You are as big as my pillow

My son is 4 and a half months old. Now he laughs to silly faces that I make, he rolls back and forth and getting ready to crawl, he discovered his hands, knows how to take pacifier out of his mouth and return it back,...  I watch him reaching to these milestone eagerly. It melts my heart seeing him grow so fast. I am a mom now. He changed me.
I am trying to record these moments as much as I can. Being a parent is wonderful. I love how he grow everyday, learn new things, gets easily excited by a simple toy or a silly face and never gets tired of it.
I love how he fits on my pillow. How I can hold his tiny feet with my thumb. A little man from

lilliput.

Come with me now

Afraid to lose control
And caught up in this world
I've wasted time, I've wasted breath
I think I've thought myself to death

I was born without this fear
Now only this seems clear
I need to move, I need to fight
I need to lose myself tonight

Woah come with me now
I'm gonna take you down
Woah come with me now
I'm gonna show you how

John Joseph 

Link to the music video.

Why Merlin finished this way?

I just finished watching last episode of final season of Merlin. Merlin is a fantasy mini series, about adventure of a younge warlock to help king Aurthor to rise and unite the 5 kingdom.

Nima and I really enjoyed watching this fun, adventures, kind of light, simple series. Merlin is one of the few TV series that we finished to the end. But I really didn't like the ending.

SPOIL ALART
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Why aurthor died for god sake?!!! I know in a legend Author dies by a hand of Mordred, but since this tv series already changed a lot of things about the old legend I was expecting Aurthor to live.

From the beginning, the dragon was telling Merlin that he was destined to help Aurthor to become a one and greatest king. A king who will unite 5 kingdoms and let magic to be practiced without fear.

Aurthor died, without any of these happens. The writers gave the old legend flavor of 21centry which I really liked it. Such as having people from different origin or class to become knight or even Queen.

Then why killing Aurthor before fulfilling his destiny that reapetedly said through out the series..
The writer could easily let Aurthor survive for many years, unit the kingdom, properly acknowledge  Merlin, set magic free,..and finally have Aurthor died for that wound that never completely healed at his old age. I should have been  the writer indeed :)

Summer, work, ...

Weather is warm, trees are all green, birds are singing, squirrels are jumping up and down, summer is finally coming. Nature is finally waked up and so do constructions which means more work.
I've been staying late god knows since when, can't even remember. I work weekends after weekends. I was jocking with my husband, that I better get pregnant and get a year off from work :D

These path few months have been tough for me, couple of key people including my manager left the group and one colleague got laid off. Naturally work pressure increased, both mentally and physically.

I hate it when people trying to be clever and take advantage of situation even if they don't really fit for the empty space. After all these years one thing never changed in me, I am still pretty much an idealist. It pains me when my colleague lies to self promote himself as a manager. The chevalier inside me wants to make wrong right all the time. Or maybe it's my Aries sign which pushes me forward to stand up for what I believe is right and speak up for what I believe is not.

 I like someone or something I show it easily but the downside is if I don't like someone or something there is no way for me to hide it. No matter how hard I try I will show I am upset, disappointed, angry, I just can't can't hide it.
but our life will be much more easier if we could let it go. Life is not fair, I know but I don't like it. I want it to be fair and just. We can always train and provide knowledge to nice people,but it is almost impossible to train someone as an adult to be nice, not to lie like a piece of cake, no to be jealous, ...

Life is life I know, I know. It's not fair but it should be.

Vita Angle

Some time for a fraction of moment, I manage to look at things from a certain angle. I call it Vita Angle. On that moment thanks to Vita Angle, the order of things change in my mind. I feel like for a fraction of second, I can see what really matters and what really not. I can see how small are my big problems; how meaningless is my grudge, disappointment or my anger toward this or that person. I can see how short my life is, a bubble by the sea. I can see what big mistake it is to hold and carry my empty heavy looked bagges. I can see I should stop carrying them and walk freely. 

I can see for that fraction of moment how much I care about my loved ones. From that angle my reasons to be angry with that colleague looks stupid. From Vita angle my reasons for disliking this or that sounds funny. 

Vita angle gives me a perspective, shows my life in real scale. Big problems shrinks and things that I take for granted grow larger all of a sudden. In that moment nothing is more important than holding my love's hand, talking, dancing, eating, and living every breath. 

Job posting: highly skilled worm traveller

We were watching The Universe today, an episode on worm holes, time traveling, black holes, etc. fascinating concepts around worm hole, makes me wonder, could we one day actually manage to use this highly unstable dangerous holes to visit another universe or even another time?

Imagine a day that we finally find these, but who dares to get into one? Probably a Viking descendent , the adventurers bloodline.

These holes are unstable based on what mathematical equations show. We might need to use dark matters to balance the hole wall. But even if we find a highly skilled adventurer who dares to step into this tunnel, no body knows where and what era the hole is heading.

One might ends up into the center of a burning star, or goes back in time where hairly Homo hadn't discovered fire yet. One might never comes back or comes back with "adventure of Galiver".

Physics is amazing, tries to find the answer to our most fundamental questions.

-What was before Big Bang? What did trigger this?
- The world is finite, what does this mean?
-Are there anybody out there? How do they look like?
-Can we actually travel past in time and physically be among people who were dead thousands of years ago?
- This amazing world of quantum physics , general and relativity physics and even Newtonian physics, how these rules came to become rule?
-Why gravity attract things? Why there is a reaction to every action? Where laws of physics are coming from?

Will actually one day, we learn about all these?

Maybe my grand grand grand grand grand daughter knock on my door one day and simply say hi granny I am coming from future. Of course I will call 911 right away.

Say hello to Mr Tangi

As a tradition which I am not sure when started, we Iranian (maybe other persians do it too) buy a red gold fish in a bowl for our 7sin table. I remember from childhood, we would bought three or four gold fish. Some wouldn't make it to two weeks and some would last a year.

Now I know gold fish need aquarium to survive. I stopped buying fish for 7sin for the past few years. This year I really wanted a perfect table. I knew the only fish which is comfortable in a bowl is a Beta fish. I bought a beautiful orange Beta for our table this year. Named Tangi short for Tangerine  because of his colour (this idea occur to me thanks to Scotia Bank who named ING , Tangerine now). 

Tangi is one happy male Beta, only few months old. He is making bubble nest already hoping to get lucky which sadly is not going to happen. Betas are very aggressive and territorial. In a bowl a male Beta even don't tolerate a female beta let alone another male. 

He eats his protein with added vitamin twice a day and swallow blood worms as a treat. I am careful not to overfeed him since this little gready fellow has a stomach as big as his eye.  My colleage the other day was teasing me about me having a fish as a pet. We were at lunch and he was having Mahi-Mahi. I didn't have name for Tangi yet and he was helping to choose one. "Call him lunch, oh oh I got it , call him Mahi-Mahi, oh no, since he is little call him just Mahi you know 1 rather than 2" :D

I have a picture of Tangi with fully open fins.

Five Hundred Miles

I heard this popular folk song today in a movie called "inside Llewyn Davis". It's an old song goes back to 1962 performed by The brother Four. 

The lyrics is simple, the song is very easy listening. 

 

If you miss the train I'm on,

You will know that I am gone,

You can hear the whistle blow, a hundred miles.

A hundred miles, a hundred miles,

A hundred miles, a hundred miles.

You can hear the whistle blow, a hundred miles.

Lord, I'm one, Lord I'm two

Lord, I'm three, Lord I'm four,

Lord, I'm five hundred miles away from home.

Not a shirt on my back,

Not a penny to my name,

Lord, I can't go back home this away.

This away, this away, this away, this away.

Lord, I can't go back home, this away.

If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone,

You can hear the whistle blow, a hundred miles.

A hundred miles, a hundred miles,

A hundred miles, a hundred miles.

You can hear the whistle blow, a hundred miles.

Here is the link to modern performance of this song byJustin Timberlake:  http://youtu.be/LzauF0VkECQ

Time flies faster as your responsibilities in life increase.

In the consulting world, the difference between "I am overwhelmed" and "I am on overhead" is one email :)

If you don't know Matthieu Ricard

This is a harsh winter here inToronto. I was thinking today how much mental effort it takes to stay positive and does not let extreme cold discourage you of being active. I guess a combination of gloomy winter, a news of my good colleage will be layed off soon, and then read this "sad love" posted by JP which made me cry, I felt like looking for something happy before going to sleep. I googled "happiest person on earth" and his name came up. He has a very interesting bio written in Wikipedia explaining how son of a French philosopher and a painter became a Tibetian Monk. Is he married? I am asking myself. Na, He is a monk, he does not have to be worry about loosing his love of life. He is free of ties 

"To scientists, he is the world's happiest man. His level of mind control is astonishing and the upbeat impulses in his brain are off the scale.

MRI scans showed that he and other long-term meditators - who had completed more than 10,000 hours each - experienced a huge level of "positive emotions" in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which is associated with happiness. The right-hand side, which handles negative thoughts, is suppressed.

Further studies have shown that even novices who have done only a little meditation have increased levels of happiness. But Mr Ricard's abilities were head and shoulders above the others involved in the trials."

I should go back to my meditation routin. 

Tonight's Doodling

Have lots of sun shine where ever you are :D

Lessons from penguins

Beginning of 2014 was bitterly cold in Toronto. This polar vortex covered big part of Canada for a couple of weeks. For me this was the coldest I experienced (windchill -38). Ice storme was also new to me. We escaped big part of it by staying out of town during holidays  but still after coming back extreme cold alarm was there to say hello.

Ice storm gave kind of a surreal shape to everything. Icy three, icy leaves, icy bushes, icy driveway ( which was very real and slippery by the way). I was joking that right now if you watch penguins TV, there are advertisement about new resorts in Toronto.

There are lessons to be learned from penguins in a polar vortex icy condition:

Number 1 ) layer up properly, you need a feather jacket (or equivalent), insulated, tightened and sealed to stop wind gets into your body.

Number 2) walk side to side like a penguins. This lessens a possibility of falling. No seriously I did, it works.

And Number 3) Get together like a herd of penguins. During harshest winter storm, penguins comes together, lay their head on one another shoulder. This way their body temperature adds up and makes cosy environment to survive the impossible windchill. Of course penguins rotate so no bird stay too long far from the core.

Number 4) ( this one penguins have no contributions to) consum warm drink. Not only increase your core temperature but also levels up your spirit.

Any way winter is here and I am going to make a best out of it.

Wisdom of an anonymous Bishop

I have a friend at work who is pretty funny. we have lunch together everyday. He is a serious game player with a high rank among gamers in Canada and call himself a Bishop.Today he told me something really wise. He told me that he couldn't earn one achievement in latest Call of Duty game in XBox and last night he dreamed about it. He said "Imagine how upset I was that I dreamed about it." Then he continued " you should make yourself fake challenges in life so that real ones have to stay in line". 

The Story of Two lovers

It was middle of a day about two years ago, when my colleage called me:

- Hiva I can see them outside of my window, they are here again.
- Who?
- The lovers.

For the past couple of years that I have been working in this building, every once in a while two cars one black and another one blue, come and park right beside each other, side by side, a woman gets out of one and enter to the other. The other car has windows all covered with sun reflector. After 3 to 4 hours, a woman comes out and each car goes its own way.

I recently moved to another spot close to the window with a beautiful view to a ravin and of course our parking lot. When I feel tired I look outside to refreshen my mind. It was about few month ago that I looked outside of a building and I saw them. The black car and and the blue car side by side. I was curious to see them, the famouse lovers that half of my office knows about.

At last, she came out of the black car, a woman in her fifties followed by him, a man of the same age. I should confess I was expecting a much younger woman. They hugged tightly and kiss each other long. Outside was chilly but they didn't have a care. It was obviouse saying goodbye was very hard for them. To me they are totally in love, affair or not, these two love each other badly.

This is awkward that two strangers having affair and chose a remote parking lot to meet and be with each other. They think no one of their family members know but then half of an office all strangers know about them.

Seinfeld's Wisdom

Nima and I have started watching Jerry Seinfeld sitcome from beginnings. I like this show, and it's casual way of presenting ordinary people in their everyday life. The show is about nothing that's what I like about it. No fancy dressing of actors, pretty face boys and girls, instead Ordinary faces, light funny atmosphere.

Anyway we just started watching season 2, Jerry and George are talking about relationship and jerry says something which is quitte deep actually. Here it is "Relationship is a living organism, you develop it and when you starve it, it turns against you". This is so true. 

Rememberence Day

I was nine-month old when my country engaged in a war which last for 8 years. With my family we lived in a city far far north of Iran. War front was all the way in south. I almost felt nothing;  Lost nobody in that war. I was too little and too protected. 

Iraq hoped to take advantage of Iran's revolutionary chaos and invaded part of southern land at borderline between the two countries. War began without formal warning. After two years, Iranian repelled iraqi's forces out and for whatever reason which is a mystery to me that nasty war lasted six more years. Iraq used chemical weapons during the war which claim many souls later, long after war was over. 

Many souls were lost from both sides, civilans died, suffered, wounded. Kids in schools bombarded. Sons who never made it back home and kept their parents waited for a long time hoping that maybe, just maybe one day they will see them again. Wifes who tasted bitterness of becoming a widow at young age and never had time to taste romance in their young husband embrace. Among Iranian soldiers there were many students mostly 16 to 18 years old, some even younger. All these beautiful brave souls perished. From both side of course; from both side. 

And all this for what, why?

 Because of one maniac who felt like invading another land, or another maniac who decided not to do peace at a right time. It's always like this isn't it. Give me one good reason, only one why it is good to start a war. Tell me why we should feel proud of perishing souls of other humans. Bombarding schools full of innocent children who are filled with life and cheerfulness. Why?

War is bad. War is always bad. 

Serenity

I need two wings. I would open them wide and fly high up the tallest tree on earth. I would sit on one of it's highest branches, and let my legs loose in the air to swing with wind. I would tilted me head back and laid it on the tree trunk and let go of myself. I would become united with a tree, leaves, wind, smell of wet grass, sunshine, rain drops, bird song...Serenity, that's is what I would fly to.

I only need two wings.

Cocaine and Cockaigne

Look at these two words Cokaigne and Cocaine. 

Cocaine as you know is a naturally occurring organic alkaloid present in the leaves of the coca plant. The drug makes one feel high, extremely elevates his/her mood and makes one feel suprime. 

Cockaigne or Cockayne (from Wikipedia) is a " medieval trope denoting a mythical land of plenty, an imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease where physical comforts and pleasures are always immediately at hand and where the harshness of medieval peasant life does not exist."

The two words are oddly similar. I think back in time before cocaine prohibition, advertisement could be something like: Cocaine takes you high up into Cockaigne :D

I Love You Dad

در سايبان تاكى

        آويخته است انگور

مو گيسوان خودرا

        افكنده بر لب تور

درزيرطاق اين رز

         افتاده است عكسى , از دخترم كه ماهى است با هاله اى پر از نور 

خورشيد نيز آنجا ،استاده نام نيما

پيچد چو نام اين دو

در كوه آلپ وآندا

آوا دمد بگوشم آ،آ،آ،آ....

I sent him this photo. He emailed it back with a poem attached. My dad is a writer and he rarely write a poem, not for publishing just for himself. But this one is mine and I publish it in my blog. :D