The guy you see in this picture - right behind the heart! - is the most upbeat guy I've ever met! Introducing Hamed Slasher! Happy birthday dude!

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!

The class party last night rocked. Everybody brought some kind of food and drink. There was macaroni salad, mexican corn, potato chips and a lot more. I put James Blunt on for background music. We were eating, speaking, playing games, telling jokes and taking pictures for almost four hours! Close to the end of the class, two of my colleagues sent their students in too! And that's when things got really wild! At the end of the class, my students gave me a quality book of Khayam's quatrains. It contains the Persian text and the Fitzgerald translation plus fascinating Persian miniature paintings. My students have signed the first page of the book. It's the most valuable gift I've ever been given.

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!

I'm thinknig of organizing an end-of-term party for my Intro class at Farhikhtegan. They're a cool bunch of students who've been amazingly hard-working throughout the term and I think we all deserve to celebrate what we've accomplished. I've never had a class party before and had to rack my brains to come up with ideas. I've got a few ideas here; I'd appreciate it if you guys let me know what you think of them and maybe give me some more.
. Food and drink (students will be walking around the class, eating, drinking and speaking to one another in English)
. A list of topics (work, family, sports, etc.) and possible questions for each topic to help the students make conversation
. Background music (I'm not sure what will work best)
. Jokes (in English obviously! I'll be telling the students to prepare them beforehand and perhaps set up a joke-telling competition like the one in Big Ham's party! I owe this one to Big Ham! )
That's basically all I've come up with. Once again, I'd love to get your opinion/help. Thanks everyone!
By the way, the movie "premonition" starring Sandra Bullock (I hate that girl! ) is on screen at Cinema Farhang. Sara and I got to watch it a couple of nights ago. I would call it a mediocre movie, but the sound/picture quality is amazing. Don't miss it if you're interested!

I just got rid of Norm by placing him in a category to which my blog would not be accessible. Good riddance! Even though he's a very nice guy, it was pretty stressful being in touch with him, cause he is so active on the net and you can't possibly keep up with him. Besides, Sara and my friends have no reason to question my heterosexuality now! :D
Big Ham's thanks-karaoke-giving party was such a big night. I got to get together with my friends and catch up with some of my old classmates. We had a crazy dance and a fascinating singing competition. For some reason, people thought my singing was good; and I won first prize! :D This would be my first Hammy Grammy!

Hey everyone! The Halloween Pictures are available now at alimovahedin.myphotoalbum.com
I will be removing the album in a few days, so be sure to download the pics!
enjoy!

We had an awesome Halloween Party last night. It was loads of fun! Everyone liked the gravesite and our freaky dummy! I have pictures of the dummy, the pumpkin, our costumes and all the rest of it here in my camera that I will soon upload onto a website. Here is a picture of us in front of the gravesite; happy to be dead! LOL!
From left to right:
Front row: me, Leili, Maryam K, Maryam P, S
Back row: Mo, Parisa, Sara, Annie, H
Thanks for coming guys!
and thanks for being so cool!

I've been so busy lately that I can hardly get the time to go online and catch up with my friends. I've been meaning to read Norm's blog entries, but still haven't got a chance. I'm sorry Norm! I'll make it up to you! The problem is, my classes are way too many right now and on top of that, I have the halloween party to worry about. It's crazy and I love it!
Last night, just before I went to bed, I took a look at Hamed's entry about Google Trends and the shocking results he'd got about the city of Qom. I did a search for "Chris de Burgh" just now and got a big surprise. Why? Check out the picture above!

It was another one of those ten hour teaching days today and I'm pretty worn out right now. I had my last IELTS class with Sasan this afternoon. He had a long list of words to check with me and said he'd be reviewing them on the plane. He will be staying in Turkey for a few days where he will be taking his test. I wish him a lot of luck.
We went over to Mohsen and Akram's the other night. They have recently got an appartment in Poonak. It's a very nice appartment and is well-decorated too. We spoke about their neighbourhood and their appartment and found out that we had opposite ideas on everything. While I like the Poonak area and all the shopping centers in it, including Boostan and Tirajeh, they said they actually "hated" the area and had never really been to any of the shopping centers! I suggested we could exchange places if they really wanted to! LOL! The other thing we talked about was the pilotting course Mohsen is taking in Kerman. He said he had one more year to finish the training and would start his career right after. He also played a DVD for us of his so called "solo" flight, which is, as he said, one of the many tests they have to take before they become official pilots.
Last night, was the Eid-al-Fitr. Sara and I visited our parents' and grandparents' and met all the people who were there too. While I was talking to my grandparents, my phone rang. I couldn't believe it was Norm from America! He said he'd got concerned, cause he hadn't heard nor read from me for many days. I told him everything was ok and that the reason I couldn't get online lately was that I'd been very busy with classes. It was funny how everyone in there was wondering who I was talking in English to! Who could that be?
I'd been wanting to buy Sara a new cellphone for some time now; so I thought the Eid would be a good excuse. After some research, I bought her a Nokia N70. I managed to give her a surprise by getting it off the backseat and unexpectedly handing it to her while driving. She was so excited about it at first! But last night, I found myself much more intersted in the device! I stayed up until late discovering the menus and feeling kind of guilty about doing it before she did! I don't know if cell phones are more of a "boy" thing! Although she likes her new cellphone a lot, she's definately not as interested in it as I am! I told Ham about Sara's new cell phone. He sent her a message saying: "Instruction Manual: As a new cell phone, you should know how to handle me properly. You can take nude pictures of people using the infra-red technology! Just point and shoot! Enjoy the new gadget! Mokhles-e shoma, Agha-ye Sazandeh!" We had a great laugh over Ham's message!
There are two things right now that I'm quite stressed about. One is the halloween party which I still haven't done much about and am hoping to be able to do something about tomorrow when I have fewer classes. The other thing that worries me is why Hamed is "again" not showing interest in seeing me! LOL! Did I tell you he's been feeding on blood lately? People keep telling me he looks different. But he seems OK to me!

I sent invitation e-cards to my friends for the halloween party. I am so glad most of them have already said they're gonna make it. Ham, who is in the north right now, called me today from the Caspian coast asking me about the party. I could hear the waves in the background. He said he knew a store in Isfahan that was famous for having all sorts of props. He said the store was one of a kind. Norm too liked the idea. I had a very nice chat with him a while ago. He saw my invitation cards and said he liked them. He also sent an e-card wishing us a very scary halloween. It's a flash card that says you can see who you really are in this mirror; when you click on the mirror, you get the image on top of this entry! Ha Ha! He said halloweens were pretty wild in the U.S. and gave me some very useful tips. One thing he said that really surprised me was that people in the U.S. wore costumes to work for the day!
Today, I started work in a new institute. Everything about it was wonderful. For one thing, the classes were well-equipped. The teachers have computers on their desks connected to a projector overhead. Since I had the same type of classes in Dubai, I was quite familiar with the equipment . The other great thing was that the students were very smart. They're mostly university students doing their Master's or PhD courses. They immediately learned everything I said and I didn't have to explain anything a second time. One of them was a walking dictionary! LOL! He knew words I had rarely ever heard before. Like "parsimonious" meaning stingy! Pardonez-moi monsieur? I think they enjoyed the class as much as I did. I have very nice colleagues too. They mostly come from the same educational background that I do. The only problem is the length of the classes. I'm teaching crash-courses that take only 16 session a level. In other words, we go through one whole unit of the Intechange book in a single day. The classes are four hours long with a fifteen minute break in the middle. I had two classes there plus one other class at another institute which adds up to a record of 10 hours of teaching! Sara can't believe I'm writing a blog entry after such an exhausting day!