Daily note

I am sitting in Panera bread, enjoying a cup of iced green tea which is extremely sweet. On this computer, I don't have Persian font, so even my daily writing is now in English.

I had a terrible day. My insurance company doesn't  pay for my CT scan. I spent so much time on arguing with them and them my doctor backed off from his order. I cannot trust him any more....seems like he doesn't know what he wants

The bright side part of today was having lunch with three of my good friends.

I hope I can do the surgery sooner and it turns of to be noncancer cysts. Can't wait to get back to my normal life, work.

To all women who are not mom...

We all start the mother day with saying "happy mother day" to moms around us. This is good. But what about women who are not mom, by choice or by the force of situations?


There are women around us who can't be moms or simply decided NOT to be a mom for whatever reason. This doesn't make them less feminine, less sexy, less smart...actually a lo oft these women may have gone through so much more difficult time in their lives than many moms. They may have to fight with all sort of illnesses even early in life, they may choose to concentrate on their career or a mission in their lives. They can be as kind as women who are mom. 


I am sorry that I haven't noticed this point till I got sick. Now I am facing the reality of not being able to be mom. This is perfectly OK to me and to be honest I didn't even think I need to talk about it. But it hit me today...


I am just saying, while we are embracing moms and celebrating mother day, we should be careful not to hurt feeling of other women or disrespect them by calling them coward, less sexy, less patient. Individuals, no matter if they are male or female, if they are parents or not, have values and we should judge them based on their virtues. Every one's personal decision about having or not having a kid  is respectful.

on my diary

Well, don't have Persian font on this laptop. Just a short note; yesterday I saw the doctor, he gave me an appointment for end of May, just one day after my Birthday. It is just sad...He said he need the ctscan to be able to decide what kind of surgery I need and then he gives me surgery appointment. It is just BS. But I cant do anything about it. I am so worried about my work...not a good life.

At least it was good that after the doctor, I could see my friends and talk till very late with them, it is nice to be in Atlanta.

Self evaluation , April 2012

Well, this month started very bad, with a news that I have two very big massed in my pelvic area, later on after an MRI the doctor told me there is a risk ovarian cancer, but not very hight. Anyways, I have to do a surgery....Shocking and upsetting news...I think I kinda handled it well. Anyways, in this hard situation, the last thing I wanna do is judging myself and be harsh at myself. I had to skip one of my conferences and I am going for the surgery some time in May...well, life is not always great.

I added a wish list, things that I wanna learn. Thing that will keep me motivated to survive this situation and look into future.

How to treat your friends when they are suffering from a huge illness

Let me say this right of the bat, what I am writing does NOT mean I am ungrateful or unhappy with my friends. I received many messages and phone calls from friends from all over the world. Every single of them touched my heart and I am so grateful for having so many good friends. That's one of the thing that makes my life so awesome.

At the same time, I noticed a lot of people just don't know what to say in difficult situation, and I understand it is really hard. So I want to share my ideas, hopefully this will help. Of course, this is far from perfect and comments are welcome.

I write my examples about my own situation, but I guess a lot of these can be used in other difficult situations as well, like break ups, loss of loved one, etc.

1- Remember, death bed is NOT the place to argue about the existence of God. Please don't use such a situation to convenience any one to either side of  the equations. Just tell your friend you think of her/him or s/he is in your heart. Of course, if you are religious and you know s/he is religious as well, offering prayers help. But believe me offering prayers to an atheist is not helping in anyways.

2-Think about what practical things you can do to help your friend. Your friend may be so shocked and upset that cannot actually think of practical things that she needs. Here are some examples:

2a- Take care of her/his kids...

2b-Buy/cook her/him some food

2c-Call doctor to get the appointments

2d-Call insurance company

2e-Accompany your friend for doctor appoinment

2f-Do the shopping

2g-Can you help with his/her job? 

2h-Help with the house work. Sweeping can be painful.

2m-Give your friend ride. Driving can also be painful.

3-Invite her/him to come over and have tea/ a meal with you .

4-If your friend is living in a different city/country, invite them to come to you for a short/long vacation. This can give them a break time from thinking of sad stuff.

5-Call your friend and talk to her/him. Well, this one is the first thing people do but there are several points here to take note.

5a-Don't ask your friend to tell you his/her story. Remember, for you, this is the FIRST time, but your friend has to go over this sad story SEVERAL times (since every one will ask the same question). So remember, the purpose of your call is to help not to satisfy your own curiosity. Tell your friend that if she/he want to tell you the story, you are willing to listen, if not, there are other interesting thing, you can talk about.

5b-No nagging about YOUR life and problems. 

5c-If you have a similar experience, tell your friend that you are willing to share with her/him but don't say anything more, if she/he don't ask for.

5d-Remember, just because something is common, that doesn't make the event less painful for your friend. Divorce rate is 40 percent in US, almost every body will loss parents during one's life but non of these is easy. So PLEASE do not try to convenience your friend that her/his situation is GOOD. Respect her/his feeling, (If the feelings are overwhelming encourage her/him to get professional help).

5e-Talk causally about your common interest such as politics, religion, fashion, traveling, technology, books, movies...if you really don't have any common topic, then I have to ask, why you are even friends?

5f-Talk about your ordinary daily life, sharing details always brings one back to earth life.

6- Remind your friend about how your past together is meaningful to you. Remind them of the hours you spend in the same office working, the trips you took together, the last time you dace with each other, the meals you have together.

7-Tell your friend how you can see her/him as a part of your future life. For example, how you always imagine her/him playing in the backyard with your futur kids, how you always want her/him to be in your graduation ceremony, how it will be awesome, if you can travel together....

8-Send/mail your friend a gift, an unexpected gift...a book (that you know she likes), a movie, a nice funny shirt, mug,...a picture of both of you together...even a birthday cake...and well, you can send delivered food even if you are not close physically.

9-Write your friend a hand written letter...so s/he can read it again and again.

10-Tell your friend "I like/love you", as simple as this. Tell them that you will be sad if you won't be around any more....

11- Most importantly, PLEASE do not fake a friendship. If you are not really friend, just send a not and wish her/him the best and that's more than enough.

12-People close to the end line deserve honestly, as much as every one else or even more. So please be honest with them in every ways.

Any more ideas?

Tomorrow

So here is what I think with myself. Whatever doctor will tell me tomorrow about my health, is already happened in my body. The only difference is that I am going to know about it and knowing is always good. Hopefully it helps me prevent it from getting worst and buy me some more time to enjoy life. So no reason to worry. Give myself a break and watch a movie. Tomorrow is close.

I officially quit swimming today for a while, I have too much pain for actual exercise.

Self-evaluation March 2012

This month was great results wise. I finished my two papers for SDM conference. One of them is a great one, and I can directly submit it to a good journal. The other one may never ends up being a journal article. Practically, it does not worth the effort to improve it for a journal article. 

I also had a BIG success in my first time ever dieting. I tried whole30 diet and I lost 10lbs easily. Really I just eliminate sweet things. I mean the no-list of whole30 is kinda big but almost all of them were not part of my diet anyways. It was actually very easy. I also noticed that for me a step by step method does not work. I just had to jump into it completely. I am far from my healthy weight. So I am going to keep my diet.

For time managing point of view I didn't  have any improvement. There is a systematic problem. I am very good at getting results. Practically I need a very small amount of time to get the results others need to spend a lot of time for. But this shouldn't be any excuse to waste my valuable life. So I think I will try my diet approach for time managing as well. So instead of keep recording things. I will ask my self this question "Is this a useful way of spending time?" for every activity I wanna do..so this means less of facebooking, blog reading,...

I was really good with exercise. I keep the twise swimming per week. Which looks like a good for me. 

The last week of this month, I will be on a conference trip. So I may have to be a little bit easy on myself about my diet. 

Here is the plan for April. 

1-Swimming twice a week.

2-Whole30 for at least 3 weeks and last weeks, do be carzy!

3-Spend time efficiently!