My early years were spent in a catholic school. The effect of that upbringing has stayed with me even now in my adult life for better or worse. I have to say unlike most stories of Catholic girls schools, mine was blissfully empty of any nasty memories. In fact those were some of the best years in my life. The innocence and wide eyed wonder that I looked at the world then, has been replaced with a more cynical view of the world we live in today. Well maybe not. I still see the world thru rose coloured glasses.

I suppose I was indoctrinated with certainly principles, ones which I still stand by today, during my time at Sacred Heart. These principles included always looking for the good in anything and anyone. Believing that there is something in everyone worth fighting for. Believing that love can conquer all. Believing in extending a helping hand whenever you can. Believing that each and everyone us has the power to make a difference. Believing that before you find fault with someone to make sure that you are not the cause of the problem. Interesting effect of which is I have many many conversations in my head and outloud with the imaginary other person, whilst playing devils advocate. Yes I know it sounds and looks crazy for someone to talk to themselves, but I swear I'm my own brutally honest and hardest critic. No need to pay for a therapist when you can lay it on to yourself. And somehow this is how I can get myself to see things from the other persons perspective. Oh and I am incapable of lieing. To myself or anyone for that matter. You will always get the truth from me.

So how strong are these convictions of mine? I remember everyday actively planning a good deed and not feeling like my day was complete until I had my deed done. Be it helping someone cross the street, sharing my snacks with a friend, etc

As a child I remember spending an entire summer trying to tame a rabid doberman owned by a relative. This dog was huge, bigger than me and with an insanity in his eyes. He was chained to a tree, because if let loose he would rip the first person he came across to shreds.

But I believed in him. I thought that this was a dog that had not been loved and all I needed to do was show it some affection, showed it I cared and I could reverse it's mental malady. I kid you not, I would spend hours, HOURS, talking to this dog, cooing to it, singing to it, whatever I thought would show my affection towards it. At the beginning it would howl and bark incessantly, growl and show it's teeth, but I prevailed and held strong. After many weeks, it stopped growling when I would show up. I saw this as a validation that my instincts were right. I kept at it, even though everyone now thought I was the crazy one and not the dog!!

Eventually it actually lay on the ground while I talked to it. So one day, gathering up all my courage and thinking to myself that finally love had broken past the barriers that had held this dog trapped in a state of insanity, I decided to approach him and touch him.

He was on the ground, lying there like always. I kept talking in my sing songy voice and slowly stepping towards him. I will never forget the way he looked at me with those eyes. Because in an instant he went from almost docile pose to lunging rabidly at me. I stepped back quickly in a panic, tripped and fell to the ground. He closed his enormous mouth with even more enormous teeth a mere 6 inches away from my neck.
I slowly crawled away and then stood up and broke into a run. My heart was beating so fast, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. That was the last time I ventured near my doggy friend.

And to this day I still terrified to death of big dogs. So much for love conquers all.

So you think I would have learnt my lesson. But noooo. I was not about to quit. That another trait I have. I refuse to give up on someone. So in my life I have continued along that path. And I have met many people, some that others may have moved away from, seen as not a worthwhile relationship etc, But I always looked for that something in them, that something that was worth keeping. I figured it's not always about what you can get from the other person, sometimes it's about what they can get from you. I also believe that anyone that crosses paths with has a part in your life and ultimate destiny. They are there for a reason. So hold on to them, because they are worth knowing. Okay I have never met a mass murderer, and I suppose that would have to the exception to this thought process, but you get my gist.

Anyways nothing makes me happier that being surrounded by the people I know, people who in one way or another have helped shape who I am today. To this end I have tried my best to keep in touch with everyone, in spite of the fact that I have moved around so much. Thanks to the internet I have been able to connect with friends from my days in Japan, with old friends from my school in Iran, and university classmates.

And last week I made contact with a few dear friends I had lost touch with for a long time. It was one of the few instances that I can say I deliberately cut myself off from someone. It's a long story, but sometimes you have to give people their space, to heal and move on. Sometimes the choices we make in life have the unfortunate consequence of hurting those around us, regardless of our intentions. No matter how much you want to fix things, you can't unless they want you to fix it. And so with a heavy heart I closed a chapter of my life thinking that this was the end.

Well I made contact, I decided what the heck. The worst that can happen is I'll get rejected. It never matters to me to be the one to take the first step. I'm never that proud to let that get in the way of resolving a problem. To my utter surprise I got a response back and so after all these years I have the priveledge of having my friends back. Life is good. Yes indeed. And I'm glad I stuck to my principles. Thank you Sister Watanabe. For being my role model all these years...

The dog thing, well I think I may need some serious therapy for that, you just can't win 'em all!!

Fadak highschool. My first real exposure to what life was going to be like post revolution. Until then I had been sheilded from what was going on outside. My international school, run by american principals (Mr. Irvine) was open up to a year before. I finished grade 7 there. By grade 8, we had been sorted into boys and girls, and sent to separate transitional schools meant to get us ready for persian public schools. It wasn't much of a transition given we still did alot of lessons in english. My persian certainly did not improve much. I was still pretty illiterate. The only nice thing was that I was still with familiar faces. English speaking students from Community School, Iranzamin, Rostam Abadian and the TAS were all sent to the transitional school. So in that final year I met students from the other schools I would probably have not met. The Community kids were the most like my own classmates. Rostam abadian was a british school, so they were totally different. And TAS, the Tehran American School had a reputation of slackers and bums. At the end of 8th year according to the iranian school system, a national examination was conducted. The results of this exam would decide what kind of high school you could go to. I was petrified, because this exam was going to be all in persian, and I still sucked at persian. When I finally got my results I was relieved to find out that I made high enough marks to get into a science/technology highschool. The smart kids high school by persian standards. God forbid you didn't get marks high enough for that. You were a total loser then. In iran, very few preofessions are deemed worthy and respectable. Being a doctor or an engineer. I suppose law as well, but after the revolution that was a joke. I never ever understood that narrow-mindedness of iranians. How it never seemed natural to think of nurturing a child for anything other than being a doctor or engineer.

Anyways once we had our results, next came the selection of the high school. As we would be entering the public school system, we could only register at schools in our neighbourhood. That meant we could no longer stay in the same school as all outr classmates. I was fortunate to have 5 of my friends live near enough to me to go to the same highschool. Kathy, Katy, Afrooz, Mary and Irene. Mary and Irene had joined Iranzamin in our final year. Both their father's were political activist against the Shah, and had returned to Iran from the US once the Shah had left. They were the only students we had in iranzamin that wore a veil. That was completely unheard of. And for a long time I think many viewed them with suspicion. Eventually we came to be friends and learned that basically they were just like any other teenage american kid, perhaps more so than most of us, since they had lived in the US most of their lives. However they were now here because of their Dads. I will not get into who their father's were or what their role was in the government of iran post revolution. Let bygones be bygones.

Back to the story. So I started highschool, with a handful of my friends. I remember the first day of school, arriving there with my Mom. The uniform was not as big of a deal. We had the whole year in transitional school to get used to wearing the long manteau and the veil. But the biggest fear was being around so many strangers. There were rumours and stories of parents being arrested, of guards showing up at peoples home, based on reports gleaned from converstaions at schools, work etc. Everyone was a potential spy. You could trust no one. Especially strangers. No one knew any longer who was a secret revolutionist, and who was not. So my first day, I was coached over and over by my Mom, to watch what I said, to keep quiet, to not draw attention to myself and keep to myself. Same went for my other friends.

There were 4 grade 9 classes and we all went to check to see which class we had fallen into. My luck, none of my friends were in my class. I figured I was going to be very lonely. I don't think there were more that 20-25 kids in my class. I was half expecting stepping into the classroom and being faced with a bunch religious zealots. To my surprise the girls seemed normal. except for the fact that we were all in uniform. They were chatting away, guess many of them knew each other from the neighbourhood or middle school. Anyways I soon relaxed, and figured my parents had got it all wrong. I was never one to be shy and I made friends easily.

The first indication my classmates had that I was a bit different from them came during english class. The teacher asked a question and I raised my hand to answer, and I answered in my perfect american accent. All of a sudden all heads turned my way. The teacher then asked me to read a passage. I breezed right thru that. Okay so now it was clear I spoke english. At recess girls wanted to know if I had just come from america, what school I went to etc. One girl that approached me, her name was Azalea turned out to be an english speaker like myself. We were so happy to know we had found each other. Somehow the fact that we came from similar backgrounds, raised outside of iran meant we could trust each other. we were safe.

The other effect of my command of the english language being known, was that I was allowed to skip the class. So me and Leah (short for Azalea) had a break, which was great. We'd walk the grounds, gossip, peek into other classrooms and have a ball while everyone else in school was in class. This exemption from english class was to continue thru out my highschool years.

I remember a few of my teacher that first year. One was our physics teacher. A wonderful woman and an excellent teacher. Universities were closed at this time due to the cultural revolution going on. University were deemed hotbeds of radical thought, and anti islam, decadent, remains of the old regime. So it had to be purged and reorganized. As a result universities were shut down for 3 years. So our physics teacher that was completing a Electrical Eng, degree decided to teach until she could return back to university. In a weird coicidence, I found out years later that she went to the same university that I got accepted to. Anyways in those days there was another kind of purging going on as well. All these radical groups that had banded together along with the islamist groups to overthrow the Shah, were one by one being labelled as enemy of the nation by the new islamic government. The first government post revolution was comprised of the intellectual of iran, the liberals, the democrats, the nationalist, and they fucked things up so badly that no one noticed how smoothly the islamist took over the government positions one by one. All these intellectuals revered Khomeini, saw him as a spiritual guide, meanwhile all he wanted was absolute power. So the idiots lost control to the islamist, and then found themselves being targeted as anti iran and anti-islam. So everyday in newspapers you'd read about another group of rebels that had been captured. I remember one day returning from school and seeing this house in our neighbourhood riddled with bullets. Turned out rebels were holed inside and there had been a bloody gun battle to capture them. This all happening while I was at school!!!

Anyways I digress. You get my drift, that was the atmosphere those days. So I guess we shouldn't have been surprised when our teacher did not return for the 3rd semester. No one would tell us were she was. Meanwhile we had no teacher. Fianlly after weeks they brought in a substitute. An absolute door knob. This womans was so dumb. She had no clue about physics. We missed out old teacher terribly specially knowing finals were coming and we were not getting any help from the dumb newbie. Everyone was angry. By now there had been rumours going around that our old teacher had been arrested. Students in the class loudly commented that it was insane that she had been arrested. She wore a chador even though it was not required. She was religious, she was a fantastic teacher. There must be some mistake. Why would they arrest her. And now because of some stupid mistake we were stuck with an incompetent replacement. this went on, we tried to complain to have the teacher replaced, but the principal would not hear of it. Finally I had enough. I said look we have a right to a proper education. We had a good teacher, we deserve either her or someone as good as her. We should not be accepting substandard education. And the school cannot push us around like this. We will boycott the class until they find us a new replacement. We are going on strike. And just like that, I rallied the class and the next day instead of going to class we all stood outside. The teacher for our first period showed up. Asked us to come to class and we told her no. Not until something is done about our physics class. We are on strike. The vice princicpal came, asked us to go back to class, No, we are on strike. Then the principal came, she threatened to get our parents, she threaten to have each and everyone of us kicked out of school. We said great, call our parents, they will agree with us. We are not going back to class until we get a new teacher.

In the end the threats worked, and they said if we agreed to go back to class they would not let it effect our records. One by one the students went back in. I ended up being the only one that stood out. It was just a matter of principle. I think in a weird way the principal saw that it was something I just had to do, so they let me be. We ended up with a new teacher, so I guess it all worked out in the end.

The Physics teacher that was imprisoned, I heard was held for quite some time. She was released but apparently had lost all her spark and enthusiasm. She also was not allowed back into university to finish her degree. I have no idea what happened to her after that. But I hope that she is okay. I've never forgotten her.