Colportage

          An unbelievable business start-up! $5 in just 5 hours! Some women surrounded me and bought all the skirts that I had sewed in that hot morning summer day of my fourteens. Although it was not my first income in my life, it was the first business that I started and I accomplished it with my own experience. During summers, when the schools were closed, many students used to work. Most of adolescent students were working at car repairing studios, sewing workshops, photography ateliers, bakeries, smithies, and other temporary occupations. They were earning money and learning an occupation for their probable future careers. I started working in my uncle's sewing workshop since I was 8 years old. He had a small workshop to produce garments in bulk and sell to wholesalers. During 6 summers I had learned many things about sewing, kinds of textiles and fabrics, how to cut fabrics to make clothes, how to use sewing machine, and how to sell garments to people. After six summers, I was being paid $5 a week. It was fair but I was thinking about something rather than working in a dark and wet workshop. I needed to use my experiences in a more exciting way. I needed some adventure. I liked to do my own business.

          Eventually I decided to start. I threw myself into a deep pool. You cannot learn swimming in a shallow pool and you cannot swim in a deep pool unless you conquer your fear. It wasn't easy to leave a permanent job after six summers and adventuring on a new and strange path. In that morning, I got up early and went to the wholesalers' market. I bought some fabrics and puff, brought them home, cut them and sewed 8 skirts. Immediately I went to the big market and start to marketing to sell them to some small clothes retailers. Before they could buy them, some women saw them in my hands and bought them in less than one hour. I could start and finish my first business in just five hours. I had have dived to a deep pool, I was swimming and I was enjoying that. Now I could continue. I continued my business at next summers. Communicating with people and persuading them to buy my products was the ability that I learned it while I was selling my products to people on the streets. Most young students didn't like the job what I was doing. It needs to be outgoing, talkative, and strong to stand up whole day and not to be shy when seeing friends, neighbors, or relatives on the street. I didn't forget the day that one of my teachers saw me while I was selling a garment and the customer was bargaining. Actually, he was surprised because I was one of the best students at school and he didn't expect me to be a colportage.

          When I went to the university, I continued my job in new ways. The first business was buying the textbooks of "Electric Circuits" class from a bookstore in downtown and selling them to my classmates. During my education, I was working as a merchandise representative in pharmacies and drugstores. My last experiences were in my hometown, a small industrious city close to Tehran, but in my new job I could experience a huge marketing activity; more competitive and more risky. I was studying in a public university and it meant that I didn't need to pay tuition and fees. Therefore I didn't need to work many hours. After four years, when I was 21 years old, I started to find full-time job. The first company that I send my resume called me for an interview and then I started my first full-time job as a sales expert. Although I was so self-confident, there were many new things that I had to learn. The main thing that I learned during 2 years in my first job was professional marketing in large scales. The owner of the company that I was working for was an old gentleman who had more than 70 years old. He had more than 50 years experience in doing professional business; he was one of the biggest exporters of Iran's saffron and carpet to Europe. I started my occupation with minimum wage but after 4 months, my income raised more than three times due to bonus that I was earning from sales. I was working hard and earning reasonable money, I could meet many famous businessmen in healthcare and medical equipment market. I learned a lot of practical and unwritten laws of business in Iran like the importance of relation and communication, the role of corruption in governmental supply chain, the impact of financial problems on benefit and loss of a company, and the significant role of honesty, trustfulness, reliability, and commitment in being a successful businessman. However, I couldn't finish my education in time. I had passed 120 credit hours before starting my full-time job in 4 years and it took more than two years to pass just 20 credit hours while I was working.

          After two years, I realized that there is nothing more to learn. In addition, I thought that I deserved more salary and income. My boss didn't accept, so I resigned. Immediately I hired in an international company with higher fixed salary and desirable sales bonus. The company was importing raw material for domestic industrial manufactories from China and Europe. It was a brilliant opportunity for me to learn about international business and strategies in importing and doing business in large scales. Although the first months were very challenging, I could employ my last experiences and educations to establish new methods in marketing and implementing the contracts in the company. The company had two owners, two partners who were completely well joined in work but distinctly difference in their personal characteristics. One of them was outgoing, well experienced in international business, skillful in public relation, and costumer oriented. The other partner was well experienced in domestic trading, detailed oriented, and strongly conservative in economic relations. They had known their strengths and weaknesses and had made a couple that could manage a huge enterprise with extremely efficiency and effectiveness. During three years, I could meet many famous and talent businessmen and learn significant strategies in financing and banking issues. My income rose gradually and I was earning an average of $700 that was about 5 times more than minimum wage.

          After three years, domestic economics start to decline. Consequently the activity of the company decreased and my income reduced. During five years that I had been working, most of my friends and classmates had been continuing their educations and a main part of them had migrated to the USA, Canada, and Australia, the dream-lands for Iranian top students. I found that I have missed a worthy opportunity; higher education. I decided to compensate. Although I had not enough time to study for the next entrance exam of public universities, I started to review my lost knowledge perseveringly. I decided to change my major from Biomedical Engineering to Industrial Engineering. Therefore I had to read new textbooks to prepare myself to entrance exam. After five months I took the exam and I succeeded to enter to one of the best engineering university of Iran. It was absolutely hard to seat on wooden chairs after five years and completely boring to do homework at home after work and classes. Despite all difficulties, I graduated after 18 months with rewarding first rank due to highest GPA. In addition to changing my majority that helped me to find better jobs in my future job career, being successful in my master education raised my self-confidence and self-esteem. I found that I can reach my goals with hardworking, being perseverance, learning, and relying to my abilities and talent. I was not cleverer than the others; I just was employing my sources more efficiently.

          After finishing my education, I decided to find a new job in a new field; production industries. I send my resume to many companies and attended in several interviews. I found that getting hired in higher positions need to difference attitudes and discipline. I had to change my strategies after each interview to increase my chance in the next one. After one month, I had three attractive suggestions. I had resigned my job one month before but I had connection with my ex-boss. I talked with him and he advised me to choose one of three options. I always owe to my boss due to his extremely effective consultant on my life.

          I started my new job I have to reveal a big secret in my life; honestly I am very lucky. Sometimes I acquire a desire extremely  much better than I expected before and sometimes I confront unbelievable and worthy opportunities. One of the best chances that I have had in my life is that I always have been working with clever, ingenious, understanding, and successful bosses. When I started my new job, I gradually found that the boss is the best manager whom I had ever worked for; a highly educated, strongly disciplined, consistently hardworking, well-organized, elocutionist speaker, spiritual-goals oriented, smart planner, and young entrepreneur. During five years overtime working I learned many things from the environment and especially from my boss; for instance, the intelligent ways to developing and marketing new products, strategies in customer services, pricing, human resource managing, and the last improvement in sales strategies. I had the opportunity of attending in the best seminars and conferences related to my responsibilities which the company had paid the cost and instead, I had to implement my learning in accomplishment my duties. I developed my experiences and abilities in many diverse fields of a pioneer production and industrial business while I was undertaking several positions like marketing, production line, and finally customer services manager. In addition, I was the editor in chief of the Weighing Industrial Magazine, one of my new ideas to expand the market throughout the country.

          Everything was going well in my job, completely in converse of my life; it was not my chance but my choice. My longest serious emotional relationship broke down after five years. It was the first and greatest dramatic fail in my life. I tried to avoid impacting my life challenges on my work, but it was impossible. It was the first time that I found my characteristics are completely emotive. The proactive, self-motivated, energetic, creative, and talkative manager replaced with a passive, exhausted, erratic, sensitive and depressed employee. Suddenly I crashed, I couldn't able to continue. I decided to hide my fail and solve it lonely. But I didn’t have enough energy to fight. I had to leave the battlefield for the first time. I had to leave my home, my friends, and my job. I had to leave the existing situation and refuge to a reliable shelter. I resigned my job and came back home. My family embraced me at my hometown after thirteen years.

          My hometown is a small city in central part of Iran. Most of my relatives are living there. The first days were so hard. Most friends and relatives were interested to discover the drama. It encouraged me to scape people, more loneliness, more suffering, and more weakness. Nobody could help me because nobody knew my problem. The only thing that I needed was quietness, composure, and concentration. After one month, I started working out. I decided to give help from my desire to pass that difficult period of my life. One of my old desires was doing my own business. It was a good opportunity to implement that. I remembered the first day that I sold my first product. Thinking to new business made me busy enough to escape from depression. Now I was able to manage myself. No time to waist, I surveyed some alternatives and decided to rent an office and run my own company.

          I had long and diverse experiences in doing work for big companies but running a small business was much harder that I expected. On the other hand, it was a strong challenge to evaluate my abilities, educations, and experiences. I design a small business in which water purification units were bought from wholesalers and sold and installed to homes, schools, hospitals, and factories. My sister, brother, brother-in-law, cousin, and one of friends were helping me. All of them were my first employees in my first company. They all were paying but honestly not much money. I was doing my best efforts to find and expand the market, giving good services to customers, making a reliable brand name, and winning the competition with older and richer competitors. The first year was awesome. We could place in third ranking according to market share. But the economic sanctions against my country affected our business like many others throughout the country. Most of our customers couldn’t able to pay their installment. We bankrupted at the eighteenth month of our business. I lost all my saving and lent almost $50,000 to payback all borrows. Despite all financial disasters, it was not the finishing point. I redesign the business plan and changed company’s mission; maintaining and repairing services instead of selling the equipment. We could survive the company in spite of reducing the income. The revenue was enough just for some part-time workers.

          After two years entrepreneurship activity, I had have lost all my saving during 13 years hardworking and has become a big debtor to the bank with a high brutal interest rate. On one hand I was a defeated businessman, on the other hand I had gotten more experienced. My last boss who was always watchful about my activities invited me to occupy a new unbelievable position; managing director of a new subsidiary company in his huge enterprise. My doubt removed when he suggested an unbelievable for the first year. The activity of the water business had declined and my brother in law was able to manage the company. I left my entire asset there and moved to Tehran again, actually like 15 years ago, when I started my university courses. Immediately I started again. Actually there was nothing except a name for the new company. There was a lot of jobs to do; hiring new technicians, train them, supply equipment, and start to inspect more than 15,000 working weighbridges all over the country. Although I had experienced pressure, tension, and complicated challenging in my last positions, daily unforeseen incidents, huge pressure, unsustainable tensions, and unfair challenging were confronting our company. We could pass all the fluctuations by tactfully conscious strategies that our boss was planning and I was responsible to implement them. After six months, most of the problems had been solved and the stress and tension declined. The new experience proved that there are always a lot unknown facts to learn and showed me again that hardworking, perseverance, critical thinking, consulting, being creative, being honest, being benevolent, and finally, belief to achieving the goals are the keys to be successful.

          Although I was well paid in my position, I need much more money because I had to pay back my expensive loan. After one year, one of my ex-coworkers who was working as the human resource manager in a rich company, proposed an attractive post with enticing salary. I talk to my boss and he admitted that it was a good opportunity for me to boost up and also he mentioned that he couldn’t afford much salary. I changed my job once again. In comparison to my last jobs, the last one was completely effortless, comfortable, low-responsibility, and unstressed. I could pay back my loan and save some money to invest in a stock market. I had enough time to do many things that I had never have done before; spending more times with my family and my friends, reading books, learning new skills especially computer software, traveling around the country, and regular exercising. I started thinking about the past years, whatever I had earned and whatever I had lost, thinking to future; what are my real dreams? What is my plan to the future? What are the most valuable facts in my life? How can I build my future while I am enjoying from my life?

Love Story

    I like photography. Honestly, I am not a professional photographer but I have a professional camera and of course enough patient to take acceptable photos. Here is Ocean Beach, San Francisco, Dec. 2014. The amazing place where I was dreaming since I read an article about SF about 6 years ago. When I came to the USA at last December, I went to SF. I spend 20 days there to fulfill my dream.
    I take more than 50 photos from these two lovers just in two minute while they were walking on the beach and these two photos are the best ones. These lovers were near the water and I had to go far from them to catch these vista.
    I like these photos because they have emotional and lovely environment, both of them are about human's relation but I think each of them can distinctly be interpreted if they are seen separately. The first one concludes separation and the next one can be inferred as a lovely join.

The First Short Story - No Name!

       In the middle of a hot day of summer, the sun in the cloudless sky is shining. After a long running with my friends, we are napping under the shadow of tress close the railroad, far from the noisy streets of Arak, an industrial city in center of Iran. There is not any water to drink, even the trees are thirsty; the yellow leaves fallen under the trees claim that.
       My friends have accepted me as the leader. It is not because of my intellectual abilities or my leadership capability, but due to my power and violence. Honestly, my friends just fear from my violence and sometimes brutal behavior. They have been obeying me since I was hitting them at childhood, while fight playing. They are very loyal. They do everything that I order and usually follow me without thinking. I think they are crazy but I enjoy it.
        Today morning we had a horribly fight with some young boys, they were more than us and also more stronger than us, so they beat us and injured  me and most of my friends. In these cases, there is not any supply from other people who stay and watch the fight and there is not any law to protect and avoid these conventional fights. We had no choice except escaping and now, we are physically and mentally tired, thirsty and hungry.
        Something is coming closer, a young boy, I think he is one of the boys who beat us today. He is alone, why is he following us? Maybe he wants to find us and reveal our location to his friends to come and disturb us again. I get very angry. Maybe he doesn't know us and the boys. It doesn't matter. I am angry and I want to soften my violence by attacking to this boy. I don't stay and get up. With a violent shriek run toward the boy. My friends get up and as a habit follow me. The boy is shocked. More than 10 shouting violence strangers are running as a military corp of zombies. He is biking and after seeing this frightening assault, the unfortunate boy starts biking as fast as he can. He is biking and we are following him. If we catch him, we can beat him as revenge of morning fight. We are pedestrians and he is biking. We are very tired, thirsty and hungry but he is not. He can scape. It is not very important because we could frighten him very much. I stop running and come back to the shadow of the trees, more thirsty, more tired but with a good sense of being victorious. My friends come back after me. We continue napping.

        It is the first time that I have been scared like this. My heart is beating more than 250 beats per minute and it seems coming to my mouth. My face is completely palled. My clothes are dirty. My mouth is dried due to a horrible unforeseen incident. I was biking alone around the city, along the railroad, to spend my free time in a hot day of summer. Everything was normal until more than 10 stray dogs suddenly attacked me.

I started reading new book

          I live in one 4 bedrooms apartment in PSU university district. One of my roommates' friend lives in our living room illegally. on the other hand, we should report it to the manager but all of us accepted this cool guy as an illegal roommate. He is very polite and calm. I usually talk to him. He has wide and deep information about the US and other countries. He is not comparable with other his fellows under twenty. He borrowed me a book of Simon R. Green. This book consists of the first three novels of the Nightside by the writer, includes Something from the Nightside, Agents of Light and Darkness, and Nightingale's Lament. The first novel is a detective story. I started reading the new book lately but I think I have chosen the right one.
           My father was a police. Although he never was wearing uniform of police, but he worked for about 30 years. Police organization was publishing an internal magazine for its employees and my father used to bring a copy of them home. I was the consistent reader of those publishing. The magazine had some specific news and educational  materials for the police employees and in addition, some short detective stories that sometimes were referred to real events. They were very attractive for me to read these stories though they were not suitable for my age. some of them were series so I had to wait one month to read the next section of them.
          Honestly, I had forgotten those days and starting reading this novel turned me back to those sweet days when I spend considerable time to read books and magazines, which was not a conventional habit in my country for adolescents. Thanks to my illegal roommate and thanks to Dr. Chase to encourage us to read.

I have never done.

There are many things that I have never done. Many things that I wished to do but I have never had the opportunity or possibility to do or implement them. I have been writing my daily since I was 14 years old. Although I don't write every day, I can claim that all important events and meaningful incidents in my life have been recorded in my writing memories. beside the events, my notes are a dialogue between me and myself. When I am depressed or confused with some problems and I need to concentrate, I open my notebook and start thinking and writing. Consequently my writings are filled of my wishes, desires, dreams, plans, likes and dislikes, loves and hates, wins and failures, and also not-achieved goals. These writings are a good references for me to know myself, so I usually read some part of them to revise my plans and sometimes to be relieved mentally.
I love pets, especially dogs. German shepherd species are my favorite. I think they love me, too! My friend's Shepherd was getting more excited when I was playing with him in compare to his owner. But it is a big question that why I have never had a Shepherd. I may take one in this year.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I felt in love for the first time. I had experienced something like love before that but it was the first time that I thought I have found my soul mate. Since then, I have been in love with somebody all the times, sometimes for one month and sometimes for 3 years. Not for fun but for life. Honestly, this story is continuing and I am still looking for my soul mate but I have never found it. It is amusing but a bit harmful. I like to have my own family and have many children, at least two. Why I couldn’t do it? I don't know but I may find my children's mother this year.
I have never learned playing an instrument. I have never gone to calligraphy classes. I have never fed my desire to learn drawing. I have never song in public. I have never done many of my favorite jobs, entertainments, and adventures but I have accomplished many significant plans in my life, instead. There are many lost, left, missed, and inaccessible goals in my life but there are more achievement and acquisitions. Thanks God for each singular day of my life and each decision that I made. I believe that everything will be acquired if I want it with my strong desire and if I try to cut the limitations in my mind and if I step toward it confidently. It is proved many times in my life. All of my lost desires are accessible if I approach them with my deepest sense of willing. I know them and ........ I may do them this year.

Fighting and Happiness

I remember when I was 7 years old, my first homework in the first class was ticked by my teacher while I expected he gave me a good score. When I returned home, I wrote a 20 (maximum score) on my homework assignment and showed it to my mother. Although my handwriting was very awkward to be believable, not only my mother didn't say any thing but also praised me.
Wrestling is a popular and traditional sport in my country. I used to work out in this field when I was 15 years old. I continued it for more than 3 years and I could acquire high ranking in my country. In 1995, I was in my best physical situation and all of my fellow wrestlers thought that I would be the best wrestler in my weight (55kgs) in the annually champion competition. After two wins, I lost an easy match to another athlete and eliminated from the champion. I was crying for more than one hour after my lost. The only picture that I could imagine in that moment was my family that expected me to come back home with a gold medal. I didn't cry for my hard and long practicing that was led to nothing, however, I was crying for losing the happiness that I could present to my family.
Yesterday, when David Luise, the Brazil captain, was crying while interviewing after the horrible lost against Germany, I remembered my tearful crying. Although these two competitions are not comparable, there was a common reason for crying that the captain mentioned. "We wanted to make our people glad and happy with our winning but we couldn't." Luise said.

Continue - Ender's Game

I have never liked science fiction stories. When I was child, there was one possibility for us as children, just real relationships in society and families; watching cartoons in which animals played the role of humans, good against bad,  protagonist against antagonist, a child looking for their mother, poor children with ambitious dreams. I remember that the most attractive cartoon that I watched was Rabin Hood. All of them were about the people's relations and responsibilities. I never thought that how these kind of cartoons and movies affected me, and I think I found the answer right now. I read the introduction of the book in which the writer explains how the book has affected the readers. I couldn't make sense. Then started to read the first and second chapters. I am not encouraged to continue reading the book because I can't understand the meaning of unknown enemies of the world; strange creatures with extra-power who want to indwell(!) the earth. For me as an Iranian with a long cultural history, the enemy is not far from humans. During the history, there had been great killers like Genghis Khan and Hitler. Enormous people were killed because of diseases, like Malaria, Typhoid, Pest, and AIDS. Millions of people have been dieing due natural disasters like famine, floods, earthquakes, and tsunamis. But even one person has never been killed by a spacial creature.
In my mind, there are many lost desires; my childhood dreams, my memories of my cousin who died 20 years ago, my parents who I devoted my life for their wishes, my friends who all of them are busy with their own problems, my life that I never paid enough attention to; so there is not any opportunity to a science fiction story to catch my interest. Poor Ender! I usually read poems of Iranian poets. One of the main characteristics  of Farsi language is that during more than 1000 years, the grammar and words haven't changed a lot. Therefore, every typical readers can read and understand poems from great poets like Hafez, Sa'di, Khayyam, Molavi and Ferdosi. Iranian people usually look for their dreams and their history in these poems. God, love, respect to family and parents, friendship, life and death. There is no history of spacial creature in our culture. All the antagonists are symbols of brutal behaviors of humans like jealousy, lying, betrayal, and ignorance.
I can't continue reading this book because I can't think about something that has not any connection with my emotions and desires. It is not an excuse, it is the response to the unasked question that why I never have liked science-fiction stories and movies.

Who am I?

The one thing that I am sure about myself is that I am a 35 years old man. Honestly, all other things that I know about myself or my family, friends, colleagues, classmates, lovers and haters think about me are not reliable. I never found that if I am an trustful person or a liar one. Whether I am an emotional man or a strict and serious one. Whether I am sociable or dissociable.
Frankly, the problem is that trying to know and learn about sciences, works, others, lessons, skills, unknowings and everything didn't let me know myself. I learned that Steve Jobs was a great entrepreneur but I never found whether I am an entrepreneur or a employee. I learned a lot about statistics and probability and learned how I can measure the probability of collision a plane with the birds in an airport but I never could determine my success in last educational and occupational careers. Although I respect family and desire to have children, I never had this chance to have my own family or I never had tried to make my own family. Despite excellent grades in high school and university, I never have ever worked based on my education. I have been a pet lover since I was a child but I have never had a pet. My life is a completely confusing combination of many many desires and diametrical achievements. Funny life!
In spite of all these mentally controversial issues, I don't want to complain my life because I love it. I love all days that I passed. From others' point of view I am a successful man and I BELIEVE it. But I have a question; Are the others' opinion true? Are they capable to decide where I succeeded or not?
I doubt whether I can rely on others' opinion while I can't rely on my mind. The main question is that who I am and I doubt whether there is an clear answer to this question. Is it possible to find the answer of this question?

Newspaper - You are free to say what you want but you may not be free after that!

In my country there is not any free newspaper. All news are written according to the government, therefore, most of the real events are different with the related news. There are many journalists in the prisons and long conviction is the result of writing true news in the newspaper. Although it is confusing for US people, it is completely accepted in my country. People usually can't rely on the news in the newspapers and other media. It is the main reason that most people don't pay attention to governmental media and usually watch other countries' News programs like BBC or VOA. Other reliable sources for News are social networks like Facebook and Twitter. I think with these spread networks, the history is not written by victors, however it will be written by people. Finally, I strongly believe that the most important necessity to all countries, especially for my country, is free newspapers.

It was unforeseen that all my friends in the group had the same idea; no one can rely on the News on the newspapers. Even my American classmate told that he has not been reading News since he came back from Iraq, 18 months ago. The other guys from Saudi Arabia have the same idea. They believe that the newspaper in their country are controlled by the government.

My Dreams

I like my dreams. Usually when I dream, I find out that it is a dream and therefore if it is enjoying, I enjoy it and if it is annoying I consciously leave it or stand on it. Recently I dream some events that have made me stressful. I dream some events that they are completely have an independent path of my real life but they are completely seem real. For example, I dream that I go to my home in my country after college but in real life my college is located in the USA and my home is in Iran. Both side look like real but the relation is not real. So I can't distinguish the real and dream as I do most of the times and it makes me nervous. I think some stressful issues like the TOEFL and migration have caused these series of dreams but I wish pass this awful period soon.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Caro

It is the first time that I read a fiction story. Honestly I don't like fiction stories and movies at all but I want to try a genre that Americans like very much. It has been a big question for me that why Americans like fiction movies and stories very much and I want to find the answer by reading this well-sold book. I started late because of taking the TOEFL exam last week. Before I took the exam on last Saturday, I hadn't chosen the books for reading course. It was my American friend's suggestion to read this book.