Sculpture by the Sea

Yesterday I visited this popular annual sculpture exhibition.

It is worthed to have a look to this website.

I don't know why sometimes I get reluctant to write in here.

I like to write about environment in Australia and the way people protect it and about governmental websites and also happiness.

I am starting writing shortly:)

ganji's recent article in Washington post about US financial aids for civil society in Iran:
Persian
English

for students

students petition to Secretary-General of the United Nations: Ban Ki-moon

Some language points

I am not sure who was the first person who taught me how to say "Student".

Unfortunately most of the language teachers in Iran have problem in pronouncing the words which begin with "s".
Iranians like Spanish don't have the sound "S" in their language. So, we would better practice to pronounce "S" properly.
"Stop" could be pronounced "stap" not "estap" or "student" for "Student" not "estudent".

Another thing that is better to keep in mind is "W" against "v".
If we say "viliam" for "wiliam", it's likely to confuse native speaker.


I'd like to write sth about the words ending in "tin" and "tain" and ... but it's hard to explain them in here. we would say "martin" but amazingly English speakers would pronounce it differently. The similar examples are: "mountain", "Britain", "written" and the like.

GDP and some points in Sydney

GDP is the most frequent term in Macroeconomics. Goss Domestic Product is a measure of the value of goods and services produced in a year in a country. There is another way of explaining GDP. The total amount of income/expenditure in a year in a country.

Based on the data in CIA FACTBOOK, GDP per capita in Australia in the year 2006 was equal to $33,300. GDP per capita is The GDP of a country divided by its total population.

Before living in Australia, I was wondering how GDP per capita is so high in some countries. People in the countries with high GDP per capita are not concerned about their basic needs. Food and clothes can be purchase from the first percentile of the salary and the rest of the wealth would be consumed on traveling products, luxuries, art and the like.

Recently I observed that wealthy people in Sydney are very interested in aboriginal arts. The residual money (after purchasing basic needs) would be spent on aboriginal arts and antiques. Amazingly the old wooden stuff (nearly 100 to 200 years old) is very precious in here and again a considerable amount of money would be allocated to that.

In general, setting up a business is easier in a country with high GDP as people have more liquid money and are more willing to buy.

examiner

I had a one day job at my university as an examiner!

The supplementary exam for those who couldn't attend the final exams. At university usually cheating is impossible and there are a lot of ways who prevent that.

I was looking around who realized a Chinese guy is reading from a small note hiding in his hand. I walked close to him and he was so nervous. I just tried to show him I caught him in red handed.

Apparently he didn't realize that. I was in trouble as i had no idea what to do. Reporting that could cost him around As$3000 plus more educational troubles. I just decided to give him some more time to stop that. He wrote a lot from his notes. After half an hour I was sure he could pass the subject. I walked towards him and very quietly told him:"Put it in your pocket and do not bring it out anymore". He was shocked.
He had a hard time for the second half of the exam. He was writing his own idea!

Just amazing

Me and Greg went to a house in Point Piper, the most expensive suburb in Sydney.
We were waiting for Greg's friend from Melbourne. He was supposed to deliver some statues for the house.

The owners of the house were a very nice Lady and her husband. They knew Persians well and were very welcoming with us.
Th statue was in and i was so curious to know what it could be. It was a horse from stone which dates back to 2300 years ago. The horse is in a good shape and the couples were looking for that for more than 10 years around the globe!

For sth like 10 minutes I was talking to the lady and i realized she was very conscious about what they bought. She knew the history of that and really loved that. She invited us to stay more there and have coffee with them. It was very kind from her. while walking in the dining room, i found some pictures from the couples and prince Charles! it was obvious that they are so wealthy. She told they have a business in china and every year travel to Dubai and stay in Burj al Arab.

The horse was really impressive. She said:" there is another horse similar to this one in Sydney art gallery but it has some broken parts but this one is in a better condition."!

At the end she asked me about my vision in my life and career path. She suddenly offered me to leave my telephone number for them. She has some contacts that could help me to find a job related to my background.

Tutoring

Tutoring is one of my casual jobs in Sydney. I have advertised in a free website that I teach Tertiary finance and Statistics and primary Math.

Last month nobody called me for that but recently different students from different universities and majors have called me and asked for a tutor. Just now a lady called me for her children which are 8 and 10 years old. I guess from next week I ll teach them as well.

I like tutoring as a casual job because it's the best way of socializing different people and keeps my mind alive as well.

Some of my friends are still jobless in here!!! but I have found Sydney a great place that whenever you like you can have some jobs to do to cover your costs.




Akbar Ganji has written a letter to United Nations secretary-general and more than 300 leading intellectuals have endorsed that.
you can find the English letter in here and Persian one in roozonline.

Today I went to a Brazilian festival.

How lively, hot and in general interesting Brazilian are!

They were dancing and dancing and dancing.



Sometimes I am not patient enough to write more and in precise, like now.
Cheers,

Greg

I sometimes work for an Australian guy,Greg, who moves stuffs from one place to another. Moving out and in.

He is old, so polite and respectful. He usually doesn't talk while we are in the car driving from one place to another but he is very patient to my questions and curiosity in general.

Few days ago we went to a very big and beautiful house in a quiet area near a nice bay. The owners were moving some stuffs from the house to a storage. They knew of Greg so started asking a lot of questions from him. I couldn't believe that. Greg is like an artist. He was pretty familiar with wooden stuff. By looking to book cases and other similar stuffs, he could distinguish the types of them and was able to talk about the history of them as well.

When Greg saw a book case, realized that it dates back to 150 years ago and he knew the maker too. There was an aged lady who was the aunt of the owner. She agreed with him. She was the real owner of the stuff which were passed on to her. She was 88 years old and her aunt left a house with all the contents to her like the book case.

Greg was to estimate the price of the book case. He said $70,000. I was about to fly.
When later I asked him about the matter, he said:"it's much more.they don't know how precious it is". He called a friend of him who was the Auction buyer. He came in and was absolutely drunk of the stuffs over there. Probably they will sell the book case something like $100,000.
His friend was more conscious than him about the stuff. He had a look to a wooden stuff and said, this style is from Tasmania and dates back to 120 years ago. He was about to call some relatives of the House owner to receive some information about histories of the stuffs.

There were many more stories about that which i prevent writing them up.
Greg has driven the truck most of the times of his life .
He is crazy about paintings and some people ask him to go to auctions and buy furnitures for them! This is one of his jobs.

Sometimes it's not easy to write and post in the blog.

I found this poem in a book called: "101 famous poems". As I am lazy to read long poems, I usually go through short ones. I found this one inspiring. Check it out:


The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
with the dying sun.

The mind has a thousands eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.


Francis William Bourdillon is the poet of this poem.

These days, writing is a bit hard.

So, I have printed the coming words from a book which I found it by accident and is called:"Reflections of the art of living".

"Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. the crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.

the dark night of the soul
comes just before revelation.

when everything is lost,
and all seems darkness,
then comes the new life
and all that is needed."




I believe in that and i have had similar experiences in my life.

Poor language

We suffer form lack of implementing some sort of words in our language, Farsi. There are many words in English without any equivalents for them in Farsi. Some would say, Farsi is descriptive compared to English which is more prescriptive. As an example we may consider the word “smash” which means “break something into pieces with force and anger”. We just can explain this verb while translating to Farsi.

But it’s not my point now.

I believe after the Islamic revolution, we have forgotten or been forced to forget some special words.
Say, we most of the times in our language refer to word “like” instead of “Love”. In Iranian national TV channels we hardly hear the word “Love” or similar words which “Love” is their origin. We can hear “Love”, “Lovely”, “Lover”, “Loved”, “Lovable” and the like quite often in everyday conversations in here.

When a word escapes form our language it’s likely to forget the concept!

problems

If some problems have the same degree of intensity, in terms of challenging, time consuming and their critical impact on our lives,

Do you prefer to have one of them or some of them?

I believe to have some major problems to resolve in life, is better than facing one single problem. When we got stuck in one issue, the brain after a while gets tired and therefore fucked up! but by moving between tasks, we can take advantage of brain dynamism as well as having a break to consider the problem again and again.

I amazingly believe answers to life problems are hidden and can just be cleared after many times of excavating the problem.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Just begin and the mind grows heated. Continue and the task will be completed."
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe