Lady Sun

English section of women in Iran wants to prepare a list of Iranian female bloggers who write in English to add the list to the website (something like what we have in the Persian section of the site). I would appreciate if you let me know about the URL of these ladies' weblogs. You can email me or simply put the URLs in my comment box.

Also, we need volunteer Persian-to-English translators to translate about one page every month for the site. In case you are interested, just drop me an email.

Thx in advance ;)

God! I have feelings rarely had before. I feel I'm somebody else. He has an important exam today. I'm nervous as hell, as if I have the exam myself. Sometimes I'm afraid to accept that I have such feelings. Sometimes it's easier to deny what you feel. I'm a little bit scared. Feeling this much close to somebody scares me. I have always used to set up a wall, an invisible wall, between me and the men around me. I remember I removed this wall only once, and it hurt as hell. The scars of that wound are still there on my soul. What if this is also another tragedy of breaking down the walls?

And then the whole issue is scaring me. I had never imagined it's gonna happen so soon. I always thought it will happen in my thirties. He says I'm very capable to start it. I feel capable too, but I don't know if I'm ready. Living for the rest of your life with someone else, sleeping in the same bed with him, sharing your days and nights, happiness and sorrow�

I sometime like to escape from everything, I like that world inside me. I usually don't let people enter this world. I feel happy with myself. Sometimes I leave everything alone and escape into that inner world. What if one day I feel like escaping again? He's such a lovely human being I will never ever wish to hurt. Will he stand me escaping, getting lost in the middle of nowhere? Will he stand my crazy moments of feeling lost? Will he stand my unreasonable ups and downs?

I feel nervous for his exam. It's such a strange feeling I have never experienced before. What is happening to me?!

I have written a lot these days, but haven't posted them. My friends advise me not to post whatever I write. Sorry if my notes seem like the diaries of a senseless potato, . . .

Here's another weblog writing about the recent events, giving link to different websites and articles in both Persian and English.

On June 16th, 2003 CNN has published an article in its TECH
section titled:

Prostitute diary tops Iran Web hit
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/06/16/iran.blogs.reut/

This article was published based on the report by Firouz Sedarat, Reuters
news agency reporter in Tehran titled:

Iran Internet Use at Risk from Conservatives
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=2943120

This clear fabrication, and manipulation of news headlines can lead to
disastrous results for Iranian Internet users. Such provocative headlines
are the best excuse for tougher regulations on the Internet freedom of
speech, which is currently being discussed in the Iranian parliament and
judiciary. Ironically this comes at a time when personal websites, and
weblogs have become the most valid news source from the Iranian nations
continuing struggle towards democracy.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/06/20/MN293330.DTL&type=printable

Iranian Internet users have organized a protest, in the form of an online
petition, against this form of biased reporting from CNN. I urge you to
read and consider signing this petition to protect freedom of speech in
the time when it is most needed for the Iranian nation.

This petition is located at:

http://www.persianblog.com/petition.asp

Human Rights Watch executive director's letter to Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, about the recent events

It seems the riots are somehow continuing, this time with a different nature. It's not the peaceful protest of university students anymore. Everyday we hear from a different corner of the city that people, specially the youth, have been out protesting. Of course, wherever the people are, the members of pressure groups are there as well.

If you go near universities and dormitories in the evening, you'll see plenty of police vehicles guarding the area. The Iranian opposition satellite programs cannot be received due to the strong interference noises produced by microwave rays sent from nobody knows where. (There are rumors about the harmful effects of these waves on human reproductive functions.)

. . .

I don't know who is paying and supporting these pressure groups. If the pressure groups go on with their crimes, people will not tolerate them, and the protests will become more serious. Then a bloody revolution may start. It seems strange if all this has been planned by the hardliners. They will dig their own graves by doing so. I don't think they're that stupid. Some strongly believe the pressure groups are supported by US rightists, some say by the monarchists. I don't care who is supporting them. I just want all this massacre to end. I want my childhood play-mate neighbors back home. I want the injuries heeled. I want this disgraced generation of students gain their respect and peace back. It's not only me who wants this, all the Iranians want it. Those who are killing and committing murders and violence, all those heartless members of pressure groups, all those authorities that are supporting them are not considered as Iranian. They don't have the right to be called Iranian. They are the residents of hell; a hell made of their brutality and ignorance.

Women in Iran (English Monthly Edition) is updated!

I was surprised by my last post's feedback. The most interesting point for me was the fact that my post was not political at all, but it has been interpreted as a political post mostly.

I was angry and sad when I wrote that part, mostly because of seeing the pictures of that boy who was beaten in his dorm while sleeping, and I have to confess that I was more emotional rather than logical while writing that.

Loving or hating Bush or any other foreign politician doesn't do me or my nation any good. I have no right to judge Bush's administration unless it is related to my country; and unfortunately it is related somehow. Bush is claiming to set the global order in the world while I have heard from many people, including both my Iranian friends living in US or American friends, and I have read in the press, that Bush has cheated in the elections. That's none of my business if he has cheated or not. This matter should be taken care of by the American nation. But I don't want a dishonest person who is quite notorious in his discourse to decide what is right and what is wrong for my country and for the rest of the world. I do want people to support the students in Iran, but I see no point but disturbance in Bush supporting the students. When he supports them, bells start ringing in the minds of the hardliners here that most probably the riots are getting nourished by Bush and his gang. The forgotten point here is that students didn't start rioting. Everything started from their peaceful marching to protest against the privatization of universities. Suddenly the members of the pressure groups attacked them out of nowhere hitting the students. Everything started when the innocent students were unfairly beaten by the members of the pressure group who seems to be immune by a secret power.

When they start hitting you, massacring you, and disrespecting you, you will become defensive. That's exactly what happened to the students. But when the defense started it turned out into a riot.

I strongly object anyone who claims that students had plans from before to oppose the government, and I don't see any point in some of the foreign media's interpretation of the case as a revolution to oust the government. But when Bush becomes so excited in defending the students, the truth hides behind the attractive interpretations and everyone thinks that students have started a revolution against the regime.

I don't see any point in revolutionary riots. I believe we have to go gradually with the reform, start changes from the basic structures of the society, and we should start it from ourselves. I see no alternative for the present regime for the time being; any government is going to be the same for our country unless we change. Unless we change ourselves, nothing will change. History has proven to us that, at least in our country, democracy is unreachable by the help of a foreign power. If we want change, reform, or whatever, we have to gain it ourselves, and we should not beg it from a foreign power.

Bush attacked and occupied Iraq, but do you really think he is The Savior? Look what has happened to Iraqi people. Are they better off? Look at the injured and dead children; look at the picture of the little child killed yesterday by American troops; look at the national museum of Iraq; look at � Is that kind of freedom Bush wants to give my country?

Where was he and his fellow neo-conservative friends when the same Saddam Hussein (who is now the most despised figure in the world) was bombing Iran with chemical weapons? Where was this philanthropic president 'for all seasons' when Iranian girls have been raped and buried in mass graves by Iraqi soldiers? Who was caring about Iranians' freedom, democracy and solidarity when cities of Iran were hit by US made Iraqi missiles?

Why is Bush listing Iran as a country that supports terrorism, and even if he is right, why is he setting limitations for Iranian ordinary people who have suffered the most from terrorism? Why are our movie directors being rejected to enter the States to participate in film festivals (1 , 2 )? Why are our sportsmen fingerprinted while entering the country? Why? What kind of support of the Iranian people is this?

Let us Iranians be suspicious and resentful about any green light Bush and his gang show us. Let us take care of our own diverse society and freedom ourselves�

The riots are declining. Dormitories are evacuated and in ruins. Examinations are suspended. Students are wounded, not only physically, but very much emotionally and mentally.

They were sleeping. I'm talking about students of Tarasht dormitory. They were sleeping while in the middle of midnight pressure groups attacked them like wasps. He was probably dreaming of his wife whom he claims to love more than God when he was hit by the thunderstorm, thunderstorm of the so-called pressure groups. He was running in the middle of midnight, injured, scared, and helpless. People helped him, took him into one of the houses in the area, trying to attend to his injuries. Members of the pressure groups followed him, entered the house, and asked to take the wounded student with them out. The residents of the house didn't allow them, shouted, and the other neighbors came to help. They sent the pressure groups out. The boy was dying. They asked for help. The emergency center had run out of ambulances. Police came and took him to the hospital. Where is he now? How is he now? No one knows� What is his wife whom he loves more than God doing? What is God doing?

He was sleeping when the wasps came; many other students were sleeping as well when they were beaten in the same way. Other students were protesting peacefully when the thunderstorm hit them out of nowhere. People in Iran were living their lives when the thunderstorm hit them. Mortal impact I name it. Where did it come from? Where does it get nourished? Who is supporting all these wasps, all this thunder; all these pressure groups; you name it? No one exactly knows. Or we know and we don't want to admit, or we know and we are afraid of admitting, or we know and we can do shit about it!

I am bitter, sentimentally angry, and dreadfully sad. Monarchists are killing themselves rambling about a new revolution, a protest, an opposition� I hate monarchy, we hate monarchy, we hate any sort of dictatorship. I hate this stupid Bush who is releasing statements in support of the students. I hate him who has no idea what kind of people Iranians are. I hate the monarchists who think we are that stupid to put the red carpet for Reza Pahlavi, the late Shah's sun. I hate the pressure groups who are literally massacring their fellow Iranian citizens. I hate our reformist government who can do shit about all this chaos. I hate our 'real' Government who has closed its eyes on the reality and seeks for popularity and stability in suppressing people. I hate all the students including myself who can do nothing. The biggest thing we can do is just playing the role of scapegoats, victims of the ignorance, brutality, whatever...

If only they knew how small the amount of freedom we are seeking is�

Cappuccino, our electronic magazine, has celebrated its first birthday. It was about a year ago that five other bloggers, and I, gathered in a coffee shop, talking about creating Iran's first online weekly. In a week the design was ready and we released our issue no.0 right before the FIFA World Cup, to have an exclusive issue for the occasion.

We named our magazine Cappuccino, since we had our weekly meetings in coffee shops. Now the magazine itself looks like a coffee shop to our readers, where they can come and have a cup of our magazine, reading our articles about different issues such as cinema, music, internet, social reports, stories, satire, panorama, and etc.

It's really hard to believe my eyes, seeing our 53rd edition as our anniversary edition. My baby cappuccino has successfully overcome all the problems, and now is ready to start its second year of existence more professionally.

Khodadad, one of our friends residing in London, has written a piece in English in our special edition about Cappuccino called Cappuccino and I: The Chronicle of a Love Affair.

This evening Women in Iran website had a meeting at Women Internet Cafe in Banoo Cultural Center. We invited Nina Kristiansen, the director of Norwegian Information and Documentation Center for Women's Studies and Gender Research (Kilden), to have a speech about the rights of women in Scandinavian countries.

Our audience was almost entirely women from different NGOs and there were also some individuals interested in the rights of women as well.

Nina talked about very interesting things, including the equal participation of men and women by all means in Norway. For example she talked about bringing up the children and the equal maternity leave offered to both mothers and fathers. She talked about rape and she mentioned the most common type of rape in Norway, and supposedly any other country, is getting raped by husbands, i.e. a woman getting forced to have sexual relationship with her husband against her own will. It was really interesting since you hardly ever hear about such a thing in Iran. As far as I have seen, and heard in my life, women have no special right in their sexual relationships. They hardly talk about it, and hardly ask themselves if they really want to do it or not. If their husbands wish to have sex with them, they obey automatically, and gosh nobody ever talks about women getting raped by their husbands here!

Another interesting point she mentioned about rape was the law they have in Norway for raped women that prevents an investigation of a woman's background prior to being raped. That means no one can accuse a woman for her conduct or the kind of clothes she wears; no one can say that a woman has deserved to be raped because of a special conduct (e.g. being tempting or wearing tempting clothes.)

About the women movement in Iran she said our movements are mostly connected with the government and that won't work in the long term. She said women in Norway have struggled so hard to reach their goals, and at the beginning of every movement, every campaign, there were so few women participating. She said after a while, after any success they've reached, people have started to approve their causes gradually, and I'm sure by that she meant that we haven't struggled enough in Iran and I do agree with that.

She recommended the women movements in Iran to do documented research, submitting the facts resulted from the research to the government, and base their struggles on those documented facts so that they won't be opposed by the government.

She talked about so many other things and the women presenting there were so amazed by all the types of freedom or equality a woman can enjoy in her life. The meeting ended up with the audience's questions about women rules in Norway at 8 pm, while most of the audience was late to go home and cook their husbands and children's dinner!

Nina is a very interesting woman, a type of woman I could make friends with if we were living in the same area. She came late because of the mad traffic. I asked her to relax out there in the park for a while. We smoked and then went for the speech. I was her translator

There was one woman in the audience who was a pain in the neck! All through the session she kept nagging at my translation, and mocking my mistakes! I finally got angry in the middle of the meeting and asked her to come and translate if she could do better. After that she shut up and I gained my self-confidence back. I was wondering what that woman was looking for by showing off her English. I translated everything very simply and informally, since the meeting was casual and relaxed. Everybody was pleased and I tried my best to convey the meaning correctly.

I guess it is inevitable to omit some sentences while doing oral translation, trying to help the communication take place and the meaning conveyed. That girl sent so much negative energy that my migraine came back.

But after the speech people came and thanked me and we had some delicious vegetarian sandwiches in the Cafe, smoked outside since the Cafe is a Green one, and had a friendly chat with Nina.

She was very impressed by Iranian people's conduct. She's going to write an article describing all her observations, trying to show the truth about life in Iran. I hope her article will make a change in the attitudes of majority of people in Norway _which I assume are the same negative attitudes that many people in other Western countries share_ towards Iranians.

Strange people, strange days, strange feelings…

I wish you were home, not among that crowd of people… When you are in the crowd, you are strange too, far, far away. I wish you were home when I called you. At least I could talk to you about that unbearable lightness of being that is hurting me as hell. I wish you were there helping me out of this chaos.

Sometimes it seems as if I don't know any of them; those whom I have spent my life in the last few months with. Why does everybody seem so strange? Bewildered I am sitting here, and feeble I am since I need your presence right now and you are not here. It's stupid to need someone. 'Need' makes you dependent; 'need' makes you weak. I wish I could get over all this nightmares I am suffering from night and day. I wish the story would end soon.

I resigned from being the editor of our online magazine to have more time to work on my thesis. Never thought it would be so difficult to do so. I can't help being worried about our magazine, although I know the new editors are much more capable than me .I also resigned from the meta-weblog I was a member of. I used to report about Iranian women weblogs there. I guess I should stop my other online activities as well, since I have a very little time left. Difficult times are to come, but I have a feeling inside that makes me go on; the feeling of being loved...

I was ready to kill someone yesterday, anyone. I went to my Masters school in Mirdamad Street. They asked me to bring them a proof that I have passed my Islamic Ethics courses during college. That's not my job. They have to do inquiries about it themselves. Anyways, they gave me a letter written by our university's dean to submit to my B.A college in Shari'ati Street. I went there, they said you have to go to our headquarter in Pasdaran Street. I went there, first to Block A1, Block A1 directed me to Block A3, Block A3 directed me to Block A2. And all the people working in different departments refused to give me that paper that included my ethics transcript, justifying that the letter is written by my college's dean and that's not valid! It should been written by the head of our branch headquarter! The funny thing is that the college that I got my B.A in, and my M.A. university are both different branches of the same university called Azad University! I started shouting and yelling at the first person at hand. This is because our university's headquarter is such a chaotic place that it would take them ages to do any kind of work. Thank goodness that one of the employees recognized that I am about to burst, and took the letter and promised he'll do something for me. After I got back home I had the feeling of a person coming back from war, wounded and tired. I slept for 4 hours, dreaming crazy angry things.

My Iranian readers are completely familiar with this university, but I guess our foreign visitors have no idea what kind of place this asylum is. Some years ago, some members of the government decided to establish this university as a non-governmental private university, that would charge tuition from the students, and provide the opportunity for everybody to study at university. (Due to the high number of volunteers to study at universities and due to the lack of enough number of universities in Iran, a great number of candidates couldn't enter universities every year.)

Azad University started its work with a small building in Tehran, continued its work till now, having thousands of branches in every corner of the country, even in some rural areas. The idea was a good one and still is, since a lot of people can go to university now. But there are a lots of logistical problems as well, that make you doubt about the nature of this university. In contrast to the very high tuition they charge, and the terrible bureaucracy ruling there, along with many other problems that severly damage the educational facilities available makes many people such as me regret studying at this university.

I have a long way to go to finish my work here. For defending my thesis I have to spend hours and hours going from one branch to another one, getting near murder stage, and eventualy even bribing some people. And along all this I have to forget what my friend told me about that bureaucracy issue in universities of America. He just told me that if I were in the States they would have got my ethics course marks and submited them to my department in just 20 minutes! Isn't that just funny that I have to wait for the next four days and then call to see if any progress has happened to my work till then?

God I want to get out of this asylum!

The templates are back!

European Football Cup final match ended with Milan's championship. Milan has always been my favorite football team, especially because of Maldini! Handsome good-looking footballers have always been the most attractive aspect of football for me! But another reason for being so much interested in football for me is the challenging nature of this game. It's like a film with a strong suspense. You stay upright till the end of an important final match. If your favorite team wins, you feel like you have watched a happy-ending film, if it loses the match you'll get depressed as if having seen a sad-ending film. Tonight's final didn't give any of those feelings to me since it was not a very beautiful match. Both Juventus and Milan played very conservatively, afraid of being defeated. Anyways it was very nice to see pretty boy Maldini holding the Cup in his hands, smiling brightly with shining eyes ;)

While watching the football match I could hear the sound of rain, dropping on the cooler outside the window.
. . .

I've opened my bedroom's window. The smell of rain has occupied all the room. It reminds me of "Rain" by Jose Feliciano.
. . .

After a few minutes:
Now the drops of rain sound like strikes of a hammer on my head. That's all because somebody has turned me off. When I feel somebody is taking my privacy from me, or is deciding for me what to do, I become angry as hell. When I am writing something and somebody comes and disturbs my peace, I go mad. And when I go mad I should be just left alone till I gain my lost self control back.

Anyways, Listen to the falling rain. . .

Does anybody know what has happened to Blogger's weblogs' templates? Many weblogs' templates have disappeared. I wanted to add a few links to my blog and I saw nothing there in my template box! So where the hell are our posts getting published? Is it a sort of magic or has there been a robbery or somehow a conspiracy of the Blogger+Google system!!?

I went to get my passport today. I had a hectic day and my time got wasted a lot. But among all this one thing really bothered me and that was observing the fact that women in Iran can't leave the country without their husband's permission, and therefore they can't get their passports without their husband's official permission either. There was a woman begging an officer there to let her get her passport. Poor old woman never had heard of such a stupid rule. She was complaining that her husband is a bastard and won't let her go to Syria to visit Saint Zeynab's Holy Shrine. Another lady didn't have her husband's permission since her husband was waiting for her in Italy! And I was wondering why on earth we have such stupid rules in our country in the 21st century. I guess we have to set a campaign against it. Something in the eyes of that old woman moved me. Something familiar, something reminding me of my Mom's friend's face telling me about her husband not letting her get her passport, justifying that she didn't need one; the look of a desperate weak woman that was confronting with the realities of a patriarchal society.

I don't know why I felt so much like singing this song by Elvis tonight:

Are you lonesome tonight?
Do you miss me tonight?
Are you sorry we drifted apart...

I wish he would sing it for me. We haven't drifted apart actually. But we are far away from each other and that makes me sad and lonesome. I wish he would sing it for me...

A funny thing happened to me on Friday. I'll choke if I don't write about it here! On Friday afternoon I had a business meeting with three friends. We had an appointment at the Homa International Hotel (fromer Sheraton) and the guard didn't let me in, 'cuz I wasn't wearing socks!! As far as I know, in Islam women should cover all their body and hair, except for their face, hands and feet. I don't know why this mf guard didn't let me in. I didn't even bother arguing with him and we went to somewhere else. Recently some shops have been attacked in Tehran for selling short and tight manteus (the mandatory universal cloak raincoat that all women have to wear) to women. And amid these stupid conditions ruling our society, our (used-to-be dear) president Khatami releases a declaration, celebrating Khordad the second (May 22, 1977- his first round election by the highest vote ever recorded in the history of Iran for electing a president). I wonder how he dares to release a declaration! On the first anniversary of Khordad the second we all went to Tehran university. Khatami had a speech and all the youth attending that big gathering were applauding him. He was very energetic and we were all very positive that things were going to change. A lot of things have changed I admit, but look what is going on these days! An ever-growing new trend of arrests, attacks, and restrictions... And Khatami continues to talk about religious democracy in his celebrating declaration this year.

I wish he would resign rather than keeping up his hopes for change. I wish the price of reform wasn't this high.

My work load is really overwhelming these days. I don't know what to do. I wish I had 30 something hours instead of 24 hours per day. I haven't replied to many of your kind emails. I'm really sorry, and I don't mean to be rude or snob. I'll answer all as soon as possible. Thanks for your encouragement.

Finally my weblog looks like something normal, thanks to dear Mr.Hex who spent a whole night working on my blog's template.

During the last year and a half that I was running my Persian weblog, I found a lot of very good friends, among which Mr.Hex was one of the best. I've missed my blog, and that friendly atmosphere of Persian blogging society very much. I'm gonna come back. I will, I know : )

I've missed Kish Island. Last night we were at a party with some of our friends from the Kish tour. We danced and sang songs for almost 4 hours, forgetting about all the work we had to do. Today I didn't get up on time and so I had to cancel my appointment with my private student. I was sleepy and tired as hell today, partly because of the quarrel I had with someone over the phone, someone so important and dear to me who occupied my mind the whole day. I kept shouting at him over the phone while I was in a taxi and the poor driver didn't know what to do. However, the class gave me some energy to go on. I love my classes this term. Nice hardworking students who give me warm shoulders, laugh like hell at my jokes, and look at me with eager eyes, which makes me feel good.

After work I had a meeting with my colleagues in women in Iran website. We have started some rounds of talk over the fundamental basis of feminism. It seems a few of us know what feminism really is. We worked a little bit on thory today, talking about the first, second and new waves of feminism. What I got from our talks was that we are in the third wave of feminism, an eclectic wave including not just one feministic school, but rather "feminisms". We talked about the pros and cons of radical, liberal, and socialist feminism, concluding that we have some bits and pieces of each of these categories in Iran, but we haven't copied any of them blindly. We were in disagreement on whether we have a women movement in Iran or not, getting to the point that no matter what other nations have been through, we can have our own native version of feminism, adapting good ideas from all the theoretical sources we have had.

I brought Goje Sabz to the meeting, a green round sour fruit which is actualy an under-ripe plum, and is very popular here when is spiced by salt. The meeting was very fruitful, ended with the sour taste of Goje Sabz :)

I'm back. I had a great trip to Kish, a beautiful island in the south of Iran, on the north coast of the Persian Gulf. We had to participate in Moj Short Film Festival, held by the House of Young Filmmakers (HYF), which is an active successful NGO that gives support to young filmmakers who are hardly ever supported by governmental organizations.

HYF had invited some cinematic webloggers and online journalists to cover the news of the festival over the internet. None of the journalists of the public press were invited. What HYF did was a completely new step. No other event had ever been covered like this over the net. The interesting point to me was their attitude to the coverage of their festival, an NGO-type of coverage by NG websites!

We had to watch over 34 films during 4 days. We saw some very good films, with new ideas, beautiful casting, new or rather radical techniques and subjects. Some celebrities were also invited. We stayed at a 5-star hotel, and all the 120 participants became friends with each other. One night we had a party, dancing till morning in one of our friends' house who lives in Kish. One night we went cycling at 2 am and the other night I went to the see with 3 of the participant directors at 2 am. There was a boat that had a glassy bottom with underwater spotlights through which we could see the beautiful magic of the under-the-see world easily. We saw wonderful fish and plant species, and were facinated by the beauty and wonder of the underwater world.

Kish is a city that never sleeps. You hardly can ever have such a night-life in Tehran. My dad never lets me go out so late at night. I felt completely independent there. All by myself, no one telling me 'Do this', 'Don't do that'. Police give complete freedom to the tourists and let everyone enjoy their trip. The only problem with this city is that it's really hot and humid. Of course I love humid weather, but people are rarely as crazy as I am!

In the long hot afternoons we went swimming. There is a beach sheltered for exclusive use by women. No man can enter this area. The whole area is covered with plastic walls. You can wear your bikini there, go swimming in the salty transparent water of the Gulf, or sunbathe under the strong life-giving rays of the lady sun. We collected a lots of shells among the hot sands, filling plastic bags with them to bring back as souvenirs.

All in all, the trip was enjoyable but tiring. We had a lot of things to do, as well as participating in the festival. I really needed this trip, since I had a hard time in the last few weeks. Our Women in Iran website has been banned by the government, and people in Iran can't see the site. Our magazine's IP is also banned by some I.S.Ps and we have lost a great number of our visitors. I have my thesis to work on, classes to teach, sites and weblogs to update, and a heart to take care of. I needed a great deal of energy to do all this, which I got from the giving lady sun while I was in Kish.

Finally, after the painful marathon we have all been through, especially Sina and his wife, Sina was released a few minutes ago. I can't express my feelings now, I'm somehow speechless.

Sina! We missed you so much.

I'll be busy for a while since I'm going on a trip. I'll be back next week and promise to write more.

As Sting says, I'm so happy that I can't stop crying

Gee! Where did those long posts come from? Sorry for eating your brains out! Promise to write shorter next time ;)

It seems the doom of this week is not going to end. Sina is still in prison. Nobody knows what's going on. They have summoned Alireza Alavi Tabar, journalist and university professor, for interrogations. In the interrogation paper they have mentioned Alavi Tabar's title as the editor of the electronic news site Emrooz (a radical political website). It seems arresting Sina has been their warm-up, and they have started paying attention to internet sites. My fears are growing, both for our e-zine and for our Women in Iran (Persian _ English) website. Of course we have been very much careful and conservative in our magazine, but Women in Iran is not a conservative site. The site is concerned with women issues. It includes a variety of topics such as problems and limitations occurring to women due to their gender, legal deficiencies that exist in the law concerning women's rights, and the deficiencies and lacks existed in our governmental institutions concerning such issues.

…

I've become tired of all this fear and worries. I've decided to start posting in my Persian weblog again. The bewilderment of these days is pressuring me too much. I thought and thought and thought and came to this conclusion that I haven't done anything wrong at all. I haven't crossed any political red lines to be worried about. I have to forget about those people who are trying to identify me. It takes a long time to find me. And in case they find me, they can't accuse me of anything.

If I start my Persian weblog again, I'll definitely write here less. But I won't stop it for sure, since the feedback I received in the last few days was incredibly positive, thanks to Iranian Girl who gave me a link in her popular weblog.

Well, it was really a difficult week. We had our weekly session of our e-zine on Thursday. Almost everybody was present. I was energetic. I had some new ideas. I wanted to start talking about our next edition. But suddenly I found out that I was too much of an optimist. Talking about the new edition turned out to be a hot discussion over the issue of closing down our 11-month-old electronic magazine. It's almost like my baby. We started this magazine where no one else was doing any similar work in Iran. We were a fresh group of young Iranian webloggers, almost all willing to become famous. We made our first mistake by becoming public. Before then we were all writing in our blogs anonymously. Many of us had nicknames, even those with real identities were not known to the public. For I really don't remember what reason we started writing with our own identities. At the beginning everything was ok. But then we started to improve. We became famous, our hit increased. After 11 months of successful friendly teamwork, after months and months of crazy days with each other, going out to restaurants, going on holiday trips with our gang, becoming ironically famous as Persian internet mafia, days of fight and laughter, days of hard work to release unique editions, after all these things we were talking about closing down our magazine on Thursday. All my energy was drained out on my supposedly weekend day. I still don't know what we're going to do. Everybody was hesitant. We don't want to close it down, but we are scared. We didn't come up with any conclusions, but sooner or later we have to make a serious decision about it. I hope that decision will be to keep on publishing our magazine.

It was quite a fascinating idea to have an English weblog. I am fed up with all the worries I have had about my Persian weblog. People are getting arrested. Sina, our lovely friend is in jail, mostly because of what he has written in his weblog. Rumors are increasing about a new trend to close down internet sites and weblogs in Iran. My Persian weblog's name or logo is in many weblogs, around 1000 to 1300 people visit it everyday, and thanks to internet sites I work for, I am not anonymous anymore. It gets sometimes terrifying to think about the strangers who read you everyday. There maybe some government-related visitors, there may be some guys from the intelligence service; some form other places you may never know. I'm positive I'm not in danger, since I have never written anything radical or political. I have been quite conservative in the last few months, completely aware of the eyes watching every single move of us. But you can't stop the trains of thought moving around your head, scaring you as hell. I guess this English weblog will be read by much less dangerous people and I hope it will remain infamous so that I'll be able to write about my naked observations of this crazy world honestly, uncensored and real.

I don't know why I'd like to introduce myself here! The only reader of this weblog is myself for the time being. I even haven't told Hoder _ who encouraged me a lot to have an English weblog _ about it yet. Well, who knows, maybe someone will come to my archive and read these lines in future! So, here we go:

I'm 25, single, with a big potato-like nose, giraffely tall, terribly messy in every aspect of my life, and obviously a girl since men usually don't call themselves a lady! I work in a famous language school as an English teacher in the crazy exotic lovely crowded city of Tehran. If you are interested to know more about this crazy city, you can keep up reading my ramblings in the future! I madly love teaching, but I don't earn much out of it. At the moment I'm working on my M.A dissertation, a feministic study of women characters in Joyce's Dubliners, as an English Literature student.

I'm the editor of an electronic magazine called Cappuccino, the executive editor of Women in Iran English section, and the editor a Meta weblog indexing women-related issues presented in Persian weblogs. Besides all this, it's been more than a year since I have had a Persian weblog with a big number of visitors. Actually, having this weblog initiated my rush into drowning in the vast chaotic world of cyber.

And by writing this intro I came up to know one more fact about myself, the fact that what a boasting-about-myself driven person I am! I'd better zip it up here since I don't even know if it is safe to introduce myself over here or not! (So, don't get surprised to see this post 'disappeared' one day!)

I have to do something about this stolen template first. Actually I stole it from New Blogger. There were five lovely templates over there. 'Seems Google's money is working! Anyways, I don't like all this big titles. I have to ask Ehsan to do something about them. He's our Brain Man! I do envy his weblog's design.

Here I am, in the world of English weblogs! I wanted to start this blog much sooner, but I was kind of busy to do so. I have to confess before anything that my English is not that good. I may have lots of mistakes, specially spelling mistakes. I guess I have to start using this spelling check sooner or later.

For the time being I have to say that I come from the world of Iranian bloggers, a world you may never find anywhere else. We have thousands and thousands of Iranian bloggers in Iran, both men and women. I'm gonna write a lot about this world very soon.

I have to get back to my work now. C U soon ;)

hi!