The importance of "Harry Potter"

Last night we went to see the last movie of Harry potter series. You might hate everything related to harry potter and it’s blockbusters and the whole craze about it, then you can simply skip this post. But if you read on, I will tell you why I like it and why I have to argue with some of my friends when I keep defending harry potter everywhere I go. One of necessities of life besides food is the world of fantasy for me. I cannot imagine a world without it. If you are a fantasy freak like me, you know there are a few great fantasy book have been written and also been successful worldwide. So little, that you can almost count them by fingers. I’m not going to list them all here and act as a Wikipedia entry. I just mention some of them, which had a deep impact on me and my way of thinking. When I was at high school, I was so bored with the mathematics classes that I always found refugee in the school library, which I was lucky to find some treasures such as Homer’s “Iliad and Odyssey”. I kept reading without knowing that I was reading one of the greatest fantasy book ever written. I didn’t know how the hours passed when I was going trough the pages and that is how I survived the high school. Before that, when I was younger, there was ”The never ending story” by “Michael Ende”. I read that book so many times that the pages split apart and had to bind it by myself. Not an easy job I confess, for a five hundred pages book. I asked my father for help and he made a very lovely leather case that I still have it in my library, in a good shape. It was truly a never-ending story to me. I never liked the movie they made based on this book, because such imagination and those details can not easily fit in a two or three hours movie. If you know a child about ten years old, please be an angel and give him or her this book as a gift. Although this a hard time to encourage children to read books, when there are easier kinds of entertainments out there. That’s one of the reasons I want to tell you about the importance of Harry potter. It made these Xbox generation children to read and if you have read it or at least seen the books in a bookstore, you will admit it’s not an easy read. It’s a wonder that children all over the world read over 5000 pages and loved it. Of course I’m not going to count the adults and how much they enjoyed it as well, at this matter. Then there was the word of “Narnia” and “Aslan”, who made me think about religion in an entirely different way. And years later, a real fantasy, almost near to perfection with “The Lord of the Rings” made me think of all these great minds who gifted our world with such delight and wisdom. With heroes who keep our hearts warm in the darkest times. What would we do without them? I kept thinking about those great names: Homer, Shakespear, Tolkein, C.S.Lewis, Ende … but deep down I had this feeling that the world of fantasy, so dear to my heart, belongs to the men. They have created the beloved heroine, but imagine if a woman could write a fantasy, and how would that be? And then one day a friend whom we shared same interests in books came to me and gave me the first harry potter book and said, read it. I confess I wasn’t that bewitched with the book till the third one, and when I found out that the author was a woman, as I was reading more and more I became excited about the fact that I discovered another fantasy world which all the elements go together in details and it gives you such great characters and all written, at last, by a woman. I cannot say how much it grieves me that the hero is not a girl or “Hermoine Grenger” is not the name of the book. But after this huge success, I’m sure Joanne Rowling will proudly write her complete name on her new books with the main character as a girl. Well, that is something to cheer me up. Until then I will enjoy living in a time when I could read these great fantasies and enjoy the fun of watching them being made as a movie on a big screen, where everyone, no matter what age they are, can experience a fantasy world on a Sunday afternoon, even as little as 120 minutes of their lifetime.

Epiphany in supermarket

Living in a diverse city like Toronto is quite a new experience for me. A valuable experience and I really like it. I like the way people talk with different and sometimes weird accents, but everybody understands. I like it when you are in a streetcar; you hear at least five languages at a time. And when it comes to food, you have access to nearly all the cuisines of the world.
When I first came here, I thought there are no sour cherries in Toronto. But that was because our nearest supermarket, in this case -Loblaw’s- didn’t have any. Then I figured out, you just have to know where to look. I even found fava beans.
After a while, finding a new place for groceries shopping became one of our hobbies. We went discovering new foods in new neighborhoods. In one of our expeditions, we came by a Pakistani supermarket, which had halal food. The place was huge and had everything. You could find a variety of spices like nowhere else. Meats with every cut you’d like and fresh vegetables. As I was walking down the isles and looking at different cans and bottles with ugly packaging and no information on them, I had an epiphany. I said to myself, this is probably what Middle East looks like. The place can offer you everything, and sometimes more than those fancy supermarkets across the GTA, but there is no order or discipline to it. They don’t care about the appearances and customer services. Because there are more than enough people to buy their goods and there is even no need for competition or advertisement. And if anyone from the outside look at it, they probably think, what on earth these people are eating? Strange bottles and dirty canes, Meat cuts in grocery plastic wraps. But what they don’t know is, by looking down their nose at such place, they may miss the most delicious tastes of their life.
I remember our first days here and our excitements when we entered a supermarket. We were astonished by the arrangements and orders and beautiful packaging and I felt dizzy sometimes, because I couldn’t decide what pasta should I choose for dinner? I had endless options, while back home I knew the only brand that worked among those three or four. But after shopping, always came the disappointment. Despite the fancy package, the taste was not what we’ve expected and we had to throw it away. Maybe we didn’t get used to the taste yet or we didn’t know how to cook it to make the most of it. This is probably our life here for a while. We are excited and bedazzled by the options we have, but sometime we find them strange to our taste and it will take us a while to figure out how to cook it for the best results.

Something to share

I had some discoveries recently that I like to share with my girl friends that are living far from home and sometime find their situation unbearable। Before you put that self-pity, miserable, losers look on your face and start hating your new life, check the following symptoms:
Dehydration: sometimes a glass of water can do wonders.
Hunger: If you are feeling you’re about to cry over the stupidest thing, like when you are finally home and can’t find your keys and you are sure that they are somewhere in your big handbag. Best thing might be to make a decent meal. If you have nothing in the fridge, just call for a pizza or make yourself a grill cheese. Suddenly things aren’t that bad after you eat.
If after easting, you are still down and feel depressed or you need to cry a bit, check your period date, it might be a sign of PMS.
Try putting probiotics in your diet. They can easily be included, by eating yogurt daily.
And finally exercise is always recommended.
If all the things failed, go buy yourself a new pair of shoes. This will never fail.

SOUNDS

There are times in our life that we miss someone, something, or some place. I think it is a perfect time in my life to miss my home. The home I left with anger, despair and riot. The home I hope I will go back to it and see it different.
But how do we miss a place? How is the process of missing shaped within our feelings? Is being in a special spot means that much to us, or is it the feeling we had at the spot that counts? What did I feel there in my home that I do not feel here and therefore miss it? What is the exact experience, I can’t recreate here? I’m sure it’s different for each individual but mine I guess, is the sounds.
Last night I was trying to go to sleep and I couldn’t. I tried to remember how would I fight a sleepless night back home and I remembered a series of sound effects in a row, exactly like a recorded sound track. It made me so excited all of a sudden and the same time made me feel so far away because I don’t hear those sounds in Toronto anymore.
It was a narrow brook near our apartment which you couldn’t hear the sound of it until midnight. When the alley was dark and no car or motorcycle passed, you could hear the water flowing down the brook and feel like living in a cottage in the middle of a forest. The wind blew through the trees and sometimes an empty can of soup would make such a joyful song flowing along the little brook that you would have missed it if some nights, it didn’t came along.
And Then there were crows. Yes! There are no crows in this city. I can’t believe I’m missing their ugly sounds. You think it’s scary to wake up in the morning by the crow sound, but I actually liked it. Their sounds meant that morning is here, or maybe rain is coming soon. Some how early morning in my memories mixed with black crows flying over the sky and dark clouds preparing to shower rain on you which was a rare thing in my city and therefore very special and happy time for me.
I went to a university with big tall trees and thousands of crows nesting on them. They were old and surely they've been witness of generations after generation graduating and changing their lives.
So the crow sound is my joyful sound. All my good memories come with it, all the good time of college. …
And just now, I remembered I had this weird habit of recording the sounds around me by my cell phone. Wish I still had that phone. I had sounds of river. Some old man called “darvish” who came in our alley every Saturday, singing and blessing everyone with his powerful voice, the man who sold flowers door by door, the other guy who sold salt and would buy the extras of breads.
Comparing now, it seems I lived in chaos, a noisy city and of course this quiet nights in Toronto freaks me out. There is nothing but the sound of airplane passing in the sky and frequent sirens that makes me think someone is feeling bad right now. And here there are seagulls. I have nothing against seagulls but I don’t share any memories with them, not bad ones anyway and maybe I’m in luck!

Who knows maybe someday I will miss these sounds of Toronto specially the wind.

Happy new year!

Another no-rooz is coming and our persian year turns 1390. I hope it will become a good year. happy new year all invisible friends :)

The Diary Of Terracotta Army Exhibition

Me and my friend are so excited about Terracotta army being exhibited in Toronto and decided to go downtown to see it. Here is a summery of the events which happened that day.

As you may want to know , The Terracotta Army was discovered in the spring of 1974 in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province by a group of farmers who were digging a water well.
The figures vary in height 1.83–1.95 metres (6.0–6.4 ft), according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. The figures include warriors,chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians. Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits.*


9 a.m. having a fast breakfast, today is the day! hurrrraa

9:30 a.m. Should go for a quick grocery shopping and come back to get ready.

10 a.m. can't find a parking lot.

10:30 a.m. why everyone suddenly decided they ran out of bread and lettuce?

11:30 a.m. still in the grocery store, can't believe I'm wandering between the isles for rice flour.

noon. can't find the damn crushed tomato.

12:30 p.m. where are those salted pickles? God I'm going crazy.

1:30 p.m. in line for cashier at last!

2:00 p.m. I'm hungry and dizzy. going home.

2:45 p.m. arranging the groceries .

3:00 p.m. God! It's getting late , should meet my friend at sheppard station in half an hour. It gets half an hour to get there if I'm at the subway now!

3:05 p.m. I'm hungry and dizzy.

3:10 p.m. decided to put a pizza in the oven for 10 minutes and get ready.

3:25 p.m. The pizza is black! I don't know why?! anyway it's to late to eat, better run.

3:50 p.m. finding my friend waiting for me in the station at last, just 20 minutes late, not that bad!

4:00 p.m. having a great time laughing and talking in Persian with my friend in a crowded cabin. can talk about almost anything when you think no one understands your language.

4:35 p.m. stop at the station. A very nice lady who's been smiling all the way at us, stands up and while leaving she says: " I wish you will be this happy for the rest of your life"- IN PERSIAN! - which makes us speechless for a moment and thank her good heart then!

5:00 p.m. at the ROM museum entrance. suddenly we both realize that we didn't bring any camera with us. What a disaster! this could be an experience of a lifetime.

5:10 p.m. finally we get calm by seeing the sign of no camera at the door. huh!

5:20 p.m. can't believe the price of tickets! we would only wanted to see the Terracotta but we should pay for the whole ROM ticket as well. what a strange way to collect money from poor visitors for the museum. can't believe the government is this careless about the museum and art galleries.

5:35 p.m. breathless and excited we reach the exhibition at last!

5:40 p.m. WHAT? this was the whole exhibition????

5:45 p.m. decided not to panic and instead of expecting to see the whole army ( what was I thinking?) just look at these 5 figures very closely.

6 p.m. read the entire information on the wall and try to listen to that weird Chinese man explaining things in a dramatic way. though the music and the crowd won't let you hear clear enough.

6:15 p.m. after walking around for the fifth time , decided to go the gift shop. maybe we haven't lost everything yet! although there is a glimpse of smart thought of projecting the whole scene of the terracotta army on the wall. but its installed so high in the ceiling that it doesn't give you a slightest sense of discovering a huge treasure. It would be better if they projected it on the floor and you could watch it nearer to it's original position.

6:30 p.m. heading to gift shop. The idea of terracotta warriors as an small decorative sculpture makes our spirit.

6:45 p.m. My friend wants to see the rest of the museum very quick as we paid for it. huh! quick! we'll see.

7:30 p.m. can't see anymore. suddenly feel very dizzy and can't stand up straight. I'm must be hungry or thirsty! I just sit down. Everyone passes by with a hidden smile on their faces. Haven't seen a tired person in their life? what? I look up and see I'm about to be eaten by a giant dinosaur skeleton. his mouth over my head as if I'm in a Spielberg movie or something. not funny at all.

7:40 p.m. my friend can't find anything to drink , so we're heading out.

7:45 p.m. can't find the exit door. Oh gosh , please help me. I'm fainting.

7:50 p.m. stuck at an emergency exit door. can't go out or get in. maybe visiting a museum is not a good idea at all. You could always watch a documentary on TV.

7:55 p.m. A nice guy notices us stuck in there and opens the door. we thank him embarrassed and red faced.

8:00 p.m. decided to concentrate and read the signs carefully and find someone to ask the direction.

8:05 p.m. no one is around when you need them.

8:10 p.m. Out at last! huraaaaaaaaaaaa.

8:15 p.m. recovered in spirit , walking towards the closest coffee house. laughing at our scary movie experience back there.

8:20 p.m. almost melted in our seat with the first sip of latte.

8:40 p.m. we should go back. maybe I grab another doughnut.

9 p.m. in the subway. we both too tired to speak. I want my bed.

9:30 p.m. wish I was in a car…

9:40 p.m. home sweet home. exhausted and full of experience! find my husband relaxing on the couch with a cup of tea after his gym and shower. Fresh faced, welcoming me and asking about my day.

10 p.m. try beaming all the time to avoid him think that I had not a very good time.

10:05 p.m. I hear a voice in distance but too sleepy to notice. I think it was the spirit of a "Qin chi huang " talking ancient Chinese to me.

*For more information visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army

The Joy Of Cinema

Living in Tehran, I had almost forgotten about the taste of watching a movie on the big screen. I had forgotten about the act of walking into the theater room, the joy of sitting in the dark and hear others laughter and sighs. All those beautiful tiny details you can only notice on a wide screen, I've been missed them all.

Not that we don't have theaters back there, but me and my generation, almost gave up on cinema after some religious hard-liners took over it. Strict censorship didn't allow most of the great Iranian talents to screen their films. Just like the Eastern bloc. The only movies were allowed, were the ones which reflected the propaganda needs of the government. Therefore like any other generation, we found a replacement: The Underground film club.

Every week we were gathering at this big house of my friend and by using a projector and some dvd player, we were merged in the beauty of cinema by watching the worlds true artists as well as Iranian talents on our little screen.We were watching Godard, Taviani Brothers, Bergman, Alain Resnais and so many others.

While we had been banned of watching any American or European cinema, almost everyone who walked in the streets of Tehran, had access to all genres of movies, from Hollywood and Bollywood to the European cinema for only $1!

Now being away from my city and my friends, I enjoy the movies in real screen. I can not say that the experience is the same. I miss my film club days, when I knew I was sharing something valuable with my friends and it was always the fear of some military breaking to the house or some neighbors reports us as we watched "The lives of others" * in the dark.

*Directed by

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck		a movie about the East Germany secret Police hearing all the secrets.