visiting tehran university

A few photographs of Tehran University, most of which were kindly sent by ’First Lieutenant’.  Beautiful architecture and an extremely lively and exciting campus, not to mention the very enthusiastic and upbeat students!

  

 

 

 

 

 

az maast ke bar maast — از ماست که بر ماست

[By Shideh]  We, along with a group of friends from Berkeley, attended a talk by Dr. Soroush last night at Stanford University on “cultural challenges of Iranians in today’s world,” which brought up many new thoughts and ideas for healthy debate!  I truly admire his vast knowledge of Iran’s sociology and culture and learned a lot in the short time that we had, even though I didn’t necessarily agree with all of his comments. In this post, I will mention a few highlights of his talk that I found most interesting.  Please note that the material below is more or less what I recall from Dr. Soroush’s talk and it does not reflect my personal stance on these issues.

laboo foroosh — لبو فروش

[By Shideh]  It’s this time of the year again and everyday as I walk through the campus I experience the beauties of the Fall season in Berkeley.  Of course you don’t see as many mesmerizing colors here as you would in the east coast of the U.S. but Berkeley has its own “haal o havaa”.  Today though, I long for Tehran’s “Payeez” and can’t stop thinking about the “Vali Asr” Avenue (i.e. Pahlavi Ave.) and its trees in the fall.  The nostalgia of pomegranate juice stands, the smell of “laboo and baghela forooshees” in the narrow streets of Tehran, near Meydoon e Vanak on a rainy day.  There is so much life and extreme emotions there.  Shawhin often says, “Tehran feels like the center of the universe once you get to know it.” I must agree.