Self-improvement!

Have you ever told someone what they do something wrong or even better how they should do it right? Have you ever told some that and they told you these words: “Don’t try to change me. I am who I am” or “At my age, it is impossible to change”. Well I have, and ladies and gentlemen it pisses me off so much! Even though the issue would be as simple as trying to teach them how to play volleyball properly, or let them know them getting stressed so easily is not healthy, nor is it helpful. It just pisses me off so much when people know they are doing something wrong, but they don’t want to try to fix it! What the hell?? And they tell you they cannot change. I say that’s BS! That is just them trying to take the easy route of not facing their problems and trying to solve them. Of course the cases are not limited to getting stressed or learning how to play a sport. Even things as simple as trying to be organized or tidy count in too. Yes I agree, it is hard to change your ways or habits. But the least you could do is to try. Don’t just say you cannot do it, or you are who you are and you don’t want to change. That is lame. A bit pathetic too. As you can tell, this bothers me. But I cannot force people to do anything. Anyways, just thought I share this with you.

To all the Muslims out there,

Happy Eid Fitr! (Eid ul'Fitr Mubarak!)

Yesterday was the last day of Ramadan, so today is the first day of the next Arabic calendar month, Shawwal. So today is the Eid ul'Fitr, one of the four holiest days of Muslims. I for one am happy today. One thing went quite wrong this morning, but it is OK. There was an important lesson learnt out of it, so I guess it worked out for the best. I don't think I have mentioned this here before, but I consider myself very religious. I think I have strong beliefs in God, in the religion of Islam, the right Islam that is. Not the one represented by many Iran's Mullahs, or Taliban-like-individuals. I also believe I am in intelligent enough to challenge all my beliefs to make sure I am not just "blindly" listening to others. Just because I was born a Muslim, even though I strongly challenge the idea of being born with a religion, or any religion, doesn't mean I shouldn't think about what I am thought, or expected to believe in. Anyways, I just wanted to bring this up. I tried it few times during Ramadan but I guess I was too lazy, or busy (my favorite excuses!!)
What I really wanted to talk about was why I fast. What is the purpose? What is the philosophy or logic behind it? There has to be some logic behind everything, right? I got two older brothers, who didn't fast. They also asked me the same question, why fast? My oldest brother, God bless him, even made fun of me once saying that this fasting business is old school, or it is Mullahs (Clerics) fooling you, or something like that. But in my brothers defense, once they realized I am actually quite serious about fasting and all, they respected my believes, and whenever they saw me, the would say "Namaz Rouze'hat Ghabool Basheh" which in Farsi means I hope your prayers and fasting are accepted by God. Some traditional phrase Iranians use a lot during Ramadan. But back to the main question, why I fast? Well I have good reasons. But I will talk about it in a later post. I am tired now. Just joking. I should get back to work. I had a long enough break.

Peace people, peace.

It has been a while, wouldn't you say?

It has been a while since I wrote something. A week and three days to be exact. I could blame many things, such as me being lazy, me being very busy with work, graduate school applications, and last but not least, my statement of purpose for graduate schools. I sincerely hate applying to schools, and going through all the trouble. But even more I hate not going to grad school next fall. That would be the ultimate break down. So I have to deal with all the efforts necessary to get into a good graduate school, hopefully Stanford. But having mentioned all the above excuses I also have another problem regarding postings on my blog. Sometimes I feel like writing about very simple and mostly insignificant matters, such as me being annoyed by the dude next door, or me getting excited by this girl emailing me. You know, everyday life affairs. But when I am half way through writing and I read what I have written so far, I ask myself, who cares about these so-called affairs of mine? Who needs to know about them? No one I tell myself, no one. I mean there are a lot more important issues to talk about. So then I delete everything and have nothing to post. But I think I am going to change my ways. I will be more than glad to write about important issues and matters that concern me and I think should concern everyone, such as the Palestine-Israel conflict. Or the US foreign policy. Or about democratic Iran and how we should get there. And I will try to write about these as much as I can. But on the side, I will write about how I feel towards some not-so-important matters, and hopefully you as the great reader of this blog won’t mind it too much.

Cheers and peace…

Are you freaking blind?

Ok, a ten-year Palestinian boy is dead because "The Israeli army said they had opened fire on suspicious figures spotted close to the border crossing point, which is banned to Palestinians.
"They appeared to be carrying wires and other pieces of equipment for an explosive device and were thought to be planting a bomb near the community," a military source said." Are you kidding me?? I thought this Israeli army has whatever US army has, and US army is pretty advanced. So you would think they would be able to tell the difference between few kids "trying to catch birds with a net" with possible terrorists no?
This is getting really out of control. Israeli army shoots and kills whatever moves, which in most cases are just Palestinian civilians, or journalists, and afterwards they would just say "oops, we thought they were militants"!! This is quite pathetic my friends, quite pathetic. I don't know when it is going to be when US people realize their government is so unconditionally supporting this one state, Israel, which majority of people in the rest of the world consider to be the main threat to world peace. But I hope and pray it is sometime soon.

Damn...

Here is the BBC's profile for Israel-Palestine "areas" as it is refered to in BBC:

"The creation of Israel was the culmination of the Zionist movement, whose aim was a homeland for Jews scattered all over the world following the Diaspora. After the Nazi Holocaust, pressure grew for the international recognition of a Jewish state, and in 1948 Israel came into being.

Much of the history of the region since that time has been one of conflict between Israel on one side and Palestinians, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and Israel's Arab neighbours, on the other. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced, and several wars were fought involving Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. " (To read more go here...)

Now my question is, ever wonder why nobody talks about the history of Israel, or how Israel came about? I think the answer is simple. They know they did something wrong. And by they I mean the Jews. But they don't want to face it. The truth would make them sick. Of themselves. And Americans don't want to face the truth of them supporting some wrong-doers, because they are generally horrible with apologizing and admitting they did something wrong. So they avoid it, so they don't have to apologize.

Ok I know nothing could be as simple as the above, but for few seconds, I wished that was the case. I wished they "knew" they have done a horrible thing, but they just don't want to admit it. But ladies and gentlemen, it is worth than that. They do NOT know. And it seems they would never know, as they would never listen to people like me. Damn...

Anti-semitism

New definition: criticizing the ‘holy’ state of Israel. Holding Israel accountable for killing civilians. Telling the truth about Israel that is unpleasant for Israel to hear.

According to this news, Israelis don’t like to be called the main threat to world peace, no only by people in Middle East, but also by most people in EU. And Israel’s reaction? It wants to stop EU to attend the peace talk, calls the Arab-biased, and what to condemn EU. This my friend, is pathetic. Simply pathetic. This attitude towards criticism is actually common between Israel’s and Iran’s government, and its supporters. And Israel calls itself a democratic country. Oh please…

More on this later…