My dear basketball

This year, was the first year in my life that I was away from my family for most of the important family events or holidays, like the new year and the birthdays. The side effect of being away (or perhaps the most important effect :P) was, not receiving presents! My good friends did throw me a lovely birthday party here, but when Norouz was approaching, I thought now that my lifestyle has changed, perhaps I should get myself a present. And that was how I got myself a basketball!

To my utmost grief, my dear ball, my dear companion in many light nights of Stockholm, tore apart tonight! :( A few days ago, I got the ball reinflated, but as usual I was in a hurry so I didn't check whether the pressure is right. Tonight when I took it out to play, after some dribbling, it just tore apart. But I guess I shouldn't worry much, I had to leave it behind in Stockholm anyway. One may say I'm an unfaithful owner, but anyway, I'm already planning to get a better one as soon as I arrive in Zurich :D

IAUM-CCC 4

Well, it is already four years from the first IAUM-CCC. I have some good memories from those programming contest days at IAUM and I'm very happy I am still involved (Although I'm watching what is happening from outside and as we say in Persian, "فقط از دور دستی بر آتش دارم").

The forth year of the "Islamic Azad University of Mashhad - Collegiate Coding Challenge" is going to be held this summer. Although there is a possibility that I'd miss the final, I'm quite happy that I'm going to be in Mashhad for the most of it. I bet my parents will try to kill me when I tell them I'm going to be off to good old IAUM for several Fridays, but I hope by now they are used to my "hassani habit" of going to school on most of the Fridays! :P

Anyway, here are the links:

- CCC4's details and contests' program
- IAUMCCC4 weblog

The first round is held online, so spread the word and take part if you are interested in programming contests and you can read/understand Persian!

Tormenting dear...

One of the worst tortures in life is to be tormented by a dear one who only has your best interest at heart...

The Road Not Taken

Today I saw a poem by Robert Frost that I had sent to a friend 13 month ago.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Now that I look back at it, those days I was tormenting myself with the question whether I was taking the right road. Although I was trying to push the question to be about coming to Stockholm or going to Canada, deep down it was still more about to go or not to go. Almost everybody I knew had disapproved of my decision in a way or another, but I had dragged myself through it all, and as the time grew nearer, I was more in doubt about everything. The last week before my departure, all my muscles were tense, I didn't like to talk to people about the fact that I'm leaving, and I had postponed packing to the very last minute. As a result of all the tension, I missed doing a lot of things. I didn't properly say good bye to some friends and relatives and I didn't finish some of the work I had to do before leaving, like re-setting my parent's computer and lots of other things. Now that I think of it, I should have really invited my friends out and properly thanked them and say good bye, but I was so reluctant to bring up the matter, so everything went messy. The funny thing is I'm still afraid, afraid to death of how I'm proceeding with my life.

But I have come to realize that this fear and tension doesn't have much to do with the road I'm in, I would have it no matter which road I had taken. Why all this tension and fear? I really don't know… perhaps it is the restlessness of my soul or because of my agonizing self-disdain.

Anyway, if nothing, coming here gave me the chance to realize (in practice, I might have known this, but experience is something else) that the real question is not where I am or where I go, it is who I am and how I am. I hope yet another move reveals more of this mystery to me.

When I told my father about my decision to go to Zurich (which he was partially advising me against), he said "Yeah, that is my Maryam, you've been like this since you started walking, you couldn't stay put, or where everybody else was. If we were at a picnic, after some time, you would have gone 10 meters away, and if we joined you, you would have departed after a while again."

So I guess I just need to make peace with myself.

Friend or a shadow in the pool...

"I do not want a friend who smiles when I smile, who weeps when I weep; for my shadow in the pool can do better than that." Confucius

Is self from self: a deadly banishment!

And why not death rather than living torment?
To die is to be banish'd from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her
Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by
And feed upon the shadow of perfection
...

- William Shakespeare (Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 3. Scene I)
--
I came by this painting of Silvia by Charles Edward Perugini some time after I posted this piece, I'm appending it here. It is quite nice, I particularly like the dress!

D5: All Things Digital

The 5th Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital executive conference has just come to an end, with some interesting exhibitions and interviews. The climax I guess was the interview with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. It has some interesting insight on where the industry is heading, and some good advice on how to move foward and not get stuck in your past!

Steve Jobs: There’s a lot of things that happened that I’m sure I could have done better when I was at a Apple the first time and a lot of things that happened after I left that I thought were wrong turns, but it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter and you kind of got to let go of that stuff and we are where we are. So we tend to look forward.

And, you know, one of the things I did when I got back to Apple 10 years ago was I gave the museum to Stanford and all the papers and all the old machines and kind of cleared out the cobwebs and said, let’s stop looking backwards here. It’s all about what happens tomorrow. Because you can’t look back and say, well, gosh, you know, I wish I hadn’t have gotten fired, I wish I was there, I wish this, I wish that. It doesn’t matter. And so let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.

You can read the transcript or watch the video.