First Winter Snow

Today, it finally snowed and made us all happy. On the way to work, while driving through the snow-covered streets, I was listening to Alicia Keys and loving how it felt. This is a picture I took last night at 1am in Hemmat Highway. It's about when the snow began.

I don't know how weird this may sound to you, but autumn has the exact same effect on me, spring has on most people. To me, autumn is the renewal of life! The promise that there will again be happiness. Not to mention birthday presents!
By the way, here are some of my current favourite songs:
- Zephyr (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
- Viva La Vida (Coldplay)
- Better in Time (Leona Lewis)
- This is The Life (Amy McDonald)
to everyone!

I'm pretty excited to be posting an entry after almost a month. Everything's been going extremely well except for my computer which has been giving me a lot of trouble lately. I'm gonna try to catch up on my blog now.
First and most importantly, we hosted a valentine party in our appartment last Thursday. It was Maryam's idea and she offered to pay for the expenses too. Thanks Maryam! We didn't spend much money on decor. We got woollen hearts on sticks and heart-shaped chocolates and heart-shaped balloons and some other heart-shaped stuff too I guess and we also rearrenged the furniture to give it more room for the dance. The really awesome thing about the party was the lighting effect which I rented from a store and which by the way was paid for by Safaneh. Thanks! Another really cool thing was the DJ table we set up with two laptops on it connected to the stereo. I got a DJ software which allowed us to add effects to songs and more importantly remove the vocals. As a result, we could have karaoke too. By the way, Thanks Mo! Thanks Damien! You guys are the coolest DJs! EVA'! The party was way too fun and I was feeling high for almost five hours. We occasionally turned out the lights and left the light projector on which gave it a very disco-like feel. Sara served the best of drinks and Hamed Slasher danced The Javad which is the funniest dance I've ever seen in my life! Ham you Rock!
Another thing I'd like to write about is the oscars. It's due in 5 days and I so wanna watch the nominated movies before the ceremony. I already watched Atonement. I thought the photography was great. The scene where the English soldiers are shown waiting on the French coast was awesome. It's taken in one long shot with the camera moving around in really cool directions. I loved it. Sara and I watched the animation, Ratatouille last night. It's the story of a rat who isn't much happy about stealing food. He learns from people (specially by watching TV) that he can actually mix different foods and create new tastes. He's inspired by his favorite chef's slogan "anyone can cook!" and makes his way to a restaurant where he gradually becomes a chef! But how exactly does he do that? You gotta watch the movie to find out! I'm looking forward to watching the other nominees including Juno which seems to be really good judging from the trailers.
Last Friday, Ham Y invited us to his appartment. It was Sara and I and Safa. He has a small, but modern appartment in the west of Tehran. It's got bright orange furniture and no curtains which makes it very special on a rainy day! (It was rainy last Friday!) We had lunch and then me and Sara taught Ham and Safa "canesta" which is our favourite game of cards, probably because we don't know poker!
I have masters' university entrance exam Friday morning. I'm taking translation again just like last year. I have not studied at all and am pretty much waiting for inspiration to come along! I don't deserve to be accepted, so I wouldn't be upset if I'm not! Wish me luck anyway guys!
Love y'all!

I'm so excited about Sara Cotton's new Album "Never Got a Chance". I've been listening to "Al You Suck" over and over again on my car stereo. It's amazing!

Ham Z and I had quite a day! We had some fast food at a place in the west of Tehran and we spent the rest of the day waiting in line to take gas! We just realized that waiting in line to take gas was a great entertainment in Tehran! We got to have a good chat and listen to all sorts of songs by just "waiting in line"! Besides, the sense of "achievement" you get after having filled the tank is so worth the wait! Viva Iran!

Sara's got a cold and has been staying at her parents' for the last couple of days. I haven't seen much of her really. We had lunch together though yesterday at a pizza place close to SBU. It was very enjoyable, especially because of the snow. We also listened to a famous song for the first time. It's called "Hey there Delilah" and it's by Plain White T. It's a good song for a snowy day!
The picture on today's entry is that of Alicia Keys. I've been listening to her "no one" a hundred times. It literally rips my heart out!

It was a wonderful day today at Farhikhtegan. For one thing, I told my students about the end-of-term party. They were "booking" excited about it and helped brainstorm some cool ideas on the board. I also used the ideas Sara and Ali Sheikholeslami had suggested in my previous entry and now, we know exactly what we're gonna do. There's gonna be food and drink, music, conversation and lots of games! Oh, and jokes too! I'm so looking forward to Wednesday when it's all gonna happen. The other cool thing about today was that I sang! In my class! We were talking about favorite singers and when the conversation lead to my favorite singer, Bryan Adams, (love'im!) they asked me if I could sing one of his songs to them. I sang them "heaven" and got a big applaud in the end! And no at all! Well, I've won a Hammy Grammy afterall! That should count for something, shouldn't it?
The picture on today's entry is taken from the music video of Katie Melua's if you were a sailboat. I love that song!

Last night, I was cyber-chatting my ameican e-pal, Norm, about the songs we liked and I thought he might like to hear an Iranian song. So I started looking through the folders on my computer hoping to find a good song. But because I almost never listen to Iranian songs, I saw that I only had a few crappy ones including a Kamran & Hooman album. I recluctantly sent "dooset daram, kheili ziad" over to Norm and told him what the words meant. After he listened to the song, he wondered: Are they practicing different ways of saying "I love you"?!
:D

Today, I got the shock of my life when I saw my private student's old pictures on his laptop. He's a really cool boy called Hamed and he's undeniably in good shape. He had told me before that he had put on a lot of weight; but I had no idea what he'd meant by "a lot" until I saw the pictures he'd taken five years ago. I could not believe it was the same person. The difference was amazing! When I asked him how he'd managed to gain so much weight, I was shocked even more. He said he used to fill up the fridge every afternoon and then empty it the very next day!
:o