Story from Past

0.0. Ah, This Orkat is a weird site. You kinda develop hate and love relationship. I have been a memeber for a few months. but all of the sudden, I came across one of old friends and, voila, there we are I saw many people who I had not heard from for at least a few years. Some of them married, some of them single...I would like to make this statement right here: Man-o-man I missed those childhood years, we used to have fun without having real responsibility and just enjoyed ourselves, let's say just during those fun time skiing, anyone recalls?:)
I wish them all the best, may once again we all find time in between our busy schedule and get together and remember our old days.

0. A cOOl link about Persian Wedding and its tradition for those who wish to read about it in English:).

1. Narges sent me this following link. very cOOl link. It is a must see Link: Heart...

2. Almost until last night I did not feel that there was Olympic games going in Atens! This is the most important and colorful event of this year and not much of coverage on Iranian TV channels.
Finally, a Gold metal with Rezazadeh. This guy is something different from all others. He pulled up 264.5 Kg in clean and Jerk that seemed to me he is pulling up nuts!:) good for him with 26 years old. Now who is making jokes about Ardebilis and Turks;).

3. A sad news. Sir Godfrey Hounsfield a British electrical engineer whose work in creating the computerized axial tomography scanner, the CAT scan, a diagnostic tool used in hospitals worldwide, won him a Nobel Prize, died Aug. 12 at New Victoria Hospital in Kingston upon Thames, England. May his sould Rest In peace.

4. I was cleaning up my directories and came across this story of my trip to Quebec for white whater rafting. I would like to put it up to remind of our camping trip:).
here we go:

First, I would like to thank Guillermo (my friend), who wrote the comprehensive list of stuff that we may take by ourselves for the camping and rafting trip and remind us to take some wool and warm cloths besides other things required!

The trip started rolling by Saturday morning around 7:00 am. The original plan was 6:30 a.m., however, Lenie called in around 6:30 a.m. and said that they will be late because they had difficult time loading on their bicycles on the car! So, I waited in solidarity of my apartment building looking at the door for their arrival! They came about 7:05 am and we jump in and after a short negotiation about where to put my baggage and belongings (since there was not enough space) my belonging were split between two cars!

The next step was in Toronto, York Mills subway station where we had to pick up anxious Vay, who seemed to be ready to claim the mount Everest as soon as we arrive there! Or on the other hand, tired of waiting for half an hour extra of what she was promised!! In any case, she jumped in and we got ready to move towards our destination in Land of francophone Canadians, in Quebec! Everyone who went was Guillermo, Lenie, Vay, John, Brett, Lenie’s friends, Allen, Paul, Elaine and J.R, and myself.

Destination was close to a city known as Hawkesbury. It was right on the boarder of Ontario and Quebec! On our way to camping area we had couple of stops for releasing pressure from our bladders and have some food and starch our body for sake of humanity and our bones!!!! The most significant event happened when we realized that our map does not provided any information beyond the province of Ontario. That means from Ontario to our final destination we had to be on our own!! Therefore, as soon as we got to Hawkesbury, a town that was close to our destination we needed to find out about the Main Street! I suggested that we stop by a convenient store and I would do the honor to ask the direction to the rafting place! So, I stepped into the local convenient store in Hawkesbury. I realized the cashier and I lacking one major setback between us; and that was not knowing the common language that was spoken by me or him!!! You may ponder what do I mean? Indeed, the cashier could only speak French and I could only speak English, as if we are from two different countries!! I asked the direction for Main Street and he kindly with sign language and body motion showed me that I had to go straight and turn at the next immediate red light! However, the turning motion was with a strong lower body motion (i.e. dancing) and a sound of 'urrr' and turning their body in the direction that they're telling you to turn!!

The first night we didn’t really do anything significant, just setting out our tents and just usual things that someone would do in short camping trip! Hanging out by the main fire with some of the rafting guides and talking to people who went rafting that day. Lenie got really drunk the first night! She punished herself by not eating, though, drinking a lot! I think she got angry with Guillermo! That resulted in a night stay in Hawkesbury newly designed hospital!! Apparently, she was dehydrated! A doctor kept her over night and gave her Intravenous Serum! Probably, I should mention about how John carried Lenie to the car! Because Lenie was unconscious, she was kept on the forearm of John and her body was almost all over and some turning and pushing resulted to have her head hit to couple of trees and cars chassis! Probably that made her even more unconscious than she has already been!!! She still managed to go along with us rafting on the next day which was Sunday! Another funny event in the first night was around 4:00 am while most of people were asleep! There was this really annoying guy who was singing just for the sake of being annoying and feeling good about himself!! and then he needed something to chant so he started yelling 'GO LEAFS GO' (Leaf is a famous Toronto Hockey team;) and much as I would join in during a hockey game, that's not what I want to hear when I'm trying to sleep around 4 am!

Sunday was the rafting day. Lenie's friends opted not to go and went to Montreal! It was a cold day, the air was probably about 9 or 10 degrees Celsius and water was not anything more than 8 degrees Celsius! We were the only ones who needed the briefings in English. The rest were all French speaking groups! We got geared up with wetsuits, lifejackets, paddles and helmets at the camp, then we hopped on a bus for about 40 minutes. We almost got our necks and bone broken when riding on a school bus that had been suspension-less and was like a solid iron! The road was very much broken and no asphalt was properly applied on it! We finally got to the lake and unloaded the rafts. We were given a short briefing get ready to get in the boat. You are kind of stuck in this spot between fight and flight. Once you’re in the boat, that is it, it's fight all the way. We had a really cool guide, Anne, who told us there’s not really a place to drop someone off where it would be convenient to pick them up later!! She told us there was a guy once who just wanted off, but he just had to bear it out! During the runs there’s a guy on shore who takes pictures and videotapes so we were told to 'smile to the left.'

After the first run and after lunch a few groups declined the second run, but we all went again. The second time you were felling a bit braver and willing to try different things. We were 2 for 2 and no one fell into water!! (Yopi J) but some people in other boats went in by choice! Probably the funniest part of our rafting occurred when we were trying to rescue some dude from water and we stuck on the rocks and the boat would not move!! Everyone was jumping up and down and still no motion!!!! Finally we all moved to the one side of the boat and slowly the boat went on its way! If you wonder what happened to that guy who we wanted to rescue, sorry! We couldn’t take him out of water; he went with the water current and was picked with other boats!
The annoying thing was, we headed back to camp looking forward to a nice hot shower then we got there and there's no water pressure and it's lukewarm so that's always exciting.

The night arrived and we were told that we should get tickets for dinner. However, john and Brett came to me and told me that there is no dinner for us since our package we purchased is different from all other people who were there!! They said we should go to the closest city and get food! Once again my charm and good-looks (Zereshk!!) came to play and I talked to Jill (one of the organizers) and Anne (our rafting guide) and persuaded them to give us the tickets for the dinner!!! Everyone was quite amazed. “Empty everyone’s place (i.e. jaye hamegi khali)” we got a lovely dinner!
After dinner there was a video presentation and we could see that some guides were telling their groups to back-paddle when they hit a wave so they would fall in for sure, luckily Anne didn't do that to us.

At night, we started our own fire and enjoyed a cozy gathering around the fire with some deep conversation, where as usual I spoke the most and sang for the guys the folk song of “ MikhAm Beram Koh Shekare Aho, Hay Leili jan hay Laili jan tofang man ko!” In two distinguish versions! One as it is sang in Persian (mellow, relax tone) and the second one was sang with some influence of Rap music!!!!(Imagine that!!) A guitar was borrowed from a tent beside us and we played the same Persian song and people sang along with me!!!!!!!!!
Late night when our gang got a little weary and tired! I left them to see what was going on the other side of the camp side where tons of people were speaking in French in very loud and provocative way!! So, I walked towards them and got spotted by a few French fellows! After a short conversation, they decided that I am a cool guy and should be introduced to entire 200 French fellows who were there!!! So, we walked towards their big bonfire and I was introduced to plenty of French boys and girls from a small city close to Ottawa known as Rockland! I was told that these people were from Rockland and after a few years they were getting together! I would say that 95% were drunk!! So, after an hour and half being with them I decided I should go back and enjoy our own solitary fire! And so, my Sunday night ended there! I went back to my tent and realized, oh, my god it is cold!! It started to rain a little while I was getting ready to sleep. So, I decided to go to sleep! I wore couple of sweeter and went inside my sleeping bag and put on my hat on and hoped I would fell well soon! It wasn’t that bad, except in early morning I felt a little cold on my toes! I should mention that I had covered my face, too. So, that my breath would no moisture the air inside the tent!

The night ended there with me with lots of cloths on!! The next morning arrived and after breakfast we decided to pack and leave by noon!

You know what's annoying? When it starts to rain when you're packing up. You know what else is annoying? Trying to stuff a tent into a bag that's not a stuff sack. Will, you need a stuff sack for your tent!

I loved the trip the whole way, through the white water, the crashing waves and the freezing cold. I would definitely do it again, even in May. And from now on, I'll have fond memories when I smell rented wetsuit!

We learned that French people are loud, for a long time, late into the night, then again early in the morning. People were up singing at 6:30, then at 7:30, a guy yelled PETIT DÉJEUNER (Breakfast)! And if you tell Quebecois you're from Ontario but can't speak French, they get mad at you.

Now I’m home, I’ve had a real shower, had my dinner, and I’ll be in bed soon. And be thankful for the great old home!!!

Making Choices to see the sunshine

1. One of my write up has been published in Iranian.com, the link is Losing time to technology, enjoy!

2. The following write up has taken from Aliex the girl site. I could not find the proper link to it so, I had to cut and paste it here, becasue I had it in my e-mail.

I truly enjoyed reading it:-)
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It wasn’t the clear blue sky with a light breeze and a back yard in which to enjoy it, nor was it the very unexpected and beautiful gift from my friend. It wasn’t a bath, a nap or tea or the fact that I found a fabulous skirt on sale at my favourite store.

It was just my choice to shift my attitude that has me in such a state of pure, simple, breezy relaxation, happiness most importantly possibility.

For the past seven months, I feel as though I’ve been in a thick fog made from sadness, negative situations, and a run of bad luck.

It started in January when I lost my two nieces, something that devastated me terribly and which I kept trying to recover from, but just couldn’t quite do it (especially since I had purchased their birthday gifts which ended up sitting in my closet as a reminder for 7 months). In February I went to Paris for my birthday which should have been nothing but fabulous (and, I assure you the night of my birthday and the night after – two of my favourites, ever) but I was terribly ill for the entire month due to an ovarian cyst which left me lethargic, sore and puffy.

March came and I realized a friend in the writing industry had used me and that there were just no bones about it. I had to struggle with this for a while along with other issues about the creative industry, which left me feeling sad, lonely and taken. It didn't help that I generally receivd hundreds of emails a day from people who demanded things from me (advice, time, money) and I was never replenished. So I spent so much time trying to help but being so drained by the process.

In April I realized I could no longer write for a living because it was far too lonely – after three years I missed people and I missed doing tactile things. I was also very bitter with creative people, the

fakeness, the copying, the phrases. I didn’t know what to leave writing for and began to feel like I was just drifting. I couldn’t go back to an office world but I couldn’t move forward as I was. It was all so trying.
May and June brought Chris studying like mad to graduate which had me feeling left out and strange. Throwing him a party for family members brought conflict and tiredness. I also broke out twice in a strange case of hives, which had me being rushed to emergency because I couldn’t breathe. Sadly, that didn’t bother me as much as the fact I had red welts all over my body and face.

July brought the most pain, I think. It would be the time I think I’ve been at my lowest. People started to party all night – every night – in our complex and when I asked them once at 3AM to be quiet, they came out to my door and slammed on it, threatening me with my life. The scary part was one of the girls worked in the leasing office and complained the main agent who told me to not harass people and that my rent was going to go up $150. This caused us to have to move in two days, which took money we didn’t have (since I haven’t really been working save for a few photographic travel assignments). My body was sore, my spirit was broken and I was angry. I felt pushed into a direction I didn’t want to go. When we did move, my body was so swollen and the place so overwhelming that I just ended up collapsing one afternoon only to have to get up the next day to unpack, settle and do more.

On top of all of this, I lost both my parents and had (and still do) a mentally ill half-sister who has been stalking and threatening me the entire time.

I felt that I kept getting hit every day from every direction. I had been trying for so long to hold on. But after months of it all and of me feeling trap to complaining, being negative and jumping on the life sucks bandwagon, I had no strength left. I had no magic left. I had no possibility left and my body and mind just gave out. Literally.

I was emotionally and physically drained, causing me to become like a zombie for a few days in my bed. This was more than wallowing; I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything. The magic that I felt I once possessed – to see the world in a beautiful, charming way, to laugh at silly things, to be entertained easily, to deal with things and move forward, to be excited about the future and to feel possible, well, it seemed gone.

I thought this is it. This is how I am. I had a long run at having an amazing life and now I used it all up. There wasn’t anything left to do. I was in a city I didn’t like, in a house I was scared of, without family, without a job or career, with friends far gone and nothing to show. Seven months of things just hitting me without ever feeling like I caught a break, received a helping hand, had a bit of comfort, well, it was too much.

It wasn’t like me to complain but I had been bitching non-stop to Katrina about how I had to move and how I missed my pretty lake-view flat with painted walls and was now in a house that overwhelmed me and scared me. I complained about how hard everything had been and how I just felt lost. She let me whine for a while but then she wrote me an email that kicked my ass.

She said, “But think about all that you do have.

At first, I wanted to scream at her because I thought that wasn’t supportive. All that I have? Did she know the hell this year has been? But then I thought about it. And I thought some more. And I realized that despite every crap thing that happened – I am still here. I still have possibility, I still have adventures waiting, I still have the ability to see the beautiful and I have the determination to change everything I don’t like and accept what I can if I choose to believe in this way.

And that day changed everything.

I started to feel better about the house, realizing we had to do it and it’s only temporary until our move to Europe. And, in fact, I’ve been enjoying the yard so much (two hours worth of gardening and weeding each night. Rock star arms!). When the curtains went up, the candles came out and some paint went on the walls, it was home.

I started to make contacts for what I want to do, I went and got a new hair cut (a fringe! Sassy!), I got rid of the presents for my neices so that I'm no longer reminded each day, I got rid of some of my fathers old belongings and have stopped anticipating emails and calls from my mum. I began to relax and read for the first time in ages, I’ve been selling literally 1/2 of my belongings to get rid of the old so that I can move forward and I’ve just gotten over being poopy, disheveled, and a victim of all things crap.

Adjusting my attitude, knowing that how I view this life is my choice, of waking up, of making different choices on how I see things, has been the key to me getting off my arse and back to who I am – someone I haven’t seen since last year.

Things aren’t all cleared up, resolved or even easy but that’s OK for now because they’re not things that are going to stop me or ruin what I can possible have and do in the future. Because I’m choosing to rock out in spite of it all.

And that feels so good.