Happy New Year!

It's a new year, again... Day after day, month after month, Year after year, yet life goes on. Winter wipes green life out, spring breathes life into the earth again, yet life goes on. People come, people go, yet life goes on. This is the miracle of life, and its best evidence is the turn over of nature from winter to spring...

Norouz is a celebration of life, of love of life. It's a symbolism of life after death. And there is nothing more important than life.

Happy New Year! May this New Year be full of success and happiness!

And here is a poem from Ahmad Shamloo, one which I feel resonates with the spirit of spring...

دوستی گلدانی ست،

که نشسته ست در ایوان سحر.

و دمیده ست در او تازه گلی.

چهار فصلش همه سبز،

آشتی شاخه ی او،

عطری از عاطفه در او جاری ،

تارش از ململ عشق ، پودش از مخمل ابر.

سینه اش برکه ی باران بلور،

دامنش از شبنم پر گوهر.

بر لب هر برگش، نقشی از خنده ی شیرین بهار، از طراوت سرشار.

بشکند روزی اگر، ساقه ای از این گل سرخ، دل ما می شکند، دوستی می میرد.

آشتی ،می رود از خانه ی ما،می شود پای خزان باز به کاشانه ی ما .

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What happened in San francisco

I’m now sitting in the Oakland airport, which is the smaller airport in San Francisco, and since I’m bored to death I thought I’d write something! It’s now 4 hours and a half that I’m stuck here, and I have to stay here for another 2 hours before my flight departs here. Then it would only be the start of a long and boring over-night journey back to Champaign! It’s now 6:30 PM local time, and I shall be home 10 o’clock tomorrow morning. Well I shouldn’t nag that much; that’s what happens when you want to trip with as small expenses as possible. Any way, since I’m not connected to internet right now, I’ll post this stuff on the weblog tomorrow.

Interesting thing: I found an Iranian friend in this GSRC workshop. Since the workshop finished early today, my lab-mates and I departed due to different flight plans from different airports, I had no agenda for the day. Fortunately Kambiz (my new friend) told me that he and his lab-mates (which all study at UC-San diego) are planning to go to a Turkish restaurant, and then to the Oakland airport. Suffice it to say that the Turkish food was great, and I stuffed myself with those delicious meals! It was even better because it’s quite a bit of time now that I hadn’t filled myself as such!

One interesting aspect of the workshop was to meet this entire famous people. I met David Patterson, was introduced to Jacob Abraham, made a presentation to Jan Rabaey and got to know other people as well; I’m pretty happy about this. Hail to Illini!

I still need to make this superscalar processor work. I’ve made lots of effort during the past few months to make it work, and I’m almost there. But every time I feel it’s going to work this time, some design flaw or a bug pops up in my face, and I see all my hopes to finish this project fade away. I’m tough, but I’m really concerned that I may fail in this project. You know, it’s a kind of project that if you finish it, many wonderful things can happen, but these wonderful things can change into dreadful if you fail to finish it!

Have you ever heard of David Copperfield?! Yeah, I’m talking about the same guy who passed the great Chinese wall and many other things like that. Yes, David the magician! He’s going to have a show tomorrow night (tonight, because you’re supposed to read this tomorrow!) But I don’t think I’m going, its price is too high. I’d heard 8 bucks but a friend of mine who went to buy tickets told me that it’s 25$! I hope I don’t get upset later by my decision of not going to the show later, but … TWENTY FIVE BUCKS?!

OK, I’m going to stop here since:
1- You’re not going to read it if it’s if this post is longer than this, and
2- I’m tired!

Have fun, today and everyday!

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If you feel interested in any of them and want to get the original file, please don't hesitate to email me!

...In Sanfrancisco...

The party and the dance performances went great! I enjoyed that night a lot, I danced non-stop for 4 hours! I'm in a kind of hurry now, cause I'm flying to Berkeley, CA in an hour. When I get back, I'll hopefully post some photos of this trip too...

Wait for my return :D

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If you feel interested in any of them and want to get the original file, please don't hesitate to email me!

And in a few hours... WE DANCE!

Here it is! The New Year’s party and our dance performance! We all have practiced a lot during the last couple of months, and the dance's sharp and upbeat moves were a physical challenge to every one. Now here comes the performance of the century!

Hopefully my next post will have some photos of tonight's dance. Be patient!

Note: Click on the photos to enlarge them.

If you feel interested in any of them and want to get the original file, please don't hesitate to email me!

The best thing about pears.

When I was very young, I really didn't like pears. I always preferred apples to pears. This changed when I read the "Pinocchio" (Or I saw it in a cartoon first? I'm not sure...) There the blue fairy insisted that pinocchio should eat the entire pear, even the seeds. From then, I accepted the idea that pear is an edible fruit!

Any way, tonight I was eating a pear, and got to the conclusion that the blue fairy was almost right, even a pear's seeds can be tasty! Yet, there are two parts of the pear that at least I cannot eat, which are depicted in this photo. These parts almost wooden, and apart from termites, I don't think other creatures are supposed to eat them! Quite a novel discovery, don't you think so?!

Note: Click on the photos to enlarge them.

If you feel interested in any of them and want to get the original file, please don't hesitate to email me!