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."