Bahman's letter to Sue,

Dear Sue,
Thank you for correcting my letter. I am so happy that we can read Masnavi in class. We listened to listening tests on Friday. Next week, we will see a film in class. It is so good, because we must see and listen. Films help us very much. I think films are better than NEWS. Words are so difficult and I forget them. Review is so good, but is difficult. I am so busy in these days and I should write in little time and my letters have errors, so sorry. I should review my letters by myself.
Do you read Leily and Majnon story?
I love that story and it is a beautiful lovely story. I hope that you enjoy it.
Take care,
Bahman

Introducing Miss Faranak Mohammadian

Miss Faranak Mohammadian is a wonderful 21 year old girl who has recently entered my classes.  She is such a nice, calm girl and absolutely resolute in mastering English.  She studies architecture in the best university in Iran.  How fortunate I am to be working with such nice ladies and gentlemen.

Here are some of Faranak Mohammadian's recent writings.  They show where she is starting English with us:

1.
My name is Faranak.I'm twenty-one years old.I study at Tehran University.My field is architecture.I have 18 courses in this term and 4 days I should go to university.My university is on Enghelab st.Everyday I have to wake up at 6 o'clock to reach my first class starting at 8 o'clock,because our house isn't near my university and the streets are very busy at the morning.

2.
Today is wendsday.I'm in the world architecture class.I'm not well.I'm sick and my schedules are very busy for today.Our professor's speaking about the Roman's architecture but I can't listen carefully.My thaught is in the other place…

3.
3days ago,some of my classmates went to Yazd by train.I liked to go with them but I couldn't.Because I had a class couldn't cancel it.I'm very sad.It must had been interesting…

4.
I'll have an exam next week.I should study hard to pass it successfully.It's important for me to get a good mark.

Can Anyone Help Me?

Dear Friends,

I would love to have this story in English: Leyli and Majnun” by Nizami Ganjevi. I don't know how long it is, or how much work it would be to send me a copy, but I would be so happy to be able to read this wonderful story. It is a love story, and very much resembles the Shakespearian play "Romeo and Juliet".

If anyone has this story, and in order not to crowd out our letters, please send it to my email address: spetrovski@comcast.net

I have the general outline of the story but I would love to have it in Nizami's words.

Thank you for any help you can give me.

Sue Petrovski

Bahman's letter to Sue,

Dear Sue,
Sorry to take a while to answer your letter. We had a concert last Thursday and I was very busy. Our concert was very good. We did practice all last week until 10 p.m. I had 2 pieces that played them alone. I was the first player in band. I had great stress but, I was good.
Ali took an IELTS test on Friday that was a good suggestion. We answered to 10 listening questions. I answered to all of them and my answerers were correct. I think reading questions is harder than listening questions for me, because I don’t know many words. Words are my big problem.
Take care,
Bahman

One of those moments

There are moments in life which can not be described in any tongue.  You just feel these moments and let their joy flow in your soul.  The moment I received the following comment from Sue is one of those moments.  I am honored to consider myself one of her friends.  Rumi has taught me that sharing hearts is sweeter than sharing a mere tongue.  That is what has been happening between Sue and me over the many years of our beautiful friendship.  

Here is Sue's comment on Masnavi's first story where Rumi shows that the king was able to buy the slave woman, but not her love:

Oh Ali, On page 43 of Wild Apples I have quoted Thoreau:
You may buy a servant or slave, in short, but you cannot buy a friend. You can't buy the finer part of any fruit--i.e.the highest use and enjoyment of it. You can't buy the pleasure whit it yields to him who truly plucks it; you can't buy a good appetite, even."

Even a King or rich man is kept from the richest enjoyments. We cannot make someone love us. Jesus said, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Sue I can not wait to hold your beautiful book in my hands and in the hands of my heart.

T

Testing

This is a test to see how we can use different font colors in our posts to the blog.

niloofar's letter

Dear sou

If you rememeber me my name is niloofar and I am an engineer and work in a factory .

I live withe my family, my family include father,mother and two sister.

I like know how do girl and boy in America?
Do they live withe their family or no?

thank you

Love's Twists and turns

What sort of a person is he who has always held in his hands what his heart has desired?  If he is a king perhaps another Hitler.  Who knows maybe such people devastate the world around them for only one or two things their hearts have desired.  But this is not something which is going to happen in a book like Masnavi.  One of the greatest beauties Masnavi's first story is that our king, although he is a king, is not able to procure the slave woman or rather her love and is conquered.  Please note that in Rumi's mystical view one of the worst calamities that may happen to you is for you to see whatever your heart desires in your hands always.  Indeed, it seems that if the king had managed to buy the slave woman's love the way he bought the woman herself this great masterpiece in the world's literature, this book of Masnavi, would not even have started.

 Yes, it turns out in our story that the slave woman herself is in love with another man, but since she is not a king or a queen and can not buy the one whom she loves she becomes sick.   And what sort of a person is he or she who is not able to fall sick I mean who is not able to fall in love.  Saadi thinks such a person is a beast. 

T on the way to an early morning class

A letter to dear sue

Nights, he tooke food and fruite for poors and hungries.He always covered his face, because he wanted to help secret and only and only for God. That time anybody did not know him.
He always prayed, always on time. In his life he did not late in his prayers.When he prayed,only and only was with God her remember and her thought.
In a day, heprayed in mosque altar, a runty man killed him( in my country culture we say to this death shahadat and to a person die this form we say shahid and we believe that shahadat is the best of death and shahid sure goes to heaven).
When he was killed in prayer, impiouses said: unless he prayed?Poors and children that their parent died said:tonight kind our father did not come ? They cried and they said this sentence but it was late.
After his death, poors and hungries always were hungry and that time all knoew that who brought food.
Yes, ali (alayhessalam=for respecting)tooke food for poors.He really was angel on earth but when he went people knew him
when I write this letter, there are many tearrop in my eyes and in my heart many sorrow.
Ali(alayhessalam) is the first leader for us.
when I want to do a hard work or when I am sorrow, I say, help me ((ya ali)) and he sure will help me in any form. Of course He helps moslems but I think that he helps other relogion, If you like, please try once, he sure helps you.
I like and I hope that when I die, in breaths last,I see him and after die, of course if god willing.
Dear sue, I suggest you that if would you like please, you read his book.Name of his book is Nahjolbalagheh. It is life book after quran.
thank you very very much.
A sentence from ali( alayhessalam):I do not see a thing, unless I see God before it, after it and with it.
BY HAMED

Question from Walden

Thanks Sue for your very helpful comment.  I have another question from another sentence below the previous one.

He says, "Sometimes I heard four or five at once in different parts of the wood, by accident one a bar behind another, and so near me that I distinguished not only the cluck after each note, "

Is he using the word "bar" as a musical term with this definition: "the line marking the division between two measures of music."?  Since I have not heard anything but cars engines around me and am not familiar with the bird Thoreau is talking about here, I would really appreciate it if you could kindly explain in some details about what is happening here in these few lines.

T