i had so much work tonight.

my teachers gave me so much work to do tonight, oh man, my head hurts and my eyes are tired, i can't keep them open all the way but my hands are still really happy and energetic so i just let them go free for a while which also means that the grammar in this post will most likely be flawed. so my computer had to be formatted and i don't have farsi text right now so that's why i can't really type anything in farsi at the moment. oh speaking of farsi, today Mohammad helped me study today by holding up farsi index cards and having me read them. He said i did good, and he also said another thing. After i asked him to help he said "well......ok." And i took out the cards i had made and he only said "Wow....maryam you spend a lot of time on farsi, don't you?"
and it hit me just like that.
recently i had been feeling lazy with practicing farsi, i havent had time to study it or do whatever else i wanted to do for myself, so lets just say the only thing that has been helping me with farsi for the past three days is talking to people from iran on the phone, it kind of helps but i just can't control myself when they speak english and not farsi but it seems to be the only way to communicate and get to know each other to a full understanding. I really wish we had farsi classes like they had english classes in iran. those people are so lucky, they have a professional teacher every other day, teaching them english in some of the most efficiant ways there are while over here in america i say "where can i find farsi classes?" and they say, "what? farsi? what is that? i have never heard of that!" anyway back to what i was saying, i guess i really am studying farsi with a big dedication to some extent and people can tell, like Mohammad could.

i am very disoriented right now.

what. just. happened.??

Three minutes ago I was stretching with my hands behind my head and talking to my sister then all of the sudden i fainted and woke up and my face was in the couch.....and my sister was still talking to meee????!!!!...

نقلم

من نوشت کردم حکایت درباره کی در تهران بودم, دوستم فکر می کن آن خیلی خوب. از شما انگلیسی می تانید لطفن، آن بخوان سعی می کنید..

In my english class i wrote a story about what happened to me in Tehran. I read it to my friend and she said it was like a poem and she could see what was happening in the story inside her head. I love to write, i know i've said that. But now i think i know what i want to do with my life. I want to write stories and get books published. I hope who ever reads this will enjoy my writing as well;

The Most Pleasant Place in the World

Another story from my recent trip to Iran......

One week we had all gone out shopping for 4 days in a row. When you go shopping in Tehran, from midday to about 5 pm, you need a lot of energy. Walking in the same shoes, the same clothes, looking and buying, and having to hold on to everyone's hand, not to mention how literally fried your brain feels after while. It gets really hot, you need to watch where your walking at all times and you have to constantly do the Cha-Cha in hesitation when you cross the street where the only rule is “Don't get hit because no one will stop for you.” I loved how fast and busy Tehran was, but it would take mostly everything I had right out of me and I would practically faint when I first stepped back into Maman jun's house. Even though I would binge with the food I was served each night I was still hungry, losing weight quickly, and I was terribly exhausted all the time and i didn't have enough energy. I was still getting used to their hard life. But one thing really bothered me...I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

I would lay on the floor because I had come to like it, I was so comfortable, finally resting my muscles after an entire day of tensing them up and just letting gravity do what ever it wanted to my vertebrae. But I just wouldn't sleep. I was in a happy time in my life, everything was content except for this temporary insomnia. In day light I was hungry and tired and barely holding myself up, as if I had just gone through a paper shredder. Then I was told that we were going to a wedding. A wedding. Then I knew that I haven't been cut up enough, I haven't been pushed around enough, and I haven't struggled or sweat enough just yet. This was another thing I just wanted to go see and feel. So we went through the heated shopping again, trying on dresses until I finally found the one for me. Again my feet were hot and my back wasn't tender anymore. Then I had to go to the hair dresser. I'd never been before. They pulled and pinned and curled and sprayed every strand on my head. I remember looking really pretty, but the pain was terrible. I can still quite vividly feel having to keep my hair the same way until the wedding night, I would be lounging around the house with what felt like little imps in my hair tugging at my scalp every now and then.

So when it was time to suck in my insides and slip on that torture-device-of-a-dress, I had to pretend like I wasn't hurting so bad, I had to like the shoes I was wearing, I had to look pretty for 7 hours or more. As I lined my lids and groomed myself I would stare in the mirror. My outline looked like an angel, but since I knew myself better than anyone else in the world I could see through the transparent cheeks and glittery eyes, the angel looked so abused and torn up. The taxi came to the door then it was off to the wedding. A night full of little conversations, swooning in awe for the beautiful bride, even more binging in the food....and the dancing. Oh god. All of that dancing I was forced to do. On a Persian carpet with all the other single women and men with their cousins, uncles, aunts, moms and dads. My hips and my frame and my feet and my neck throwing out all of these movements to show all those adults what I could do. Occasionally dancing with another older man, sometimes clapping with another women, catching money being thrown in the air, being video taped. The heat, the different scents, tasting every one's breath. Trying to over come the pain in my ears from the loud music and trying to see where i was going with the lights flashing this way and that way, I was in the middle of all of that, and I thought “So this is what it's like, to be with all these people, just dancing, just having fun, I never guessed all those MTV music videos were so accurate.”

I was dancing around a good looking guy for about 5 minutes or so until I noticed I was starting to shut down, I started to feel, what the only thing could think of, a Chinese dragon in my head, spinning and trying to knock down the walls of its jail in my skull. “Am I on drugs? Who could have put something in my drink?” It was really strange, I started seeing things from days before, like Fateme's smiling face from shopping, the hot sidewalk, I was hearing things, I was going crazy, I was really shutting down. I slow my dancing and start to fade in and black out.

I can see the guy's face, the one I was dancing with, the Iranian smile jerks into a frown and it's the last thing I see until all the sudden I see my feet and another pair of nice shoes next to mine walking some where. I feel an arm or two holding me up from under my rib cage and I feel them let go and sense myself falling back wards but my tail bone hits into a chair and then my head falls back and I see the sky, and I can taste my hair on the tip of my tongue. My neck is stretched back while my head is a clumsy anchor on the support of some wall underneath my spine. I can hear warped Farsi, some yelling then I see all these men around me, as if I really was some sort of fallen angel. They all looked so curious at me saying all those little worlds I barely understood. Handsome faces with different features like a giant boy band. It all reminded me of my dad still because of how foreign those men seemed to me. My head started pulsing up and my arms were asleep. Was I really tripping on something? Then I see my second aunt push her way between the men and up to my face. She says some thing reassuring and asks if I was ok. I kind of gesture with my hand but I could only swing my arm around since it only felt like a piece of dead meat coming out of my shoulder.

I know a lot of time passed by until everything was over but I still didn't fall asleep. I was just watching everything. I saw all the men sitting with me, helping me to some car, I didn't know where everyone else was, only these men petting my waist, my shoulder, and my arm, guiding me this way and that. It felt like they knew me. I couldn't tell if I was being molested or taken where I wanted to be but as I sat in the dark, inside a car with what I know is one of the men in the drivers seat I had guessed that we were waiting for other people to come in so we could drive to where ever was home. Then I realized I had my Islamic wear on again. My scarf and my montoe. Then I was sure I was never molested, but more taken care of or pulled to safety. I turn my head and I see my second aunt again sitting right next to me. She pulls my head on to her shoulder but I fall near her bosom, yet nothing about it seemed awkward. She said with her accent “Sleep. You Sleep ok?” I just nod my head a little to say yes. Her collar bone, her soft flesh, I could feel it under the cloth upon her body. It was soft, like a feather pillow, like a bed. Her silk scarf touched my cheek and I felt a cold comfort from it. Other people were in the car. I could hear “Dokhtare Maryam? Are? Chi shode be oo? Khabe?” “Is that Maryam? What happened to her? She sleeps?” And I was....I was finally sleeping. This woman, I didn't even know her but she is in my family, she knew who I was. I was so close to her but I finally had sleep behind my eyes. This woman's shoulder was the most wonderful place on earth and i wanted to sleep there forever.

That night, I don't remember walking out of the car, I don't remember seeing those men again, I don't remember undressing myself and I don't remember laying down on the floor. But when I woke up the next morning all of my pain was gone.

تشویق

خیلی ممنون برای تشویق ی شوما. آن به من کمک می کن :)


امروز خیای خوب بود، من با همه صحبت می کردم. من معمولا با هرکس صحبت نکنم. آن مداد بود از من دوباره زنده بودم. اما دلم هنوز همیشه برای یکی تنگ شده

How was that? I hope it was good.

Today was really fun. I was talking to alot of people i didn't usually talk to and i was skipping and walking and laughing and yelling i felt almost like a child again. I had good cloths on my hair looked really great, and everything just clicked together. But i was still thinking about my someone. I really miss them a lot.

The only bad things that happened was that:

There's this girl who clings onto our group of people at lunch. She seems to not really know anyone of us that well. She is only with us because she is a friend of a friend. She is very racist towards me and anyone else (ie: she says i'm a terrorist just because i'm an iranian muslim and she always says really mean things but pretends like she's kidding.) When ever she talks she thinks that everyone is listening to her, or she just talks to who ever will listen to her. i really hate this girl and sometimes i really want to slap her across the face. Today i was standing by myself out side waiting for all my other friends to come out and sit. She ended up being not too far away from me so she immediately walked to me and started talking as if she knew me for years. I was very confused as to why she liked me so much since i would purposely make my self uninteresting to her so that she would leave me alone. So then what had happen is that i wanted to talk to another person and she really bothered me by playing with my hair while i wasn't paying attention to her. Then she whined to me about finding a table to sit at. So we sat down and it was only me and her for a while, then other people came. but then they all left and it was just me, her, and another girl named Mona. She finished talking to me and i thought she was talking to Mona and not me so i decided to get up and go to another table but what happens is that Mona gets up too at the same time as i did. So we both leave her alone at the table while she is still talking! HAHa! Me and Mona thought we were both listening to her...but we we'ren't. The girl could not beleive what had just happen and i think she finally realized that no one wants to talk to a racist hypocrite who thinks she knows people. She left to go some where else after a while.....


I also argued with my teacher today,

Last Friday i had left some work in my locker. My teacher had told everyone that the work was due on Monday but instead he moved it to Friday....Now how can i remember that? So since i forgot my work i ask him:
"Mr. Kay, can i go to my locker to get my work? It's just down the hall and it will take me only a second."
He said: "No Maryam, go sit down."

I just didn't understand why he didn't let me go get my work. So I kind of just forgot about it and since it was the weekend i did not remember to turn in my work on monday, and i also forgot on tuesday so by the time i turned in my work i had gotten two 50s (thats like 10/20) on my assignments so it brought my grade down to a 69 :( When i found out my grade i was so angry at my teacher for not letting me go get my work on the day it was due.
I said loudly:
"I don't believe i deserve this grade because i did the work when i was supposed to! And it's your fault that i have a bad grade because you wouldn't let me turn in my work on the day it was due!"
And he says:
"MY FAULT? how could it be my fault that YOU FAILED TO REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR WORK? YOU FAILED to stay focused and YOU FAILED to do what you're supposed to do in this class." So then i say:
"NO! YOU FAILED TO LET ME RETREVE MY WORK SO THAT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO GRADE IT WHEN YOU DIDN'T WANT TO! THAT'S WHAT ALL YOU TEACHERS ARE PISSY ABOUT! GRADING LATE WORK INSTEAD OF WATCHING TV OR WHATEVER YOU PEOPLE DO WHEN YOU FAILED TO ACCEPT THE WORK IN THE FIRST PLACE!!"

And it pretty much went on like that for about 7 more minutes.....I still think i am right and i stand by what i said that day. This teacher is such an asshole.

just try.

من فارسی سعی خواهم چونکه برای من خوب

امروز بد نیست بود تا کی من به خوانه رفتم مانند هر دیگر روز بود.خسته بود. مشق توستن دارم....ولی پروا ندارم
وای چرا الان این سخت؟؟؟؟

i need to practice farsi more often..................

fluctuate.

When you meet someone new the more time you spend with them, the more you like them (or the more you don't like them) right? Then they start to mean something to you, but you wouldn't sit there thinking about their death for more than an hour if they had died But when you're in love with some one;

Of course that's always a different story. You can't stop creating their image in your head and you feel like you want to spend every second with them. So you find all the time and anything you can do to communicate with them. Like nervously texting in secret, sending little emails, pretending to be antisocial to everyone around you so you can be alone to dial their number. The sound of their voice is heavenly but when you hear i love you every day, it can get old. [That's why i'm jealous that other languages in the world don't even have "i love you." I realize that in English its too easy to tell some one how you feel. it's only three words. while in other languages you must fully know words to truely express yourself.] so i lay in bed falling through the water of my waking thoughts, why? how could the best thing in the world get old? and i think maybe what if..it's not real? so i wait a day to heal and while my head sleeps, from under my pillow i get a text at 1am. and suddenly i'm happy again because i'm reminded about the lengths he'd go to just to say "how are you?"

and my love is alive again.

suicidal future.

I have a bad problem.

Since i came back from Iran this summer I've wanted to go back so badly with desperation. It's like i love that place so much, everything but the government. I was told that if i pass this year in high school and learn fluent Farsi then i am able to go back next summer. So my motivation to do well and excel at life was IRAN. And i might add that it doesn't help at all when my cousins or my Iranian friends tell me Iran is a bad place and that everyone wants to get out of there and i shouldn't want to go because it is such a terrible place because that's my motivation, Iran was what made me want to learn in school آیا هرکس فهمیدند!؟ So I'm trying to do good in school when all of the sudden my teachers and the government and the media tell me that i have to start thinking about collage and finding scholarships so that i can pay for my education and all that other stuff. Then i keep thinking and working and barely absorb anything i learn in class because I'm being brain washed into thinking about my future. and questions keep coming up in my head. What do i want to do with my life after college? What kind of job can i get with an art degree? How can i be happy with what ever i plan on doing? If i don't plan now then everything will be terrible and disorganized. And it's like the Iranian motivation is out the window and gone and i let it slip away because i was told to prioritize for college and i actually listened to what my cousins say about Iran? WHAT THE HELL?! I wanted to commit suicide because i didn't know what to do with my life and whats the point of education when i don't know what i'm gonna do after that if my world is a place where what i want to do won't help me survive?

binging sucks.

i HATE how i eat so much until i am lethargic. it's like when i eat i can't control myself anymore. i start eating this and that and all those sweets and the next thing i know i can't even walk up the stairs because of how heavy i feel. i think i might be bulimic. last Saturday night i had gone out to a movie with friends. I didn't eat much that day so my stomach might have shrunk by the time they decided that after all that pop corn, soda and ice cream they wanted pizza. Now these people are kind of different from me. If there was a feast to eat then they would take all they could while i would be the type to try to eat what i put on my plate. That night i ate as if i hadn't eaten and weeks. I have no idea why i just kept eating and eating. I wasn't feeling too good after that. I just couldn't move and I looked like i was pregnant. After i finally got a ride home and having my mom b*tch at me for coming home at 11 (which was something i couldn't control and i told her everything that was happening AS it was happening) i got undressed and i tried to lay down and sleep but my stomach was trying so hard to digest i just couldn't take it anymore. I had to vomit. So when i walk into the bathroom i take a look at myself in the mirror and think about the skinniest girl i know...but i stopped myself before i could look into my eyes. I couldn't believe it. I was turning it into bulimia when i had only eaten too much. my stomach moaned so i bow to the toilet, hold my hair up, and do what i see on tv. and as im letting it ALL out i start to feel better, but at the same time im thinking and thinking and thinking about all the media, all the stories, all the crap i've heard, the disgusting sh*t i'm seeing, that ugly stuff is actually coming out of me.....of me.

آیا دیوانم؟

am i crazy?

scribbles in my head

So my dog died two days ago.

I was pretty sad because the night before his death i was going to sit with him, but i was too tired from school. My dad said he went quietly, which was something i asked for a while back. I dont know how islam goes about paradise for animals but im more than sure that he's in a better place where he can't feel pain. i wrote a little poem for him.

as you stare into the moon for comfort,
your pains and aches never leave,
you've let out your whines and yelps,
you've scared the ones you loved with your aliments, but
they took you where ever you needed to go,
they petted you with effort to make the pain fade away,
she sat with you, the master that met you first,
she sat with you at night and caressed your body and fur,
"These precious bones that were formed,
and this beautiful face that was sculpted,
and these teeth that protect me from danger,
you are perfect with all of your flaws."
she holds your head and moves her hand over your eyes,
and you slowly drift away

through the stars you've seen in the sky

and into paradise.


Don't worry i'm getting over it. I had the help of some loved ones to keep me happy. سعید

I've noticed that when i am studying farsi i dont feel like i'm getting any further. Yeah, i'm learning with online lessons but the actual live classes i'm taking. I don't feel like they actually help me. There's only like 7 students in a tiny room and a few of them know farsi but can't read, and the ones who are in the class and dont know farsi at all, they don't want to be there! It feels like i'm the only one with a real reason to be in that class! And either i'm starting in the wrong place or i just don't know enough, it won't matter because its a live class and they move at their own pace. I hate making every one speak english for me when i'm the one who should be trying! but when i do i can't get what i want to say out of my mouth! but then it's like if we don't speak english then we can't actually communicate with out tearing up what we mean.

i dont know why i'm getting myself worked up about this WHEN I SHOULD BE STUDYING!

i guess i understand. but not really

So from what i said in the blog i wrote yesterday. I was being a little insensitive because....i too have noticed that i haven't bounced back to my artsy self. But it's not because i don't have enough time, there are plenty of hours of me not doing anything at school or at home. It's because i dont know what to draw or i don't know what to sing anymore. I tried drawing something today...it looked hideous. I wasn't all that comfortable when i was drawing seeing that my back was practically ARCHING like a boat bridge to bring my neck towards the paper i was drawing on. I didn't have a desk, i was sitting out side on a concrete stage and other students were outside talking a lot and also some guy who could pop his gum at an unbelievably loud level was doing construction work about 200 yards away from me! so its not only what to draw it's WHERE to draw! its also tedious that i can never get motivated at my own home.
Also recently i have been thinking about what to do after i graduate from high school. I know where i want to go. I want to go to The Art Institute of Chicago . I'm wondering if i should just jump into it after high school is done with or should i just go to a community collage for my first year. it's starting to depend on my significant other. It'll be easy, then. I could just buy a plane ticket, a house, a car which would be waiting for me there. I'd pack up my stuff and leave for it. I don't know maybe I'm just dreaming. I hope this is all possible. But it doesn't seem like my mom encourages me to try. The only things she said when i told her about the were " You can't do it. How are you gonna afford it? Will your art be good enough? you can't do it, why would you want to do it?" This is coming from an art teacher. My own mother....

and she only makes me want to try harder to leave.

stress?

Today in my zero hour sculpture class (i've never tried sculpture so i'm still trying to find out what this art will bring out of me) I over heard two students talking about not attending school merely because of stress. "- I know i havent done any artwork at home because of all the fucking school work i get, i wanted to not come to school today because i am just so stressed out but you know what? i can't do that because i'd miss all the frikking work i'd have to do!" "I always not go to school if get so stressed out from it...yea..i just don't go and forget about it." This conversation struck me as odd and i wanted to lash out at these girls and slap both of them in the face because of such big wussies they were being. Maybe it's just me but i have never heard of getting incredibly stressed out because of school especially not attending school because i don't feel like it! It would be putting my plans in jeopardy! My education! Not to mention how terribly unmotivated it would make me. These girls are art majors like me, and when you look at their art work it seems like they are at a collage art students level. They seem to excel above everyone else in art at such a young age. But when you talk to these skilled students it makes you never want to talk to them again. In my eyes they still haven't learned the mental or personal part of art. That part of art is learning to have self control, will, and on going persistence in getting through something long and tedious such as school work. Of course these people are perhaps the most negative thinkers i have ever met in my life...