Cultural Heritage!

-Days pass by so fast and I do not get chance to update my blog! I have been busy as usual with work home, kids and etc.
My project at is going well. Things at home are Ok too, sometimes challenging but I handle it fine. Thanks to the therapist and her good tips and advises!!

-I was talking to one of my best friends from Iran on Sunday, she lives in Italy but travels to Iran at least twice a year, She was telling me that how much things has changed in Iran, she was saying that if you go to Iran now you will be amazed! I have missed Iran a lot, if things go well may be I will have a trip to there soon. I miss traveling a lot but traveling with two kids is not easy at all!

-My son has a project in school that every child that has a foreign heritage like his should make an art project that on a piece of paper shows the cultural dull of his origin country! And explain a little bit about the country as well. Now I have to find a Persian symbolic dull to get some ides! When I and his dad explained about the project, he said “but I want to make an American dull! Like Teddy bear! I am born American!! Why should I make a Persian dull!!?” I and Dad were surprised and a bit upset! Why he feels that American that early!! We do not even speak English at home! Oh well, I think US is the first country in the world that no matter what cultural heritage you have you get fully absorbed in to its culture and adjust so quickly! I have a co-worker that he is born and raised in Germany but both of his parents are Iranian and he considers himself fully Iranian, he has not even been to Iran yet and he speaks Farsi as good as me. He says all of his friends with Iranian background born in Germany are like him. He explains that the reason is that you don’t feel part of German culture and society even if you are born there so you prefer to attach to your origin culture but here in US, Kids easily adjust themselves to the culture and society and become part of it. It is good and sometimes sad! I don’t want him to forget where he is coming from though, May be this is a childish reaction and he will change in future!!!!! I have to take him to Iran definitely! I understand that he is born and raised here but it is good to absorb the good thing of both culture and be proud of it!

Taking care of myself

I have not blogged for a while. I miss my blog! I have been extremely busy at work and at home but I am doing fine.
I have been going to the therapist every week and it has been so helpful for me. I talk about every thing to her even the things that I have never shared with any one. You know that we all have some emotions, experiences and things that we don't like to talk about but I have been very open with her and talked about any thing that has bothered me in life. Childhood related, teenager time related, etc. She is very good and analyzes every thing very deeply and gives very good tips and guidance. This was the first time that I went to a therapist for myself and I think every one no matter how happy or successful in life should go to therapy every now and then and it is definitely helpful. In today's world with all its complications and stress we all need some ear to listen to us, someone not related to us and who is a professional listener!!

Another good thing that I am recently doing for myself is going to Yoga once a week which is the best thing that I am doing for myself recently. I highly recommend Yoga to every one. It is absolutely beneficial for your body and soul!

Any way I am taking care of myself more these days, Something that kind of had forgotten since I became a mom, but all of a sudden I realized for being a good mom I have to take care of myself!

Happy Halloween, Every one !! I am going to dress up tommorow night! what about you?

Happy

-Today was one of the happiest days of my Professional life! I have been working on a very complicated and critical piece of the project that I talked about here before (the one that I was not very fond of before). I had to develope a solution that would work with three different products and technologies and there were some incompatibility between them in regards of their versions and supporting each other (I know I am talking too technical here). I was very frustrated and at the same time very motivated to find the solution. I told myself that I won’t give up. I have to make this work all by myself. Any way after few days of researching and experimenting I could make it work today. When I told my boss the news he was so trilled! We had a conference call with one of the product teams about new upgrade and when my boss told them what I did, the lead developer of their team said:”just one of our customers had to deal with such a complicated process like yours , our engineering team developed a custom application for them to resolve the issue. Can you send us your application so we have it for our record!!!”. I was so happy to hear that, and I could see the happiness in my bosses face, he was so proud!
I have to confess that when I was moved to my current team to work on this project I was very upset and did not like this change. My blog readers most probably remember that I used to nag a lot about this change but now I think that was the right move for me and I am learning a lot. I liked my pervious team a lot but my work had become too routine and it was not challenging enough for me. My lesson in life from all this, is most of the times change is good although it appears tough in the beginning!

-I see the therapist once a week now and she has given me good advices and tips. I have to work on them but I already see some progress. I think it was a good idea to talk to a therapist. One thing that she said to me yesterday about the guilt feeling that I always have because I work and am not with my kids full time was “you have to make a decision in life based on facts and be comfortable with your decision you cannot change your mind back and forth and feel guilty when you made a decision”. That was another good lesson, I think I am too hard on myself; I try my best at work and at home but I always look back and think maybe I did not make the right choice and that pressures me. If I decided to be a working mom I have to remember of positive side of that choice and be comfortable with it. I think this applies to lots of our decisions in life. Some good characteristic that I see in lots of western people especially Americans is they don’t give themselves guilt trip like us (eastern people) all the time. Even if they make not a very good choice, they say” I did whatever worked for me at that moment of my life and I am in peace with it! “I have to learn to be more that way myself and be more in peace with my choices in life. Bottom line is nothing is perfect and neither am I. I just to have to try my best!

Better

-I went to Psychologist and I think it was definitely good for me. I talked about everything that has bothered me, even things related to my childhood and she let me talk as much as I wanted. I told her things that I had never told anyone and I feel a lot lighter now. I will go next week too and may be after couple of sessions I will take my husband as well.

-Ahmadinejad came to UN this week and I could not believe how rude and confident he is. How could he come and lecture the world about, justice, human rights, etc when he is president based on a big cheat? And he has killed so many innocent people. So many young people got arrested, tortured and raped because they could not accept him as president and they wanted justice! I am so happy that lots of UN members including Lebanon that this regime gave them so much money left the meeting. A big high five to all the Iranians who went to New York and showed the whole world how Iranian people are separated from Iranian government. Be honest with you I was worried that President Obama would stay for his speech or would have any kind of contact with him even a smile or saying Hi ( like what happened with Hugo Chavez), although I knew that he is smarter than that but still was worried. Thank god except few African counties and few other countries who get big donations from Iran no body stayed for his speech. Or maybe they felt so bad for him and stayed out of mercy!!

Tough time again!

It’s been a year or so that every now and then I get very sensitive, negative and disappointed in life. Whoever has been reading my blog frequently can notice that. The whole summer I was Ok but since two weeks ago I am on and off down and depressed. I had some big arguments with my husband recently and my older son as usual is a big source of stress for both of us. Thank god, he is doing fine so far in school but at home he is very challenging. He challenges us for everything from doing home work to brushing his teeth. Sometimes I think to myself that I always was a very good child to my parents why should I get such a challenging kid? Any way the negative feelings push me on and off these days and sometimes I do not fight it and just give in! May be I am in mid life crisis mode! But it is kind of too early for that! I guess.
My husband became so unbearable last week by the comments that he gave me left and right. He expects to go to sport every day, watch TV since he gets home and I take care of kids, house work, etc all by myself. If he helps, he will nag that he is doing everything and he blames me for not letting him go to gym, soccer or volleyball every day. He goes to gym, Soccer and volleyball games, two to three times a week but he wants to go every day!
Saturday he started by nagging again and I exploded really badly. It was a long time that I had not become this angry. I could not stop yelling! I felt that I had enough of him, I left home and drove around for one hour, he called me at least 10 times but I did not answer. I did not want to go back home again, but it was around lunch time and I could not leave kids without lunch. So I went back home, he tried to apologize and said: “I was just kidding you”. Can you believe it? Someone nags you all the time for not letting him be free and pushes you to the edge and then say I was just kidding. Any way we had another argument again and I even said: “enough is enough, I have to get separated from you, so you can go sleep at gym and exercise every day and have the all fun that you miss now. The biggest mistake that I made was fighting in front of kids, I know how bad it is, but I could not control my anger any more. Any way I tried to calm down and he is trying to be all nice again but I am still mad. Last night he asked me if I still love him, I did not have any answer to that. I am so confused these days. How much do I really love him? I know that I am used to him and I still care for him but I feel so un- appreciated. I work 8 hours a day. I have two young kids to take care of. I have my Mom who is a great help for me but I have to take of her needs as well and then I have a husband that blames me and thinks that I am pressuring him and he is not free enough. Who is really pressured in this life? Me or him? I don’t even have one hour for myself. I exercise in my lunch breaks at work, at most twice a week. I f I want to do for example my nails I have to do it in my lunch break too because I want to spend all my “free” time with my kids and family!
Any way the only solution that I could come up with is going to an Iranian female psychologist, maybe she can understand me and help me out. If that works I will take my husband too. I think we both need counseling! I am going tomorrow. Wish me luck!!!

9-11

Eight years ago when I was driving to my work, right at 6:40 am I opened the Persian radio in the car and heard about 9-11 attack. I could not believe my ear. That day was one year anniversary of my job at the company that I was working for. It was company’s tradition to call all the employees to that big back yard and announce work service anniversaries. Our company was not doing very well financially, although it was a big corporation and we all knew that they were struggling but nobody would think that there would be layoffs. Any way as soon as I got to work, we all were called to gather in the back yard. We thought that they wanted to talk about 9-11 attack but the president of company announced that there would be %10 employee lay off on that day. I was one of the people that got laid off because was with company not so long. I remember that I was very upset, one minute I would think about 9-11 attack and another minute would think of my lay off. I was shocked and very disappointed. The layoff was a good thing for me because I ended up getting a better job, but 9-11 was not a good thing for the whole world and we are all still suffering from that event. That changed the history and lots of other things. There are lots of theories behind that event and people analyze that evil event in different ways.
It is so sad that we human beings make the world worse and worse every day. We are destroying ourselves, our earth and future generations as well. What can really change us? May be more equality in the quality of our lives, more education and being less greedy can help a lot!!

Snake and Life

-I got really shocked when my Mom told me over the phone that she saw a snake in our back yard. We have been living in this house about six years now and I never saw one! I have a big phobia over snake. I am very scared by it and I have never seen one, just in TV!! I am stressed out and every time that I go to the garden I am scared to death and look around very carefully. The bad thing is that we have a slope right in front us in our back yard and behind it is open space. I think that is how the snake has gotten in. When I told about it to my co-workers they all said having snakes in garden is very common in San Diego!!! I even thought about selling our house!! My husband has talked to our gardener and he is supposed to come and setup snake proof fences in the back yard and cover all holes. God, even thinking about it makes me shiver!! This is like a nightmare!!
-I see that recently most of my blog readers or at least commenters don’t update their blog often. I have been lazy myself too. Why everyone has become less motivated for blogging?
-If you could rewrite your life’s events how much would you change? What would you fix? I am sure that everyone has thought about it before. I think the person who wouldn’t change anything at all is the real happy person! How many percentages of people in the world are really happy and love to live? Recently I notice that there are lots of people even around me, that they live just because they have to and the strong instinct of surviving keep them alive but deep inside they are not happy and they are not motivated. I hope none of you that read this post have such a feeling. I myself to be honest with you sometimes am happy sometimes not, and I think most of people are like me. May be I am considered as moody or manic depressed!! Any way recently, I don’t like the fact that we have to do lots of things just because we have to do it but deep inside we don’t want to do it. For example, I have to work on a project that I really don’t want to work on, or I have to compromise with my husband all the time and sometimes I really don’t want to. Sometimes I just like to relax all day along but I can never do that and may more… I don’t even remember the last time that I did everything that I felt like to in one day. At least since I have kids I have never been able to do whatever I want in one single day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!