What would you do if you were in my shoes?

I consider myself a tidy and neat person. I don't know if it's good or bad, because most of the time it helps me a lot, but right now it's acting conversely. Let me start with my room: The books are usually tidy in the bookcase, my shoes are always clean, my clothes are ironed in advance when I want to go somewhere and each hung on a separate hanger, I always use my own bathroom, my own shampoo, and my own everything. I'm rather fussy about my personal belongings. But now that we're moving places, we've put all our things in boxes; therefore, I don't know where exactly my things are. We've piled the boxes in a temporary apartment until we find a suitable permanent one and that's why for every single thing I need to go quite a long way from my Grandmother's house--which we're presently staying at--to pick that thing up. I feel like I'm in the middle of nowhere; I mean I had so many plans for the summer, but I can't rest assured until I have my belongings tidied in a safe place so that they can't be harmed.
This election is becoming a hassle too. If it wasn't for the unstable situation, we wouldn't have to move twice.

7.4.87

Today is the 7^th of Tir—which I consider a lucky day—and I’ve just finished reading the book Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I know you may have read it many years ago; I myself came across this book about 8 years ago, too, but I don’t know why I didn’t read it. Everybody talked about it those days and the writer had so many fans in Iran that he decided to visit Iran. He met his fans in the “Book City” of Niavaran. I went there with one of my friends—one of my classmates in the second grade of high school—and it was ridiculous, because I hadn’t even read one of his books. It was one of those events that everyone was excited about at school. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t in the picture at all.

Before I go any further about my findings, I’d like to tell you that I wanted to bring up this topic a long time ago; actually I wanted to write about this as my first blog post in the internet and that’s why I have named my blog “Karma.” However, each time I made up my mind and wrote a few lines of draft, when I reread what I had written, it sounded stupid to me and I thought no one would believe it; therefore, I postponed it to some other time and that some other time is now.

Some of you might think I’m superstitious, some might think I’m delusional, but it’s true; whatever I say has truly happened to me. The number “7” keeps occurring to me. I was beginning to doubt my judgment when I read the mentioned book and this was another sign. I see this number then I somehow know what I think of or what I have on my mind is right. At first I thought this was an accident but then the message became so obvious and clear that I couldn’t ignore. For instance, when something was wrong and I was unable to think properly and wondered what would happen, I suddenly saw number 7 as the number of an apartment meaning everything would be alright. I doubted it, but then quite immediately I saw 77 as the number of another house. Again I doubted it and thought to myself it was a coincidence, and then I saw a car with the number 77 ب 777. I was shocked to the point that I had goose bumps. Aside from number 7, other things happen to me, too. I think of something and I turn on the TV and see people talking about the very same thing I’ve been thinking about. I wish someone would say something and that person says the thing I have on my mind. Luck has been on my side ever since the signs started.

Don't know where to start

Right now, at the very present moment that everybody is burning the midnight oil to study the exam materials, I'm sitting in front of my computer thinking I'll start right away, but when I turn the PC off and try to read something I'm sure I'll look for an excuse not to do away with the studying. Have you ever felt like this? I'm positive you have, unless you're one of those book worms that are seen studying all the time. While a huge pile of work or books is waiting for you at your desk, you convince yourself that there would be no harm if you started tomorrow, or next Saturday, or on the 15th or any other round number! I always remember what Mr. Rakhshani said: "Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow." It's always like this rather than the other way round, isn't it? The story goes on like this until the night before the exam-that sleepless night-when you go above and beyond to finish reading all the materials once at least. On the day of the exam, stressed to death, thinking everyone else is ready but you, with those empty looks of yours when someone asks a question, you go to the exact place of exam, waiting for your executioner to show up and give you the test. You look at the questions quickly and you recognize you don't know some and the answer to the rest is so vague that you don't know what to write.

After the exam you promise yourself that next time you'll do better and that you won't leave all the hard work for one night, but when exactly that next time comes no one knows. It seems it goes on like this forever like a vicious circle you can't get out of. Maybe I'm too undecisive that I'm facing such problems....you tell me.

After 7 years

My uncle (on my mother's side) arrived on Monday from America. I hadn't seen him for nearly 8 years. You know, when it gets this long, you just think you don't miss them, but when you finally see them you can feel the sudden rush of sensations, which have been bottled up, overflowing. You suddenly think what you are going to do when they leave, and how you have managed to go on without them this many a year. The bonds become stronger and stronger and you want to spend all of your time together. In the case of my uncle, who listens to every detail of your everyday routine with patience and love, you will come to the conclusion that you don't want to let them go one more time.

Politics

It's getting harder for me to resist writing about political issues, especially with last night's so-called controversy. I'm gathering my thoughts these days to finally decide who to vote for but the harder I try to concentrate, the more difficult it gets to come up with a conclusion. What is politics after all? If we were to discover the politicians' true intentions, we would have been politicians ourselves and as far as we're not politicians, I believe a lot of relations will remain stealthy and undercover to most of us.

You sit in a taxi and the driver talks like he's an expert in political matters. They wouldn't call it politics if everyone could discover what goes on behind the curtains. Among all the people some intellectuals might be able to guess the real connections between people and events but that would only be a guess and nothing more. Only God knows what each candidate is up to. I think we should vote for the one who sounds more logical; how can someone who doesn't understand the problem itself be able to find a solution to it? Some candidates' solutions sound really ridiculous and I'm surprised why some people still insist on voting for them. It's disgusting how some candidates manipulate youngsters by nice but untrue mottoes and this is unbearable for me. I don't know, maybe if I were their age I would be as excited. It's still a long way till the election-which is 8 days form now-and I can't wait to see the results.

Definitely read this!

I came across this email a few days ago which I found funny and interesting but true. I try hard not to get involved in political matters but I couldn't help going through this one and again I couldn't help translating it into English for you. Please forgive my poor translation beforehand.

A senator dies and unlike many others he's sent to heaven. At heaven's door, the guard surprisingly says: " It's quite a long time we haven't had a senator here! God has ordered me to offer you two options; you can choose between heaven and hell after you've spent a day in each." He immediately answers: "I've made up my mind and I want to go to heaven." The guard replies: "I'm sorry I can't open the door for you. It's an order and you must spend a day in each place and then decide where to stay."

So he spends the first day in hell. He finds many of his comrades there. They play golf together, dance, drink, listen to music, play cards and have a really good time. To his surprise, he finds the weather very nice and cool and thinks what everyone had said about hell was wrong. By the end of the day he's had the best time of his life never wanting it to end.

The next day he's sent to heaven. He finds very few familiar faces but again enjoys his time the whole day. Nice weather and entertainment of any kind was available for him as he had expected; however, he's found hell more interesting and appealing.

At the end of the second day, the guard asks him where he wanted to stay and he answers "hell," with no hesitation. On the third day he's sent to hell to stay there forever. Disappointed to see that there's just a barren land with no food, no entertainment and no friends at all, he asks the guard: "What happened to what I saw yesterday? This is completely different." The guard replies: "That was before you VOTED for it."

Co-education

Imagine being asked to spend twelve or so years of your life in a society which consisted only of members of your own sex. How would you react? (Of course all of us have experienced such conditions!) You wouldn't feel too happy about it.
In my opinion no one can put up with that situation unless there was something definitely wrong with them. It is very surprising to me that parents or education authorities impose such abnormal conditions on youngsters.
Any discussion of this topic is bound to question the aims of education. To me the main aim of education is to equip young people with all they need to take their place in adult society. Now adult society is made up of both men and women, so how can a segregated school prepare young people for this purpose? Anyone entering adult society after years of segregation can only be in for a shock.
I believe a co-educational school offers children nothing less than a true version of society in miniature; therefore, it's comparable to real society on a small scale. Boys and girls have the opportunity to get to know each other; they learn to live together from earliest childhood, and they are put in a position where they can compare themselves with each other in terms of academic ability, athletic achievement and many of the extra-curricular activities which are part of school life.
Co-education disproves the theory that boys are cleverer than girls or vice-versa. In a co-educational school, everything falls into its proper place. Having classes together is an excellent idea and is successful in most schools. This way, boys become aware of girls' abilities and vice-versa; a spirit of co-operation and competition thrives in the co-educational system.
Girls and boys at a self-conscious age take extra care of themselves. Growing up together and sharing activities will widen the students' talents and a healthy atmosphere pervades in all co-educational schools. The spirit of co-operation that grows between boys and girls makes it easier later on to adjust in a mixed society. However, when boys and girls are separated, they feel they are poles apart. Boys and girls get involved in rivalry instead of constructive competition.
We know that adolescence is a critical age. Teenagers experience a lot of physical and emotional changes. Their characters are not stable yet; they need time so that their final characters take shape. Naturally if they are in a segregated school they might easily form illusions about the opposite sex; for example, boys might think that girls are mysterious creatures or girls might imagine that boys are romantic heroes. Such illusions can be dangerous when later boys and girls want to form relationships and work together. In my opinion the greatest advantage of co-education is that it prevents boys and girls from forming such illusions about each other. Under co-education teenagers are disillusioned very soon; as a result, co-education helps teenagers to form a realistic attitude toward the opposite sex and a healthy attitude toward life. Another advantage of co-education is that it prevents sexual deviation. If not exposed to a co-educational environment, there are will be some disadvantages. A male-only school has homosexuality rate of 63%, more than a public school open to all genders with a 14% rating. This is one of the faults with not having mixed schools.
Some parents prefer to send their children to single-sex schools in order to minimize their contact with the opposite sex, and therefore, to some extent prevent their children from its aftermaths (again, of course in our country there's no other choice, but let's imagine we were in a position that we were allowed to choose.) First of all, it's important to understand that just by sending your child to an all-girls or all-boys school doesn't stop them from seeking out the opposite sex. You can minimize contact when your child is in school, but you can't stop your children meeting others through extra classes, the neighborhood, or through friends. If your child meets someone with whom she shares chemistry, and if she makes the decision to contact such person, there's little a parent can do.
On the other hand, when you send your child to a co-educational school, your child will have exposure to the opposite sex from the outset; hence, your child will not only feel more comfortable in the company of the opposite sex, but will also be able to handle advances better. This way, boys don't grow up believing that women are airy goddesses , more like book illustrations to a fairy-tale than human beings. After all, there are no goddesses with freckles, pigtails, piercing voices and inky fingers, and there are no romantic heroes with knobbly knees, dirty fingers and unkempt hair.

In conclusion, when the time comes for young people to leave school and enter society, they are fully prepared to do so as well-adjusted adults. They've had years of experience in coping with the problems that men and women face.

On the other hand, if you examine the Western sociologists and what they have discovered through their research, their studies more or less negate the positive aspects of co-education. In fact, the increasing achievement level of female students has been attributed to the increase on single-sex classes. Single-sex classes along with a female teacher, provides a positive role model for the students, not only in traditionally female-dominated subjects like humanities, but also in subjects like science and engineering. The latter subjects, which were traditionally considered as "male domains" are now being characterized by increasing female achievement levels. Single-sex classes increases the confidence of female students, according to this interpretation, and results in a more positive attitude to science and technology subjects.

A psychologist working on the study of individuals, Michelle Stanworth, who carried out her study "Gender and Schooling," discovered that interaction in the classroom affected the female students in a very negative way: they got less attention of the teachers, were discouraged from class participation and lacked self-esteem considerably. Her conclusion was determined by interviews with teachers. When asked about whom they give the most attention to, the teacher named a male student two and a half times as often as a female student. Most of the teachers felt that it was much more difficult to remember the names of the female students of the class. Discouragement in class participation was determined through the response of the pupils who reported that the male students were four times more likely to join a class discussion, twice as likely to seek help from the teacher and twice as likely to be asked questions. And finally, girls' underestimation of their ability was discovered when the pupils were asked to rank themselves in terms of their ability, and teachers were asked to rank their students accordingly. In 9 out of 24 cases in which there was a discrepancy between the two rankings, girls had placed themselves lower than their teacher's estimate and all but one boy placed themselves higher than the teacher's rank (!).

The above mentioned studies do point towards the fact that mixed-sex classrooms are disadvantaging female students in many ways. Of course the above studies have been criticized as well. But we can't ignore the fact that if the wider society is characterized by patriarchal relations, such relations tend to reflect themselves in the classroom as well, which, as I said in the beginning, is considered as a miniature form of the society as a whole.