Adventures of Mr.Behi

No fasting but I should be fast...

The fasting month of Ramadan is here with the restrictions it applies to eating and drinking. These days I am always in my office and the environment here is very liberal so it is OK to eat and drink by your desk. Many of the offices get closed earlier for people to be able to get to their homes before sunset. The roads become so crowded towards the dusk but as soon as the sun sets, the streets will again be tolerable. There are special food items for sale during this month and you can see a change in shopping behaviour.

There are many people who like to fast, some do it because they think it is good for their health. Some others for the credit in the after life as they are promised (it is even said that sleeping during Ramadan would give you some points, that is a good excuse for feeling sleepy in the afternoon!). Some people say they fast to realise how important the food is and how much they neglected the mercy of god for that. I personally can not think of god when I am starving but that can be a good reason too. I just need that I should be fast at least to be able to meet the deadline that I have by end of October.

And the winner is...GV

Link: Global Voices Online  won Knight-Batten awards for innovations in Journalism. Very well deserved! I doubt if anything more innovative than that is happening! Global voices is now a fantastic snapshot of ideas all around the world gathered from individual voices. Congratulations to all of those who made this step change in the way world can listen to voices...The world is talking, are you listening!

Fly to Kish

I am alone in Kish now and miss Mrs.Behi very much...duty called and I have to be here for some days. I had a good flight...around the sunset when the long shadows made the valleys and rivers highlighted when you look from above...I always ask for a window seat and it is always lovely to get away from Alborz mountains where Tehran is located towards central Iran...The desert with all those implanted streams of seasonal rivers looks like the back hand of an old man with all the lines and different stories..I like the little patch of clouds down the flight line. They all have their own topography with all valley and peak like shapes..sometimes I imagine them as ice caps of invisible mountains hanging around...not seen much of Kish as I have been busy with my company office here...This week, I am listening to a lot of lectures on safety and quality management...

life update...

A few days ago, we found a nice Italian restaurant in Tehran (in vozara St) called COCO. The pasta was great and we liked the nice decoration and paintings plus the Italian music...it is not very big just six or seven tables and we selected one of the two seated ones setting besides the tall window with street view..

I am reading two new books (see down right in the "books on my desk" list). One of them is about lateral thinking and is called Six Thinking hats which educated how should one think about a process of idea in order to get maximum benefit. This looks like a great brainstorming tool for working teams....The other book is called "Persian Mirrors" written by a reporter who travelled to Iran many times in past and recent years..Just read a few pages but it looks like having a fair view of the events...

I want to record for myself one of confessions: "I am so letting my work to the last minute..." and I should break this habit. By the end of October I should get ready to present a project to the VPs of my company and it is only just half way through. This is a lot of stress and I am sure I will be killing myself towards the end but I should break this habit and start working harder now...let's but the deadline for end of September this time...

By the way..I am enjoying this site....Pandora

Shargh is closed!

My favourite newspaper that I always considered the best of the news stand is now closed by the government. It was a surprise that it could last for three years considering all the limitations for press here. Shargh became a very distinguished source of analysis and was one of the few independent papers who could reach this level of popularity. Like many other closed newspapers, Shargh can stay closed for years before a trial. I am still not sure why they closed it (update: Seems that this was the reason! and the president is offended because he claimed a ligt was around his body when he talked in the UN general assembly and the donkey in the cartoon has one and donkey in Iran is the legend for stupidity! How mean! and they clsoed a paper for that?!)  It is easy for them to make up something stupid. I will miss Shargh like I missed other tens of reformists papers that I used to read when I was a student and they all became closed in one night after Iran's supreme leader said "Some of the papers are bases of the enemy!".

World citizenship

I am back from a fantastic human resource training where I was joined by fellow colleagues from across middle-east. I found tones of things about different business cultures and also we had many role plays for good ways of managing people, motivating and appraising them. The trainer himself was a big thing to explore, with a Ph.D in Psychology and a MBA from Harvard, he was a real professional in human resource training! He is married to a lady who knows 12 languages and is certified by the UN as official interpreter of 5 of them. They have 8 children, 6 of them adopted basically from places they visit (two of those are HIV+ from Thailand).
From the course itself, I particularly like the MBTI test and his lectures about business cultures around the world. Great stuff to learn! Being a world citizen...I should change the definition of this blog, This is not a blog of an Iranian for himself and others, it is better be "memoirs of a world citizen"...

This sanction is against our lives

Another airplane crash in Iran and again because of rubbish Russian made junk planes. Every other week, I fly one of these to south of Iran in my business trips and they are outrageously uncomfortable. Even a person with no clue of aviation can tell by one look how old these planes are. US wants to keep sanctions on Iran? Fine! But is there anyone there to realize that sanction on selling passenger airplanes in killing Iranian people year by year? Isn’t this a human right to be able to fly with hope of survival? Iranian government punishes its people by its ignorance. US accuses Iran of ignoring human rights. Who US is punishing buy not selling civilian airplanes?