The dice are loaded part 1: struggles of a young Iranian, planning to get higher education in the United States

There are many "YES I MADE IT" moments in a young Iranian's life who decides to move to another country (for most cases, read United States of America) to get higher education.

It starts with a moment that is not a "YES I MADE IT" moment. It's when you finally finish your undergraduate studies in Iran. You probably went through a series of depressing and stressful moments in those 4 to 6 years of education. Election results that made you, your family, and some of your friends cry. Stupid fights with so-called professors over unrelated mandatory religious courses that you had to take. Or a few days of suspension from school because you shook hands with a girl on campus. 

Not everything about  your college life is as absurd as that though. You participated in a lot of events. You illegally screened Reservoir Dogs in your school and got away with it. You partied. You met a lot of great friends. You had fun too. However, after finishing up, you would probably have a "OH THANK GOD IT'S FINISHED" moment.

Your westernized side, pushes you to decide to pursue the american dream. Or,  the Iranian dream. Better school experience, being more independent, Nine Inch Nails concert, safer and cheaper whiskey, money,  and even more freedom. 

And after that decision, it all begins...

-TOEFL exam.  Check.
-GRE exam. Check.
-Application to 8 schools all over America, and 2 in Canada.  Check.

You wait for the admission decisions for a couple of months. one of them gives you admission. You are at your friends house drinking or playing poker. You see the Email and yell:  "YES I MADE IT"

Two days later you receive an email that says the graduate office didn't approve of your admission because your GPA was too low.

You call them and explain to them why your GPA is not actually too low. They somehow understamd.  Give you a "conditional admission". You post the news on your Facebook page, people congratulate you and you think:  "YES I MADE IT".

And after that it all begins...

-Apply for a visa interview in a foreign country because there's no embassy . Dubai?  Turkey?  Armenia? Check.

-gather the material  required for the interview and all the other stuff people recommend you take with you. Check.

- convince the military people that you will come back and get your permission to exit the country. Check.

-get airplane tickets. Check.

-read every blog post and article about how to do the US visa interview. Check.

The time for the interview arrives. you wake up in a foreign country, you drink some water and go stay in line for the interview. They collect your papers and you wait... you wait... and they call your number. You fill a questionnaire about your siblings and the terrorist crimes you might have committed. Then you wait... you wait and they finally call your number to talk to you.

They ask you why you wanna pursue a master's degree in the united states. They also ask you why you will go back to your country after the degree. You cannot tell them you actually just wanna drink better beer and see Leonard Cohen live, and not do military service. And you really would rather stay there for a longer period. So you ramble about how education is important and you think your country lacks good education and you want to progress and become a great teacher and then go back and teach.

If you are lucky, you will get your visa, In a couple of days and you get it with "multiple entries". If not so lucky, you get your visa in 6 months, and you get a "single entry visa". either way, you wait for your visa, you get it somehow. and when you see a nice blueish page with English letter on your passport, you smile and say "YES I MADE IT".

And after that it all begins ....

-Finish up your undergraduate stuff. Check.

-Spend one week trying to find people who have to sign your graduation off or it would take them 6 months. Check

-Get temporary military service waiver. Check.

-Get permission to exit the country.Check.

-Get tickets to your destination city with two or three layovers. 

And then you are ready to say goodbye to your parents,your siblings, your friends, your favorite food, your favorite street, your favorite cafe. Then you fight with your girlfriend and tell her that she will go next year. You kind of make up. You cry every few days. Fill yourself with great food And you get excited for your adventure. 

The last day finally arrives. You go to the airport. You somehow feel empty. your friends come with you to the airport. just to say one last goodbye. Your girlfriend comes too, but stays outside the airport because she can't really meet your family. you hug everyone and walk towards gate 3 or 21. You held yourself for too long, you break in tears and think : "YES I MADE IT" . 

And after that it all begins...

To be continued

Pride

Everyone thinks about different problems we, humanity I mean, face. By problems, I mean the reasons behind all these messed up things that have been happening to us, throughout history. We are problematic in an individual scale and we are problematic in a social scale. And being imaginative, and using that imagination to solve our problems is probably one of the few things that has granted us survival so far. Again, survival in an individual or social sense, is one of first things on our agenda. Then comes pleasure, happiness, and important shit. We have been successful so far, I mean some people go crazy, or commit suicide. And a lot of people die in wars, and the majority of people live in some sort of misery. We have survived so far.

our problem solving capabilities, and our imagination, comes with its own downfall though. from time to time, or generation to generation, we put too much pride and trust in our abilities. We end up messing things up, and then depend on our smartness and instincts to solve the problem. pride, works as a mechanism to divert our understanding of our problem's cause to an easier stage. Just like when we easily discriminate between each other and then pick on people who mention another person's skin color, or size.

I don't really want write about this subject much. But to see whether we, our cities, or societies are resilient enough to survive a powerful disturbance, we shouldn't only look at these systems' structures. There are some mechanisms inside these systems the are alterable, but alterations are kind of difficult, and it would require us to admit that we are problematic. So:

"The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps."

I wish Jiraya was my teacher. Why i'm angrier than my not-so-angry-at-all usual self these days.

Some people make me really mad.

A mix of different arguments and dialogues I've participated in, with best friends, good friends, friends, people I care about, used to care about, don't give a shit about, people I love, used to love, and myself; has created a theme of thoughts and feelings for me. Thoughts about how I should act upon certain things like an opinion, or a strange letter, or simply judging people. I later thought of these "how to do" ideas as principles. I'm not sure if that is a good word to call them. It probably is.

The idea of "principles" came to my attention through experiencing Japanese stories - I kind of feel like I've talked about them before- Something I first noticed when I watched "Seven Samurai". What fascinated me was that the heroes in that movie were hungry and poor. And decided to protect that village for some little money and food. Not honor and glory. I noticed it again when I saw "yojimbu" (I'm not sure if i'm spelling this correctly ), Characters that do their best to keep their word. And I'm not sure how that can become close to reality. They probably can! I experienced these kinds of ideas later when I got into Japanese anime, something regarded by the majority of people by a children's medium, and by some of my friends and I and probably other people too, as one of the best things we've ever experienced in our lives. You can easily see characters that are really perverted, In our societies' terms, and are heroes, and actually have thought-provoking ideas too. Something that is pretty much true about a lot of great human beings in history.

These kinds of characters, that might kill a number of people, and might lie to everyone, and might do anything they can to save their village, are characters hat I haven't experienced much in stories coming out of other cultures. These "principles" that these characters have, are then complemented by very simple goals and often very difficult goals : I want to become the head of the village, I want to protect my brother, I want to kill my brother, I want to save my friend, I want to have fun.

I mentioned all of these ( and I'll get back to them soon) , just to say that I've been pretty mad( or annoyed? ) at a bunch of people these days.

An old teacher of mine , recently posted something about this woman, Iranian woman, that got the highest prize in mathematics. He said : She probably tried very hard, and the great Satan ( an Ironic reference to what the Iranian government used to call the US when we were kids ) provided the infrastructure of her success. What has Iran got to do with it? ( referring to a massive amount of publicity created by happy Iranian people posting stuff about an Iran woman getting the best possible honor in mathematics. Underlying this post , he is criticizing Iran's very bad policies towards scientific progress, and other stuff too).

There was a lot of angry comments, specially by a few of my high-school friends. Why angry ? because we thought of his remarks on this story as being pretty fanatic. Because he used to have the same kind of strong arguments and opinions when he was our teacher in Iran ( and he is in the united states now ) , only his arguments were strongly religious and filled with anti-west and really annoying for us.

 There's probably nothing wrong with taking any of these sides that he has taken. But the problem is if you have very strong beliefs and opinions. really really really strong beliefs and opinions. and then you suddenly change them, and again have really really really strong beliefs and opinions, only in a different ( usually opposing to the first belief system) direction. Then you got to realize that something is definitely wrong with the way you think about stuff. And people get angry at you. And I think people are right.

It's kind of depressing for me, when people claim, and publicly present really strong ideas of morality, and then cannot really keep up with their public mask. And are not even smart enough to deceive people. Think of a person, who walks hand in hand with a girl he claims he loves ( maybe he does) and is in a relationship with her ( the relationship status does seem pretty typical and normal ) and then sleeps with other girls, in a way that friends of him find out, And still continues to keep up his public "mask". This kind of inconsistency becomes really depressing when this types of characters constantly talk about the dishonesty of the US government.

A small example of this kind of behavior is  people who constantly talks about progress and success, and how boring and dumb other people are, and then they are pretty happy and even more boring when they get a shitty fucked up job.

There is a huge difference between morality and "principles" . You are bound to keep up with morals ( most of the times with good reasoning behind it), defined by your society, cultural system, etc. on the other hand, principles are defined by the individual and are strong decisions. These principles can be taught and passed along. but they are definitely not universal. Unlike moralities which are considered to be universal. Principles are yours to keep up with. And if you don't its your own problem and probably loss.

I think what "principles" can create is a better sense of consistency, and less bullshitting.

The sad thing is though, when you talk about these kinds of ideas, something like having principles and shit, and how good being consistent is, how better it is to be consistent with bad moralities, than a dishonest human rights mother-fucking activist. After a while you realize, it is really easy to become an inconsistent and dishonest asshole. And at this moment, through my insomnia and active brain. I feel like I might be one of the zombies.

Not even sure if i care or not about it.

Sometimes I get really mad at my self.
and ....
Some people make me really mad!
And I really don't have any problems with, and actually love a great number of people.

A pancake story that you don't know about, a letter to someone I knew.

Well,  It's unbelievable, the series of thing that happened in the past few minutes that got me to think about writing this "letter" .

I'm on a plane, reading Franny and Zooey, I was exactly at the part where Zooey is reading the 4 year old letter from Buddy. To be more specific,  where buddy writes the haiku like poem left in Seymour's hotel room after he committed suicide:

The little girl on the plane/ turned her doll's head around /to look at me.

.... At the same moment,  my shuffling Playlist starts playing famous blue raincoat.Two beautifully written letters, At the same time.  And that got me all emotional and nostalgic. I closed the book and started writing this. And I'm still not even sure i know what I wanna say. Now,  heart attack in a layby is playing. Wierd...

Whenever I call a mutual friend. I ask about you. They don't say much. I don't even know why I ask. I used to ask you directly. Maybe until a week ago or so. I would use some sort of technology and exchange a few sentences with you.

Now I just think about it. And I just  finished reading Franny. remember I used to say you are really similar to her character,  no wonder you love that book. She has a lot of opinions,  you do to. And she tells her boyfriend  : could you please not analyze everything to death?
You used to say that too. I don't wanna say much about that. It's a great book.  Regardless of that. And you don't agree with me. Or do you?

I don't know why, whenever I think about this. I remember that cafe we used to go to. Mukachi?  I specifically remember that day. When we discussed "love". And I thought I was successful in our argument,  saying love is not anything holy. It's just something that exists. Like other stuff. Like friendship. Or any other bullshit concept we talk about. And we could just let it be. We could just let it happen and then play with it. At least it worked that day.

I don't think you changed your opinion, ever... I don't think I did too. Throughout all these years. I mean we don't even speak anymore. I even fell in love a couple of times here. Hehe. Pakatchi said I'm special the other day when I was telling him about it ,  when he was drunk,  and I was drunk too.

I just listened to Bobby brown. And now I'm your man is playing. I still constantly think about these stuff. If you are on a nice mood,  you might say don't do that to yourself. With a smiley. Or if not you would just say : why?

I really wonder. I really wanna know what's going on with you. Out of curiosity. Your Twitter account is too encrypted.  I don't even care that much anymore. I mean...  I do care.  You are too stubborn. You have strong concepts and ideas about your life and how everything is  And should be. I have strong ideas about humans and how they are. Two different approaches. I'm still interested in what happenes.

I'm still analyzing. A lot. I have a lot of stories to tell now though. Remember when you and Hamed knew all my stories. Even all my toilet chronicles? Hehe. Now I have the pancake story.  I have the back ache story. And i made new friends too. And I tell everyone that I'm a lesbian. That's just some of it. Have you ever looked around?  In the real and virtual world?  There are a lot of artifacts around...  Floating around...  Of us. I mean I even found the necklace you had someone make for me which I never wore and then lost. It was nice to find it.

It seems like my letter is not  turning out like buddy's. Or maybe it is. In my head I have a lot of stuff I want to say. Things of "how dare you say these to me"  nature.  You know what? 

By the way,  I spoke of Hamed in my letter and our plane got delayed another extra hour while we are already  in the plane. The weather got all fucked up.

I would never write any of this if I wasn't reading franny and zooey. I owe this to you. That's why I thought  I should say something. Even though this scattered and shitty. You made me read this book. I still read it every few months. I'm thinking of a way to call you. With a fake identity. And talk to you. And give you  advice. Like zooey did. Hehe.  I shouldn't give this away. Shit.

Look...
If it was a couple of days ago. I would just ramble about logic and shit. But I don't have any of that in me. I'm miserable...  I guess. I mean I'm alright. I'm not empty At all. I have fun. I feel. I even fall in love every once in a while. And I still think about you from time to time. Hehe.

Is it ironic?
Am I ironic?
I basically didn't say much anyway.

I hope everything I think is right for you happens to you. If possible,  exactly like I want it.  I even hope you change. I really do.

The plane is starting to fly.  And ground control to major Tom is playing. I swear. And the Stars look very different today.

Well. I'm going to imitate something we both like.... "What can I tell you?... " and goodbye.

Sincerely, 

D.  Kordeone

Afraid of bicycles

I'm afraid of bicycles. Specially the blue, slow and heavy ones that you sign up for and you can use em through out the city. They call them shared bikes or something. Divvy.  Fuck divvy. It sucks because these bikes are probably the only ones that could not really make you hurt. But you see,  I fell off one of em once... I told everyone there was something wrong with the bike and it suddenly stopped working. Well...  That is partially true. I believe it is not completely true. Or false.

You see. I normally don't ride bikes. Even though I probably love bicycles more than most people. For me. They are kind of similar to girls. I've broken, lost, or fell off so many of them that I'm not completely confident riding them or having them. Even though I know that I'm perfectly capable of riding. I'm even actually pretty good. Even though I might not look like it... 

I've had four bikes stolen from me when I was younger. When the fourth one got stolen,  I think I was 11 or so. I wrote a letter to Iran's president at that time and complained about inequality and how he should raise salaries for teachers so they could be better teachers and raise fewer thieves in my city . I was naive.  I owned my last bike a few years ago and i just left it for some asshole to use it When I left . I didn't ride it that much anyways. It was pretty, but it was uncomfortable  and it used to hurt my ass. also  the security people in my undergrad University wouldn't let me in campus with my bike. They said it's not safe for other people. But they let cars in.

Anyways,  that was the last time I owned a bike. When I moved to Chicago, they started this bike sharing system which was nice. And I used it. As I said,  I love bikes,  but just didn't want to end up hurt and bikeless. That sharing system solved the problem. There wouldn't be any  problems.  So I got myself a key.  And boom. My lazy self from time to time would ride a bike and have some fun.

Until that day. I was riding to meet someone...

For some reason  I was happy and energetic. And was riding kind of fast. I was pretty close when I saw a big hole on the ground. Instead of crossing it like a normal human being I tried to jump it. Which I did successfully.  And then boom. I fell off the bike on my face and my sunglasses left a mark on my face.

When I stood up I was in pain. But looked around to see if no one is laughing. Be a use I'm sure it would be a hilarious scene to see someone like Me fall off a bike.

I walked the bike to where I was supposed to meet someone to tel her I gotta go change n everything.  She asked if I was alright. I said yes.  And told her the bike was all fucked up and I would be back.

I left. Put the bike back at it's dock.  Changed. And went back. For some reason I wasn't happy anymore.  I was not said either, even though I tried to act cool.  Even though I was basically fine and could be much worse.  Even though it was probably my stupidity that made me fall, that's regardless of how the bike was fucked up or not.

I went back to the bar where I was supposed to meet someone. I sat down. Ordered a beer. She told me how she was happy with this guy she was going out with and I wasn't even listening. I ordered a beer and kept on acting like I wasn't in shock.

I still love bikes. I...
Every time I ride bikes I enjoy it. And I'm afraid the whole time. Even though I know I wouldn't fall and That one time was probably my own fault.

You know...  Bikes are kind of like girls. At least for me.

And this was not why I started writing this...

Mediocrity and boredom, while knowing how to ( insert some interesting activity)

I play an instrument. Bass guitar. I've been playing on and off for 8 years now. Still,  I'm not sure whether I chose bass because I liked it or I just thought I couldn't play guitar well. I'm not sure what was it. Bass is a weird instrument. Most of the times you are an important part of music as a bass player. You are even essential. But you are in the background. You are part of the idea. You are part of the structure. You know what I'm saying?

The only time I played in a band was the first year I started playing,  and it was for three days. It was fun. I couldn't play bass even remotely good. I learned how to play for whom the bell tolls by Metallica.  And we played it a couple of times. It was fun. The other songs we played,  I didn't know how to play, they were simple. But I didn't learn. I acted like I did. I air played the songs with a real bass guitar in my hands. Oh well. I still have the videos of those basement days somewhere. I sang fade to black. And some other songs too.

I kept playing bass by myself,  for all this time. I'm relatively better now,  much better. But I still don't know how to play a song completely.  I still know how to play for whom the bell tolls. And That's it. I know some parts of a lot of songs and I also can improvise much better.  I can create bass lines. Or can I?

Whenever I play,  and I play regularly,  I start with an idea (I really want to compose new music)  and then keep adding to it ,  the problem is I keep adding stuff to it and changing it till i don't even remember what it was at the beginning. I always end up sleeping after two hours of  playing with something far worse than the initial idea.

Boredom. In addition to wanting to maintain a minimum value for my music ( feel free to insert other activities instead of "music", say...  "Relationships",  be creative replace "people" with "bass guitar")  makes me repeat this process. And be disappointed most of the times. Some sort of disappointment that also gives you a minimum amount of satisfaction because you have some sort of ability.

I've done a lot of interesting stuff in my life though, With other people mostly. And I've mostly been an essential member of those interesting activities. But other people have e different ways of doing stuff...  Ah...  Forget other people.  This is a half narcissistic half self loathing text.

I still have a shit ton of ideas everyday and I mostly forget them in a while AND come up with new ones. This is it,  this is my mediocrity. This is my genius and my stupidity. Ideas matter,  but ability to take action is a better skill to have. I still analyze people and always find out what are their inconsistencies. I never use them to my own benefit.  I just want to know that I'm  different and better than everyone,  even you. Wait a minute...  I lied,  I do use my  knowledge of you to my own benefit. I just want other benefits these days. I don't really want to be better.

I play an instrument.  But...

I'm not interested in knowing what's the real reason  behind your actions anymore. Even though I think I know a lot about it. But....  I'm going to keep agreeing with you,  thinking you are art, while you think you are smart.

I watch to much house these days.

Buhahahahahahaha.

It's all about the little things my friend !

Being a traveler is not always a decision. I've been traveler for a while now. Not out of necessity, not out of fun . It's just something that I happened to be doing my friend!

now, I cannot even think of a city to call home. It's not necessarily a bad or good thing. I've made a lot of friends and I've become sarcastic. I laugh at stuff at only people like us do. And I care about stuff that only people like us care about. And I cry too, just like you, only this time I cry about things that most people cry about . Normal stuff.

Yes , It's midnight ... While I went through my memories for about two hours I remembered. History is funny my friend! No explanations needed. I've gotten better at becoming a traveler and you are struggling . That's because most people like you are fighters. your kind have too much pride to learn to swim. At the end we are all in the same boat. Some choose to erase people and memories and live a new life. Some try to create new memories and slowly forget. Some try not to forget.

It's all about the little things my friend! you travel, you might work hard or not , you might make a lot of friends or a few of them. You might find a girl that you really like . You might even say that you fell in love. You might lose your battles and be disappointed in humanity, or in people, or in how random things could be. how everything could be different. not better or worse, but it could be much different.

It's all about the little things my friend! I travel, Just like that guy who really loved airplanes. And I try to solve my problems with things that I think solve my problems. Most of the times , I end up changing and not solving them. It's fun. It's all about the little things. The pictures that we stare at when we are alone. of places and people of the past. and places and people of present ! It's fun to do that.

 No regrets for me. I've been able to maintain friendship with most people that I wanted to. And I enjoy it. In some cases ... I seem to be losing . well ... shit happens my friend! I'm slowly becoming older and hopefully a little bit wise.

It's all about the little things my friend!  I think wanna be stationary for a while. I hope the world would understand this. I will keep staring at pictures of people of the present and the past.  we might cry and laugh from time to time. It's all pretty good. pretty good is good enough. Isn't it ? Still the only problem I have is what I've had for a long time.

all in all, at least I get to go see the guy who really loves airplanes on a beautiful screen and love what he does. I also get to see that guy who has a lot of tattoos . even though from some parts of my history , only some pictures are left. That's the case for me . All in all, It's all about the little things my friend. and it's all pretty good.

What I would like to do is to buy an open car and .... I don't drive... haha . No hair blown in an open car for me.

Sincerely.

PS. Hope you are doing well after all.

PhD in Survival .

If I'm trying to write something .
If I'm trying to keep contact . Even minimum .
If I'm trying to keep feeling something , even though against the odds .
If I soundtrack my life with songs by Leonard Cohen. or Cave.
If I sit on a chair all day .
If sometimes I smile, If sometimes I feel happy when I'm with people .
Or read a stupid poem out loud .
Or laugh at stupid jokes.
...

If you get mad at people .
If you get mad at me.
If you hate a movie .
If you hate a person .
If you feel like laughing with people .
If you try to smile with people.
If you network.
If you don't want to see . or talk . or respond.
If you like to be mysterious .
If you like to progress.
If you like to hug people.
If you want to have fun .
If you want to be angry.
If you want to create a hole in the wall.
If you feel numb .
If you feel homesick .
If you miss people .
If you blame me.
If you blame your family.
If you blame the United States.
If you blame Iran .
If you blame religion .
If you blame us .
If you don't give a shit.

It's all to prevent yourself from being hurt.
It's all to survive.
If it's not ,
It's all to make me feel like a professor .

If you cry ,
If you laugh
If you smile
If you frown .
If you laugh.

It's all because ...
I'm a professor .

Everybody lies

Everybody lies.

Poets lie the most. They lie artistically and like serial killers, leave clues about their lies.

Everybody lies,

We have two types of lies. lies that are internal the subject and lies that are external to the subject. Psychological lies and sociological lies. And both effect each other. And both are methods of defending yourself from some kind of harm .It can also become a hobby and It can be very difficult to do. Lying certainly can have ethical problems, or no ethical problems.

Everybody lies,

The ways humans communicate and different communication functions have become my favorite subject to think about. And it is overwhelming.

"I went to see my physician who was buried in his thoughts,
he said :
Son, you've been reading too much elephant talk.

You see the thing about depression is,
Well you just can't let it get you down.
You have to see the world for what it is,
A circus full of freaks and clowns.
And you never please everybody,
It's a well established fact
he said : I recommend a fifth of jack and a bottle of prozakc

Everybody lies

The most amazing type of lie is when people cry at someones funeral but are actually thinking about themselves.

Everybody lies

A good number of the lies we tell are just results of errors in our perception. These lies are basically the truth!