Contrary to past years, I will be writing my new year’s resolutions on Nowruz (March 21^st) this year.  There are three reasons for this.  First, I have finals coming up next week, so I’m not exactly in the new year’s mood.  Second, I could use some more time to work on last year’s resolutions.  Third, it would be nice to use Nowruz as the time to talk about the plans for change and renewal once in a while.

There are things I like to talk about, however.  So let’s take a look back at 2009.

The “aftermath”

There’s a lot going on in this country these days.  These events make parts of an amazing story about courage and equality. They make a story about the Internet and it’s role in public awakening; a story about the disintegration of power on one side and the decentralization of leadership on the other.  It takes someone well-read in the history and politics of the country to be able to write about these occurrences in a way that would do justice to both the people involved and the significance of their actions.  As hard as it may be to understand, it can hardly be ignored.  Who can see all that’s happening today and not take sides?  Who can listen to the news and not feel disappointed?  Who can say that things will be alright?

Enough said.

What I want

I’ll be turning 24 this coming May.  I’m happy with the person I turned out to be (with lots of room for improvement, of course) and I’m grateful for the people around me — my family and amazing friends. It’s been a long journey.

The journey I am talking about is a cultural one.  For me it was never about gradually learning a culture, but always a culture shock and forced assimilation.  I grew up in two very different countries, during different stages in life.  The fact that I wasn’t a complete grown-up when moving between the two countries exaggerated the shock effect.  Add to that my urge to be “politically correct” at all times, and you’ll see why I understood life to be more socially complicated than it really was.

I could write for pages, and maybe I will someday, about the details of these cultural awakenings.  But that’s not the point.  The point is the effects of this on my life as a student, as a friend and as a woman in this country.

This year passed, and I come out of it thinking I could have enjoyed life a lot more if I had felt more at home.  If I had felt that it is here where I belonged, then I would have taken more advantage of the opportunities that arose.

Letting go and moving on

I have left UT for AUT to start grad school this September.  It’s only natural for me to have made strong bonds with the people from UT over the past years.  And the majority of these people are great — smart, motivated, kind and caring.  But now I am in a new environment, with new people.  Today, I have more in common with these new people than the ones I was once very close with.  If I were to keep past relationships just as they were, given the same time and emotional capacity, I would make fewer new friends.  This could lead to a harder transition and acceptance of the new environment.  What I’m trying to say is that, as valuable as old friends are, the value of maintaining old relationships should be judged by care.

That was awkward.  I’m gonna have to clear this up in some later post!

About the value of friendship, C. S. Lewis has said,

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value; rather, it is one of those things that give value to survival.

I especially liked this quote about friendship by Ralph Waldo Emerson,

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

Some links

Books, music, and the Internet are life’s true luxuries I guess.  They’re there when you need them and (if you know what you’re looking for) they never disappoint.  Here are some links and stuff (that I happened to come across in 2009).

Sohrab Sepehri‘s poems

The status of the P versus NP problem [PDF]

Bug zappers and electrostatics

The $25,000,000,000 Eigenvector [PDF]

Rentier state: “those countries that receive on a regular basis substantial amounts of external economic rent”; “external rent liberates the state from the need to extract income from the domestic economy” [PDF]

Nonlinear dimensionality reduction

Life Goes On In Tehran: This is THE best guide to Tehran and Tehrani life.

It’s 2 hours past midnight.  It’s raining like crazy here.  Looks like it’s gonna be a clean morning tomorrow!

Happy 2010.