Little things here and there!

-Our Thanksgiving holiday was nice and relaxing. We were invited to my husband’s cousin for the Turkey dinner and it was fun. We have always been invited for Thanksgiving dinner so I have never cooked Turkey ! I really don’t like Turkey anyway but I like the things that come with it. The day after Thanksgiving is one of the greatest sales in US and some people go to mall for shopping as early as 5:00 am!!
I and my Mom always go together for shopping and it has become a tradition for us too. This year I had promised myself not to shop a lot and I just bought some stuff for the family kids that I usually give them Christmas presents and some few things for myself, my son and my husband!!
It was hard to come back to work after a 4.5 days holiday (we were allowed to work half day on Wednesday!!)

-We bought our real first Christmas three this year. I used to buy a little fake one and put it on the top of fire place but I decided to get a real one this year because my son is old enough to understand the concept and don’t ruin it as well. My husband said” we are not Christian, why we should buy one?” I said” I am open to all religions and their celebrations. I love Christmas and I enjoy it a lot, plus our son is born here and is growing up with kids that majority of them celebrate Christmas, I don’t want him to feel he is different or isolated from other kid’s celebrations!!” I know some people say, we should teach our kids who we are and make them understand that we are different but I don’t agree with that! When you decide to raise your kid in a country different from your original home land you should be aware that no matter what your kid will pick up his current home land culture. It is good to teach them about our culture, what I always do, but stopping him from cherishing something that majority of people cherish in this land is selfish and makes him to hate his culture at the end. I like to raise my son in a way that he will be open to all religions, beliefs and cultures. No prejudism!!
Any way my husband agreed and now he was excited himself to decorate tree with me and my son. I will try to take a picture of our tree and put it here soon!!!!

-Today is 8 years that I have moved to US. My life has changed so much in this eight years and I myself have changed in lots of ways too. I think that applies to every one who immigrates. No matter what we change not necessarily a good or bad change but we change. I know that getting older has a lot to do with our personality changes as well.
I believe where you end up living is part of our destiny. God know where we will be in 10 years or twenty years?

-We watched Borat over the weekend. It is a very funny movie that has sold alot so far! It was fuuny but at the same time very gross. we laughed a lot but I really did not like the fact that the lead actor who I think is producer too, showed people from Kasaghestan so uncivilized and made fun of them. They must be very mad at him!!

Thanksgiving is coming!

-Last Friday was my best friend's Birthday and we were supposed to meet with some other friends and her future fiancé (they are going to engage soon) in a restaurant in Laguna Beach.
I had not seen my friend for about six months so although we needed to drive for one hour and it was Friday but we went and we had so much fun. We were a small group but we all drank and laughed a lot! Her serious boy friend, who she thinks is the right guy, seems to be very nice and friendly, me and my husband both liked him. I hope every thing goes well for her. She deserves a nice guy. I am concerned because she was divorced once before and I really wish that will never happen again for her.

-Thursday is Thanksgiving! I cannot believe it! time flies so fast! Recently I think about how fast time passes by and that makes me sad! Any way I really like Thanksgiving, we get four days weekend and I really like the tradition.
For those who are not familiar with this tradition, it is the day that Americans cook Turkey and every one gets together with family and friends and spend a relaxing day, eating and thanking god for prosperity (I am not sure if every one really thanks god though!!) but it is a very good excuse to gather families and friends. In a country like US that most of people are spread all over the place and live far from the family, these traditions is helpful to bring them back together every now and then. I know and I heard that most of Iranian families like my own parents family used to live in the same neighborhood before. Every one was close by and they would get together all the time. But life is changed so much, even in Iran and traditional countries like Iran people are not that close any more. I know that revolution and war made people to immigrate and lots of families scattered all over the world! That is sad. I wish I had my other brother and all the relatives of Iran here around me! May be being in the same neighborhood is not always a great idea but being in the same city or at least same country is definitely great!Any way I thank god that I at least have my Mom and one of my brothers here and also two of my old friends of Iran!

A Rainy Day!

-We had our first fall rain today. It was drizzling all day along and it was beautiful, it reminded me of North of Iran. We need more rain here in Southern California. Although the weather of our town is clean and we always have the ocean breeze to clean up the air but having rain cleans up the viruses and helps the nature but the traffic of the rainy days is bad here!

-I had a meeting this morning that most of the big shots of our department were attending it, when I entered the conference room it was full and I kind of panicked to see all those guys in Uniforms or serious business suites!! They liked the application that I developed and it is going to simplify and automate some processes. When I was sitting in the meeting room and they were discussing the benefits of the new system I thought to myself “I never thought I would work for law enforcement agency some day, especially in US!! Who knows what our destiny is!” Life is like a big wave that takes us and some times takes us off on the shores that we would never think we reach someday! God knows where I am going to be in 10 years? May be here doing the same thing ( I hope so!!) or just somewhere else doing something totally different!! I think people who immigrate, learn to expect lots of changes in life and be open towards it! I know and I have learned that things change if we want it or not, the only thing we can do is adjusting ourselves to the change and use it in the best way we can.Any way I am happy that my job is helping people to have a safer life! It feels good to contribute to the society and help public!

Election!

Yesterday was the Election Day for congressmen, senate members, governors, judges, propositions, etc in US. I voted for the first time in this country. It was kind of weird to vote in another county, except where you are born in! I voted in Iran couple of times, First was when I had turned just 16 and I was eligible to vote, I took part in the election just because I felt I was a grown up now ( god, I wish I was 16 now!!!). Any way another time I voted it was around the year of Conqour (the big test to get in to university in Iran) so people believed that voting would help if they want to check your political history!!! Any way the third time was the first running time for Khatami. I really did not want to vote but every one was encouraging to vote for him. People that were in Iran at that time know how was the ambiance around his election and every one believed that he could make a difference, he won with majority of vote (20,000,000 votes) but did not really made any difference! I moved out from Iran one year after his election and I decided to never vote for that regime any more. Now I am here and I voted again, I voted for all the Democrat candidates and they were the winners in yesterday election! Most of the proposition that I voted for, passed too! The voting system and election is not really perfect here ( I believe there is not such a perfect system any where) the bad thing is that political parties spend so much money on advertising and attacking each other. They are manipulative and can easily change people mind. What actually happened when Bush ran second time for presidency to me was kind of manipulating religious people by using the name of god and using family values and etc so religious Christians mostly voted for him. I believe candidates should advertise for themselves and be open about their plans but attacking other party or manipulating people, misleads the real democracy! Any way election is competition and each party just uses all its cards to let the other party down!! The good thing in a democratic country like US is that you know if a politician makes mistakes or does not do a good job, media don’t leave him alone and bring up issues immediately, sometimes media is very cruel though but in general a free media makes politicians to be careful with their actions and decisions as much as possible! We watched the movie Man of the year over the weekend, it was a comedy and was very much politics related. Robin Williams was doing great as usual. His last comment in the movie was “Politicians are like diapers, you should change them frequently and for the same reason!!!” isn’t that true and hilarious!!

Funny Political story!!

Yesterday when a school bus was driving students to school, they see President Bush in a car next to them. All students get really excited and waved for President, he waves back but as soon as the driver who was a 43 year old woman sees the President, shows him her middle finger!! President says to his company" I guess that one is not a fan!". Any way the driver told the story to all her friends and co-workers and her boss finally founds out about it and fired her!
She went to union to complain and get her job back but her boss says, she did not get fired because of showing finger to President but because she did it in front of students so she is a bad roll model to work for school!! I guess if she had done such a thing in Iran she would be in Prison now waiting for execution!!

Here is the link to the story:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15532553/?GT1=8717