Santa Cleaned My Toilet

I hope y'all had a nice Christmas. I woke up Christmas morning, headed to bathroom, and what did I find? Blue water. Being as I was still groggy from sleep, I started out thinking, "Wow, the famous blue pee of Santa Claus..." Then I was like, "Wait a minute...Santa Claus doesn't pee blue!" So I thought, how could this Christmas miracle have occurred when I was the last to go to bed at 2 the night before. Then the real explanation struck me: Santa Claus cleaned my toilet. Yup, and may I add that over 24 hours later the water is still blue in only that toilet and no one knows why.

As far as presents, I received 2 sweaters, 2 shirts, 1 pair of pants, 1 pair of earmuffs (#1 on Xmas list), 1 Juicy Couture Horseshoe charm, 1 pair of boots, a bag of LifeSavers, and car window cleaner. I gave to my sisters 2 Coach purses, 2 sweaters, 1 pink velour sweatsuit, 1 shirt, and 1 pair of pants. Yup, Christmas is a fun time of year. Then we watched a marathon of OC episodes I had on tape, including Chrismakkuh! Then we went to go see The Aviator, which was really good and I highly recommend it. It's amazing how much Howard Hughes accomplished in his lifetime and if he didn't have OCD he couldn't have been that great. The OCD gave him the motivation to be a perfectionist, even though there was obvious emotional cost. Leo better get an Oscar this time, and Cate Blanchett too. They were both great, but Leo was just astounding. He so deserved a nom for Catch Me If You Can. What we failed to realize was that the movie was 3 hrs long (I don't think the film was, but there were a lot commercials/previews b4 it started so I think that took up a lot of time). When we got out of the theater we were hungry so we drove around looking of a restaurant open after 10 on Christmas and we found one: Bennigan's! That's right, Bennigan's was open till midnight on Christmas Eve and till 1 on Christmas! It was pretty busy too and the food was great. It was a nice atmosphere to end our nice Christmas day.

Arctic Blast

Yesterday was the first day of winter (since Tuesday night was Shab-e Yalda, Persian homies!), and there was no doubt about it. Here in Dallas we had the first snow fall of the season, and it was real snow, not ice! Of course my biggest fear was about going to work this morning. So I spent yesterday driving around town to get used to driving on icy roads. All night the news had cheesy "Arctic Blast" graphics and kept a play by play of all 500 accidents. I barely slept cuz I was so freaked out. So I got up this morning and kept my eyes glued to the news. It seemed our fair city was doing its job and sanding all the ice on the streets. But, to be cautious, I accepted by dad's offer to drive me to work. So off we endeavored in our Winter Wonderland. It was beautiful, but there was a lot of ice on Preston, esp. around LBJ. I made it to work safe and sound, where I totally rocked and doctor said that I could get into med school I wanted to because I'm super duper qualified. We had really cool cases too in neurosurgery and GI/gyno. My job's awesome; I learn so much.

After work, my mom and sisters picked me up and we went to Northpark Mall for Christmas shopping. While we were there, my mom suddenly says, "Hey isn't that guy famous?" I look over and I see it's...Barry Watson! It was so cool!! My mom was like, "grab your phone and take a picture; let's go talk to him!" I was like, "Mom, that's so not cool. Let the poor guy shop in peace." She was like, "No, he's sad that no one is running up to him." Well, I finally convinced her not to bother Barry. See, my family and I have had this indirect relationship with him for a while (meaning 6 degrees of separation). My really good friends (they're 3 sisters and one of them is getting married Jan 1 and the other just had her engagement party last month to the brother of one of my guy friends at SMU and is getting married in the summer) all went to the same middle school as him (Park Hill Junior High). Yes, Barry Watson moved to Richardson from Michigan when he was 8, the same age I was when I moved out of Richardson to Plano, (otherwise I would have gone to the same middle school as him and then gone to high school with Jessica Simpson). My sister and I's high school geometry teacher Ms. Blakely dated Barry Watson's dad for years and was always going off to his lake house. And last night, my mom and I were watching the 7th Heaven episode where Matt (Barry) tells his parents he wants to drop out of med school to save his marriage. Can you believe it? I'm getting chills. Celebrity sightings are few and far between in Dallas, but the only ones I've had (other than concerts) are:

1. Michael Irving when he visited my elementary school in 5th grade for Texas day (That same year I went to a party where Nina Shahravan was, the woman who later that year would get Irving sent to court)
2. Deoin Sanders when I trick-or-treated at his house in my neighborhood
3. Troy Aikman driving and jogging in our neighborhood. When his house burned down he bought another two streets over.
4. Katherine Helmond (Mona from Who's the Boss?) at III Forks. Boy, did she draw a crowd.
5. Kay Bailey Hutchinson on the airplane on my way to Juarez to get my green card in 4th grade. I was a huge fan of hers at the time.
6. OK, so this wasn't me, but my mom saw Fabio at DFW airport on her way to England. This was when he was cool, ie before the bird bit his nose.
   

Finals: Day 3

I'm so happy!!!!!!!!!!!! I took 2 finals today, British Authors 1 and Victorian Gender. Extremely writing intensive and equally rewarding. My A was guaranteed in BA1, but VG could go either way. I had it calculated that if I got an A on either the last paper or the final exam I would have an A in the course. After I took the VG exam, I got my paper and I got an....A!! She wrote all sorts of great stuff on it about how she read my paper with such excitement and how it's exemplary. I couldn't believe it. Do you know what this means? This means I have done the impossible. I've taken 20 hrs of course work in one term from 3 different colleges in 3 different cities and made a 4.0 in all the classes. How do you turn down someone with that on their transcript? This is one of the happiest days of my college life. All together now: WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finals: Day 2

My CF final went very well today. I don't think I've ever written so much: 4 essays and 5 identities. My hand was hurting and only served as a further reminder of the pain tomorrows 2 English finals will inflict on my phalanges. I found a mistake in the test: instead of E=mc^2 the professor had written E=MC2. I wrote him a little note about it, but it turned out that I was the last person to finish the exam. So I went ahead and pointed out to him that the equation he had written was energy equals the mass of the earth times specific heat times 2, not energy equals mass times the velocity of light squared. He looked at me and said, whoever noticed that deserves an A. I was positively screaming inside! He wished me the best and I did the same. Oh God, please let me have a 4.0 semester, please please! I'm pretty sure I have the A for CF and I definitely will have it for British Authors 1 tomorrow. I just have to nail Victorian Gender (3-6 pm) tomorrow and hope that I'm not too worn out from 3 hrs of writing my British Authors 1 exam (11:30 am - 2:30 pm). Today also marks the end of my tete a tetes with Cute Frenchboy. As I watched him turn in his exam and walk out of my life forever, I thought to myself "Au revoir et bonne chance en amour."

Finals: Day 1

OK, so today wasn't my first final, but it was my first SMU final: Social Psychology. I got my UTD grades back: A in College Physics I and A+ in College Physics I Lab. I also got my social psych grade, A-. Yeah baby!! Tomorrow is Social and Intellectual History of Europe. Today was my review and I had a very nice chat with Cute Frenchboy before it started. He's so cute and European, sigh. The review was okay, not very structured, Q&A style. I got my Brit Lit 1 paper back: A again. I really wish he exempt me from the final, but he was sort of tied because it's a team-taught class and he's not the "head" professor. Oh well, the A's in the bag anyway. I'm so happy I'm an English major and that I'm taking my science classes at UTD. That was the smartest decision I ever made. 2 finals down, 3 more to go.

Art Imitates Life

Broken Dreams

I almost don't believe it: Khatami: Iran's Democratic Reforms Failed.
I was in Iran in 1997 between Khatami's first presidential election and his inauguration. It was such an exciting time. Everyone was so hopeful of the future. They saw Khatami as a panacea for all their troubles, a chance to retrieve at least a modicum of the freedom and dignity of Iran's past. They were so sure that with Khatami in power everything would be all right. Instead, he was held back by a fundamentally flawed political system. In Iran, the power is not in the hands of the elected parliament or president, but in the appointed mullahs. The people don't have any say in who these religious officials will be or in the policies that they implement. You can see the problem: the system is not designed to represent the people and is a republic in name only (like how England is really a monarchy because the queen has little power, but the PM has lots more control). Khatami was an intellectual who thought he could make a difference in the country that he loves, but he couldn't. He was chained by the regime. What I'm surprised about is that he has the guts to admit it. But I guess he can now that he's out of power. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if he "disappeared" soon after leaving office. The government has little tolerance for the kind of things he said in his farewell address. I really wonder what the next president is going to be like, but unless they change the system it won't matter.

Dream On...

So I had a dream two nights ago that bothers me. I'm at my history final exam review and Cute Frenchboy is there (and he even speaks French!). We basically flirt like mad throughout the whole review, but I keep wanting to ask him what his email address is. So then we get a break in the middle of the review and, instead of asking for it or his cell phone number, I get up and get dolled up to go to a Persian party in the next room. When I get there, I say hi to everybody and I'm really excited to be at this party but I also want to get through it so that I can go back to Frenchie. So I'm speaking Farsi obviously this whole time until I get to one girl. I say "Salam" to her and she replies "whatever, I don't even want to be here." Then I say, "look I've got this hottie waiting for me in the next room, do you think I wanna be here?" Then she says, "so what? You're just gonna "do it" and then what?" And then I say, "I am not! I've never done that and I'm not planning on doing it today." Then she says, "Well if you want to be with him so bad what are you doing here?" I realize that she's right and I dash out (looking fabulous) to go back to him. Then I see him laughing and having fun with a 3 other girls and, it's like I'm invisible. I keep calling his name, and he doesn't even look at me.

Analysis: I think this dream indicates that those chains I thought I was free of are very much still attached. I never did pursue Cute Frenchboy. I had the opportunities, and I didn't take them because something was still holding me back. In my dream, when I had the opportunity to get Frenchie's number I immediately retreated into the Persian community even though it wasn't really where I wanted to be. I was happy there because I felt safe, secure, and the culture is so routine. But my routine was disrupted by the American girl telling me that this world is not what I really want. I think she represents my American self. She says that as long as I'm not compromising my morals there's no reason not to go have fun with people that I like to be around. When I went back into the "American" world, Cute Frenchboy didn't want me anymore. I think that's just an indicator of where I stand with him now; I had my chance, I retreated, and now my opportunity is gone. I may never see him again after Thursday. I have to stop living in fear.

Warrior Princess

HaHa! It turns out my ancient ancestors were female warriors! Can you believe it?

Bones Suggest Women Went to War in Ancient Iran

Sat Dec 4, 8:47 AM ET

Science - Reuters

TEHRAN (Reuters) - These days Iranian women are not even allowed to watch men compete on the football field, but 2,000 years ago they could have been carving the boys to pieces on the battlefield.

DNA tests on the 2,000-year-old bones of a sword-wielding Iranian warrior have revealed the broad-framed skeleton belonged to woman, an archaeologist working in the northwestern city of Tabriz said on Saturday.

"Despite earlier comments that the warrior was a man because of the metal sword, DNA tests showed the skeleton inside the tomb belonged to a female warrior," Alireza Hojabri-Nobari told the Hambastegi newspaper.

He added that the tomb, which had all the trappings of a warrior's final resting place, was one of 109 and that DNA tests were being carried out on the other skeletons.

Hambastegi said other ancient tombs believed to belong to women warriors have been unearthed close to the Caspian Sea.