This whole thing with dreams is kind of an interesting phenomenon. A couple of year’s back I remember living in China was a dream of mine. I Kind of checked that off my list. See, I´m a bit of a list abuser. I make lists for every single thing. I make endless lists, including all kinds of silly things I would like to do. Like “trying 80 restaurants in Beijing” or “wake up with a smile at least 80% of the time”.

Why is it that we constantly create new dreams in life? Although our dreams change as we grow older. When I was young/kid my dreams were enormous (almost impossible to fulfill, it was almost taken out of a fairy tale), perhaps the gap between our reality and our dreams can be huge but maybe as we grow older and wiser, we are harmonizing the gap and instead paying more attention to the dreams that are much closer to reality!

I´ve been thinking a lot about everything I´ve done for the last few years back abroad and most of it I look back with joy. I really don´t think that I regret anything so far. I do sometimes wonder for myself what would have happen if I did this instead of that. But then again I do think that is a normal thing to do. I mean I have fulfilled many dreams during my days but yet I feel like that I have so many more to fulfill.

I suppose some dreams remain unfulfilled and some are reached and then we seek and need to find new ones to work on. It´s our full time job in life to “work on dreams”?

I decided to narrow my dreams down to three things. I wish to fulfill these before I hit 35 36 hmm 37? And those are:

• Write a book (hopefully a best –seller) okay maybe I have to be realistic, it doesn’t have to be a best- seller, as long as I get it published

• Do a photography gig for Rolling Stone magazine

• Teach in Africa

There, my list, my dreams, my wishes, my goals.

Shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish, hmmm!?!?! I guess I can´t fail something unless I´ve tried, and if I do fail there are more dreams waiting for me around the corner, that is simply human nature. With all of that being said, I´m going to pretend that my bathtub is a fountain and drop down a coin in “the fountain” and wish for my dream(S) to come true.

XoXo

In my previous post I raised if Facebook and all other social media is making us anti- social. Say that Facebook does have an anti-social consequence does that mean Google is making us stupid and lazy? I mean are we using/promoting the internet as a learning tool or as a shortcut to information without work?

Perhaps the answer depends. Search engines can certainly help us find that needle in the haystack we are looking for.

For those of you who know me probably also know my age. I´m the one who was around when dial-up was first released and had a 9600-baud modem and upgrading to a 14.4k modem was super slick in those days. Wi-Fi?? Nope.

I´m the generation who chatted trough ICQ with my friends and entered different chat rooms and chatted with random people trough mIRC. Ohhh boy those were the cool days of my life. I think my first laptop weighed over 20lbs and was a screaming 286k processor running Windows. See, during my time there was no Google. Although we did have a search engine called AltaVista and I think it came around 1995 and then came the rise of Google and basically AltaVista started to fade away. There was certainly no such thing as e-How to show us the inner workings of how our carburetors work.

Google brings everything to your home, in your phone. You feel sick? Why call the doctor? Just Google your symptom/ symptoms. Why open a book and go through page to page when in a second Google can give you the answer?

Maybe we are one wired generation and in large, maybe we have gone lazy in this new modern society by knowing that we are only one click from whatever we are looking for, and that the information we want is always available no matter where and when!!

We might think it was all well and good, but maybe we are wrong, like dead wrong. You see I guess it all has to do with this cool thing we all have “our brain” and how our brains process information.. will laziness make our brains go slow by time? Will our kids and our kids, kids do math on paper — without hitting that handy button on your keyboard that pops up called calculator?

I´m wondering how the future looks like for book stores. The book industry is going through a lot of changes, influenced by trends like the transition from print to digital, I mean fair enough imagine all the trees that the future can save, but does that mean that the beauty of
holding a book will fade away? Mind you I really don´t think that we will get away from paper, I will have to admit that most everything of importance to me is inside the bowels of my computer. However, I still maintain a old fashioned Filofax containing addresses, phone numbers. I still use one of those expandable “desk file” that are numbered from 1 to 31 and 12 months to keep track of my appointments, and as for keeping track of birthdays, well I leave that one to Facebook, I mean I will have to live up to the modern society one way or another.

Maybe Google is like junk food. It indulges our need for speed and convenience and thus makes us fat and lazy. Like ice cream rather than spinach, therefore, maybe Google is bad for us!!
(I know I used a lot if “maybes”) Sorry

XoXo

6:00am: Turn alarm off. Yawn. Roll over and hide my head
under my pillow. Tell myself it will only be for ‘ten more minutes.’

6:30am: Get up. Curse the fact that ‘ten more minutes’
became thirty. Take the time to tell Facebook that I slept in. Tell Twitter
that I’m tired. Tell Google+ that it’s raining outside.

I can´t help but wonder, but is facebook and all the other social networks making us anti social? I kind of linger on the fence

Now, don’t get me wrong, I truly love technology, (mind you my  technical skills are not on the best side, but that is a whole another subject.)We can contact anyone, anywhere, at anytime with emails or text messages. Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace (if anyone uses MySpace nowadays), it makes communicating easily accessible with a simple click of a keypad. Yet, with all these social media applications we have today, I mean are we truly communicating the way we should be? Are we interacting with others in ways to create healthy relationships? Is technology interfering with true and pure human interaction?

Mobility and social networking have changed drastically in last few years. I remember going to a club or a party and see people actually talking to each other. But today, I go to a party and see everybody is on their cell phones either tweeting, texting or facebooking. This is how social we are. Our priorities has changed we feel the need to
announce our club activity on twitter / Facebook to our FB friends rather than
exchanging ideas with the person standing next to us Face- to Face.

I remember hoping on a train and one would sit next to me and two strangers would start exchanging thoughts about life and where we were heading. Mind you sometimes one can have one of those really strange ones sitting next to you and you would do everything in you power looking busy or probably trying hard to look as if you were asleep. Nowadays the person sitting next to you on the train is either collecting points on Wordfued or feeding the animals on Farmville or updating a status telling  – “on the train” and when getting off the train for getting coffee; well here is goes, Tell Facebook I finally have coffee. Tell Twitter that I´m enjoying the coffee. Tell Google+ that coffee tastes better when you can Tweet about it from an iPhone.

With all of that being said … Call me old fashioned but what happen to the good old “Go out for a coffee????” instead of facebook me, follow me on twitter, text me, direct message me, connect with me on Linked In, add me on messenger… Just don´t email me. I mean, that´s so 2008. I guess in the bottom line you can´t replace human interaction with a push of a button or a cute funny icon. Even the one and only Steve Jobs couldn’t make an App for that, but then again who knows what future technology
will offer!!!! As for me “going for a coffee” is so much more appreciated than poking me.

XoXo

“Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the police are German, the cooks are English, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and it is all organized by the Italians”.

What is a stereotype, exactly? Well I guess you could say that it is all about labelling, putting groups in different boxes!

Sometimes, a good way to learn about a particular country and its people is to look at how said country and people stereotype others, and how they themselves are stereotyped. You see, I find that stereotypes certainly do have a ring of truth to them, and make for a great starting point for learning and understanding other cultures, other social groups. Handled tastefully, stereotypes also offer opportunities for humorous observations: like this one that I lately came across:

However, let me state that I find it ridiculous for anyone to immediately assume that everyone within a particular group displays the stereotypical behaviour, attitude or characteristics! That’s a drawback to stereotyping: too many folks subscribe blindly to these not-necessarily-true generalizations that all too easily coalesce into racism, sexism, ageism and other forms of prejudice. Every individual person is different, and every person deserves to be judged by the behaviour, attitude and characteristics they exhibit individually.

With that being said, let’s dig a little deeper into stereotypes of Europeans, as expressed in the quote above, ok here we go…

The British:• Why would having the British as police be ideal? I suppose they are viewed as less strict or fearsome maybe?
• Having British chefs brings to the forefront the stereotype of British food being horrible and bland. Never been a fan of Shepard´s pie. (well I think that is a British dish. I’ve heard that fish and chips is great, (being a vegetarian never allowed me to try it out) but the chips I’m a fan of although pouring vinegar all over it, is something I simply don’t get.
.
The Italians:• I think the idea of heavenly Italian chefs doesn’t need much explaining really. Italian food is definitely heavenly! And here I would like to add that I’m a sucker for white creamy sauces on pasta, yum.

The Germans:• Well, the beauty is German cars. Need I say more about German mechanics?
• Knowing what was done to people who did not conform to the “ideal”, I certainly wouldn’t want a police force comprised of Germans.
.
The French:• They don’t rush through life like the Americans, but neither do they let it pass by like the Italians: they take their time to enjoy all of life’s pleasures. Perhaps it is this same attitude in the bedroom that gives them the reputation for being excellent lovers. (The Italians also have a reputation in this regard – Casanova, anyone?)
• The assumption of poor quality of French manufacturing and technology sounds a bit hollow to me.
.
The Swiss:• Everything in Switzerland runs like clockwork. The trains are scheduled to the minute – and they arrive and leave as scheduled! Having a Swiss in charge of organising things would certainly be good!
• Again, the assumption of poor Swiss lovin’ sounds a bit hollow; I suppose compared to their French and Italian neighbours, the Swiss have no way to measure up in this area?

XoXo

First of all I would like to point out that I’m no political expert, but I do teach in it, still that does not make me an expert. But it seems like Sweden will have a difficult time ahead.

The result of Sweden’s general election means now that a new party takes place in the parliament, the far-right (Sweden Democrats, SD) What SD wants is to make Sweden a much closed country. They want to cut down immigration of refugees and immigration on the grounds of family tires by 90%.

What kind of bugs me a little is that they focus on immigrants cost and not what the country can gain from them. With that being said I’m not just referring to immigrants bringing their different cultures to Sweden, also making Sweden a richer country. They (we, I’m one of them as I came to this country when I was a child) also contribute to Swedish society by bringing much needed competence, working and paying taxes.

To be honest I do feel slightly ashamed of where the country is headed. But, at the same time, I try to remind myself that more than approx 94% of the Swedish voters chose another party than SD. I mean I firmly believe in democracy, in everyone’s right to have their say and well this is what may happen in a democratic society. Everyone has their say, and I personally don’t agree with the result.

The political problem now is that neither the center-right, nor the left-of-center coalition won an outright majority, as it seems. (The final count won’t be finished until TODAY.) And a minority center-right government gives SD the potential to influence the decisions taken in the Swedish parliament.

Anyways this whole situation make me paranoid, it kind of brings out a “who likes me, who dislikes me” situation, if you know what I mean….

XoXo

Running 8 courses and dealing with approx 23 students in each class, yeah… welll… that is not going to be an easy task.

XoXo

What I’ve realized as getting older is that there is a bit of a torch passed from generation to generation when it comes to holidays. When I was a little girl, Christmas dinner (well in my case Persian new years) was usually at my grandparents’ house. As I got older this moved to my parents’ house. It is pretty much the same in Chinese culture, with extended family all returning back home to their patriarchal point during the Spring Festival. Putting all of these thoughts together in my head I all the sudden came across the one child policy in china. (I´m kind of amazed that a loud kitchen party can all the sudden lead to thinking about “one child policy”)

It kind of hit me that the one child policy maybe is doing a bit more than just controlling population growth. It seems to me that it is also entirely changing the family dynamic and how that relates later on to the celebration of traditional holidays. I mean when I picture a family gathering during holidays, I see my mother, father, brother, aunt, aunts husband, all the hundreds cousins (yeah it´s not a myth it´s a fact Iranians do have a lot of cousins) I see all of my uncles from my father´s side … well, the list can go on forever. To give you an illustration of the big family I come from I can put it this way: it takes a wonderfully long time to hug and kiss everybody, and then we are just loud and all over the place.

I can’t help but think that there is actually a benefit to that family connection maybe, kind of a sense that we come from something wider and so much deeper than just our immediate family.

It’s hard not to think that this whole one child policy seems to result into something….. well …… lonely. I wonder how a family tree for a typical Chinese family will look like 20 years from now……

XoXo

It´s just funny how Asian girls are the ones with the big hats, the skin whitening lotions and umbrellas while Europeans are the ones slathering themselves in sun oil and using every single lotion/spray to get a darker skin, and when summer fades away Europeans still find ways to keep the tan all year around with all of those fake sun lotions and sun beds in every corner in our neighborhoods. Just a few days ago when I was walking home from a friend’s house (20 min walk) I started counting all the sun bed salons. I think I spotted around 15 of them. Crazy, especially now that we know the basic knowledge that lying in a mini oven couldn’t possibly be good for you for a while now. But yet we are surrounded by them, to be honest having all of these great self- tanners lotions, we now have no reason to be dancing or shall I say lying with the devil.

Anyway back to the main topic, now while we´re all going crazy to get darker over here, in Asia they´re mad to lighten skin up. Trendy Asian girls on holiday are the ones with the big hats and the latest skin whitening lotions.

Also, while we are on this subject, I can´t leave out all of the sun umbrellas I came across in Beijing. I mean I really didn´t mind people walking around with umbrellas in the city mind you it did bother me when they didn´t pay attention to how they carried around their protective shield.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been hit in the head by stranger’s umbrellas. And do people apologize for the fact that they almost umbrella-poked you in the eye? Well no not really.

So with all of that being said, my point is, I just find it funny how we see beauty from different parts in the world.

Ps. I wrote this post lying in the sun with a whole bunch of oil all over me, an Asian girl would probably think I´m mad.

XoXo