Changes

During the past 6 months, I must have used my office phone more than I did during its previous 11.5 years.
I now feel drained and stressed because of all the interactions I have to lead and drive forward not because of my research and development, and results I may or may not get.
I used to satisfy my social interaction needs outside work with friends and family, now I need peace and quiet to recharge.
I now understand my quiet friends more ;)

دفتر خاطرات

:كلاس سوم دبستان كه بودم، اين دفتر هاى خاطرات مد شده بود

اون وقت ها، به خصوص بين بچه ها، تا يه چيزى مد ميشد، ديگه بايد بلافاصله ميداشتيش  (نميدونم اين اصلا فعل درستى هست يانه!؟).  به هر حال، يه هو مي ديدى همه مدرسه در عرض دو روز پر ميشد از يه نوع مداد، خودكار، خط كش، دفتر، يا كيف و كفشى كه مد شده بود.  اينترنت و شبكه هاى اجتماعى هم كه نبود،  معلوم نيست چه طور اين اتفاق ميفتاد؟  واى، ما از نسلى هستيم كه به بچه هامون ميتونيم بگيم ما زمان قبل از اينترنت رو ديديم، ميتونى تصور كنى اون موقع چطورى بود؟

  خلاصه اين دفتر ها مد شده بود و بچه ها مى آوردند مدرسه و ما براى هم يادگارى مينوشتيم.  اما من از اين دفتر ها نداشتم و از فوايد بچه آخر بودن اين است كه هر چيزى را كه ميخواهى اوتوماتيك وار نميگيرى و هى بايد بخواهى و ياد آورى كنى و اين مهارت بى عار خواستن و ياد آورى كردن در زندگى حرفه اى آينده شما بسيار مثمر ثمر واقع ميشود و به شما ميگويند:

Go getter, persistent, she gets the job done!

بماند كه يه موقع هايى هم روى اعصاب بسيارى ميرود.

بگذريم. ما خواسته خود را به طور واضح و شفاف ابلاغ كرديم و باباى من براى تولدم اين هديه را برايم گرفت.  همين كه عكسش اين بالا بود.

اما با وجود ذوق و شوق من براى داشتن ايم دفتر، نوشته درون صفحه اول اين دفتر، از طرف پدرم، با ارزشمند ترين هديه شد.  پدرم داستانى را از مكالمه و پرسش و پاسخ دو نفر نوشته بود.  نميدانم اين داستان را از خودش گفته بود، يا اين داستان از كس ديگرى است.  گويا يكى از دو نفر، فرد بسيار دانا، محترم، و خوبى بوده و مورد محبت و ستايش همه قرار ميگرفته.  ديگرى از او ميپرسد:  تو خدايى؟ ميگويد نه، تو فرشته اى؟ ميگويد، نه.  تو فلانى،... و او هى ميگويد نه، و در آخر فرد گيج ميپرسد پس تو كه هستى؟  ميگويد من بيدارم.  بعد بابام نوشت  بود، كه بعضى آدم ها در دوران نوجوانى و جوانى بيدار ميشوند و برخى در سنين بالاتر مثل 50 سالگى كه خيلى دير است و بعضى ها هم هيچوقت ومن را نصيحت كرده بود كه سعى كنم هميشه بيدار باشم.

من با وجود دسترسى داشتن به چنين پند بزرگى، دير معناى آن را فهميدم و دير از خواب بيدار شدم، فكر كنم در 26-27 سالگى چيزى در ذهنم جرقه زد، و انگار كسى با ريختن آب سردى روى من، من را از خواب سنگينى بيدار كرد.  البته  برخى وقايع زندگى، در به زنگ در آوردن ساعت شماطه دار زندگى ام و بيداريم بى تاثير نبودند.  كمى دير بود، اما خوشحالم كه بلآخره بيدار شدم. دنيا و زندگى را با چشم هاى باز و شاداب ترى ميبينم.  اين بهترين پند عمرم بود كه از 9 سالگى آن را داشته ام، و فقط هم يك بار گرفتمش و ديگر هم پدرم آن را تكرار نكرد.  كسان ديگرى هم به انواع مختلف اين حرف را زده اند :

از خواب گران، خواب گران، خواب گران خيز.

به خود آ!

The Art of Teaching

I have been really blessed to have had great professors during my undergraduate and graduate level course work, as well as patient and knowledgeable mentors who are scientists and engineers at my work.  Those who really care about education for its own sake, and the quality of work they are associated with, as well as the ethics and manner in which they conduct their business.   I realize this more and more through my limited interactions with younger generation of faculty, which I am afraid to say saddens and often disappoints me.

I have interacted with young faculty who view publication's worth as a line that gets added to their CVs or online bibliographies regardless of its content and correctness of claims they make there.  I have come across those who are hesitant to use already prepared high quality educational material in classes they already are supposed to teach anyways unless they get funding for it.  I have seen faculty submitting identical papers simultaneously to two or more venues, putting my name and submitting papers without my knowledge of the existence of the paper, let alone approving its content.
Overall, I see young faculty viewing themselves as business (wo)men, with educating students being the last thing on their minds. 

When I think about it, most faculty I admire and respect a lot belong to a generation of Americans who were born in mid 1950s.  There must have been something special about their generation.  Something that I do not think will be repeated.  Something that they will take a way with themselves.  I mourn the loss of such greatness already.

Sad Ironies

I am learning Turkish these days.  The process rekindles the sweet memories and excitements I used to experience as a kid and later teenager, when I used to learn English as a second language.  I still feel the same joy of opening doors to a new world through learning a language.  I also realize how much slower my brain seems to be processing and remembering newly learned grammar rules and vocabularies.  It is called aging I guess.  It is nice to discover so many common words and cultural similarities in Turkish, Persian, and Arabic.  It seems like as long as you know one of these languages, you can pick up the vocabulary of another one, fairly well.  Naturally, I look for such commonalities, and how one word changes as it travels from one language to another.  These days, every time I find the relationship between a Turkish word and a Farsi word, I become happy for having been able to solve a puzzle.  It must be the analyst in me, liking to break down the words into pieces (and Turkish is the perfect language for doing so, since phrases and sentences can be made by adding suffixes and prefixes to a word).

But for once, I was sad to find such a relationship.  Well, not really the relationship between words this time, rather learning a Turkish word that is used as a name in Tehran.  Maybe somethings are better left unlearned.  I learned that "ev" means home in Turkish, and "evin" means house.  How has the sweetest of words and places become a prison in Iran, the forced house of many?!

Innovation

A cool idea comes to my mind. I start brainstorming, writing notes, adding more thoughts, scenarios, cases. It looks like I have something going, I tell to myself. I feel the adrenalin rush. What if it turns to something big, what if it changes one city, one country, then the world. What if, ...? Then, you think of the logistics. How would I make it happen? Who would I bring on as team members? Should I quite my job? Where would I get funding from? I am convinced it is something worth pursuing. Then, I check the internet. I search for similar ideas and technologies. Someone else is on it already. Not too long ago, a company launched just a year ago. Someone is few steps ahead of you. It does not matter you thought you were a genius and came up with the idea all on your own, without cheating. It does not matter, it is being done. For those few minutes when you were feeling creative and innovative, that excitement, that adrenaline rush, that was enjoyable. It makes you want to experience it again. Maybe once for real, without it fading away. Are there any cool ideas left that someone has not explored yet and matches my passions too? I wonder. There is no other way around, other than to keep looking, and thinking. It is hard to be innovative in this day and age, I think.

What to do?

Did I get into the wrong field for me? While I have learned about many scientific and engineering areas through computation, and while I have been enjoying all those learning experiences, I have so many other passions and interests I like to pursue outside work that I do not have enough time for. From writing essays and stories, to introducing some changes in society and even laws! What shall one do in so little time?

Scope

It is amazing to me how sometimes the concept of scope is misunderstood or not even considered by some people.  Do you expect an astronomy journal to publish articles in medicine?  Or a math journal to publish short stories?  Usually not.  How would you judge and trust the scientific claims made in a fashion magazine?

While we may grasp the concept of the scope in above examples easily, when it comes to news organization and public media, expectations seem to change drastically.  For example, some accuse  Voice of America for not being the voice of the people of other countries outside the U.S such as Iran, Egypt, Turkey, etc.  Well, of course it is not and nor should it be in my opinion.  They can report the events and news as they happen, and how U.S. government responds to it, but that is about it.  Similarly, a local newspaper for Los Angeles has different content and objectives from a local newspaper in Baltimore or Tokyo.  In fact, if one government's media talk about goals and points of views of people in other countries, one should question their authority and judgement in doing so, in my opinion.  One can only expect truthfulness and validity of the claims and news being broadcast and hold media accountable and demand evidence for what they deliver within their scope of work, not for what they are not supposed to deliver nor for what they did not deliver.

I have seen the same thing happen on personal Blogs and Facebook pages.  Some think to show your cool factor and open-mindedness you should accept and keep all posts and comments made by others on your personal page.  Well, it is my "personal" page not a board for others to spread their ideas, especially if I do not like to promote those ideas.  My personal page is out of scope for reflecting many topics of interest to others!  I find it acceptable to delete automatic ads that are posted as comments to my blog posts as well as out of scope comments, equally the same.

I have just been needing to throw it out there once and for all.