lost night I admit I feel very bad and I don’t feel it is funny anymore (a few days ago in Tehran, one of these guys took hostage all the students of a girls' school, including his own daughter! ).

My son Danial is in grade one, there was a great deal of medical and language proficiency tests that he had to pass before he could start school in California. His Iranian background (non english speaker) and the fact that prior to coming to US he was in a French school were the reasons for the language test, fortunately he passed it. One thing that I am seeing here is that the educational system in this specific district is very similar to what we went through in Iran. Very strict and lots of tests and work are administered even for first graders. That was not the case at all in Canada, even though Danial was going to a French school in an English dominated region, and they are known to be stricter than the English schools, the curriculum was relatively relaxed, specifically for the first graders the stress was on the development of social skills and the interest in school and learning.

In contrary, here they are doing serious math stuff and reading, I would categorize the American system (where we are living) more traditional and the Canadian system is more liberal.

I really don’t know which system is better, I did not like too much pressure back in my school years,

Long live MIT!!

I have been looking for an opportunity to study a little bit; taking a course may be or study books…

Yesterday I found out that MIT has an online service called open courseware (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html) and the course materials of many of the officially offered courses in MIT are available on this website. I picked up a few and am planning to follow through…

That is a good Idea, why the rest of Universities don’t do that?

We had a two-day holiday last week, including the weekend it added up to 4 days which was nice. Thanks giving is much more serious here than Canada, I am not sure why that is so, it might be because of the religious aspects of thanks giving and the fact that the Canadians in general are less religious than Americans.

Another interesting thing to see was that even the Iranians are into it, we were invited to a thanks giving lunch which had turkey on the table and so on and so forth. Not a bad Idea.
One good thing about southern California is that you can feel you are at home because of the all Iranian stuff you have there and the land itself, it looks more like what we had in Shiraz and most parts of Iran.

I was watching a documentary on World War II and of course the role of Americans in all that, especially to bring it to an end. When you look at the events and military operations there, specially the last two atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you see how in American style the goal justifies the mean, whatever the mean is. I cannot deny the concrete achievements of the US industry and military, I admit that I admire the resilience and hard work of American people and the well designed industrial and social systems in US, but something that bothers me is the pretentious moral appearances and justifications behind the most cruel and inhumane acts of all history of human kind.

Having said that what was the alternative solution in World War II?

I don’t know.

I think Iranian nation should be very cautious dealing with US. Not to give up their rights but to try to think as the Americans, Iranian common sense is quiet different from American’s.
I think the whole issue is to act rational instead of emotional.

I follow the recent discussions between Hoder and Nikan, as far as it concerns me Nikan is really crazy and nonlinear, and frankly I don’t care what he stands for or he is talking about. But Hoder is a guy with lots of positive and negative attributes who in my regard has an overall positive score. The problem with him is that he has put himself in such a weak position that anybody with any kind of background can effectively accuse him of anything the most people hate.

I hope he gets into some serious business, finish school or get some relevant experience, right now he looks more like a canon without of ammunition.

There is something with arid desertic/mountainous areas that makes you wander, something unique is there. In extreme cold, you play mouse and cat with death, in nice weather with lots of green, you just have fun, a bit superficial, that is life, but in huge dry mountains as well as deserts, there is something that makes you think about mystery of life, no wonder almost all prophets as we knew them are from these kind of geographical areas.
I think the mystery of life has been so huge that the human being could not handle it raw and pure, as it was, there was something in the air, he was so confused by the immensity of the Divine secret that he decided to explain it, or even better justify it, in another words he modeled it into a simple, familiar and understandable system.

Belief
One of the most difficult things for me is to discuss my religious beliefs with a guy who is traditionally religious. I have gone through that difficult experience many times with fellow Muslims, you get to the point that you have to deny certain things or say something which is considered blasphemy and at the same time you don't want to offend or upset people as well, since beliefs are the most irrational and personal part of each individual,
A week ago I went to get a Californian driver's license and I was 1 hour early, there was a talkative guy who was early too, and he started to talk to me and asking questions, he turned out to be a traditional christian believer, I would call him and people like him (Bush) christian Hezbollah. We got to the point that I started to talk about my beliefs and his and, guess what? it was as difficult as if I wanted to talk to a traditional Muslim. At some point I just backed off and nodded yeah, yeah ....
He used to be an alcoholic and drug addict and now he was rehabilitating, and religion was a big help.

Finally my wife and my son joined me yesterday. Danial wanted to go to an outside open pool which we have in the complex we live, I originally thought that the whole big outside pool is warm even during the winter time, not true, the real estate agent did not specify which pool is warmed up all year long, it happened to be the small wading pool for kids, worked for Danial, so full of shame and happy about the fact that nobody was there to see a big hairy guy in the kids wading pool I got in and we had some fun. I am happy about the fact that he and Rosie like the place, I really don’t like the concept of the California, specially what it is in LA and nearby, there are lots of snub and wealthy Iranians around in Orange County, you could say there are lots of rich or quasi-rich middle-easterns around from the number of the Mercedes Benz vehicles circulating.