um, tehran was beautiful. there's been lots of rain and snow this year. the air was relatively cleam. the weather was balmy! it was a joyous time!!

i really should upload pictures. especially the shots of the city city rolling out from the foots of the alborz mountains for as far as the eye can see. or the illuminated skys. or one of the many fabulous restaurants?

toronto, remains good. i've been neglecting email writing for a while, but i'm slowly easing back into contact with ppl (that's the hope:) i'm also drastically behind having essentially skipped out on two whole weeks plus a silly intensive class on intl development. gosh, such wishy washy bs.

anyway, currently poring over the details of intl commercial arbitration, which for some reason i find very interesting. there is a lot of academic literature on the subject, but the explosion in the practice over the last decade or two, especially in north america, has certianly outgrown the literature. so many interesting questions remain: should we be preserving the traditional private nature of arbitration that allows it to be flexible, expedient and less expensive even though it is now used in a much broader range of disputes? should we care abt procedural fairness in an inherently private settlement process? what is the standard of review for arbitral decisions in a court of law? if one court system annuls an arbitral decision should another jurisdiction be allowed to implement it? should we allow arbitral decisions to remain private and confidential or should the public interest in the monitoring of the justice system take precendent? SHOULD WE CARE ABT THIS STUFF AT ALL: i think so :)

speaking the truth

my mentor last year told me that only khayyam speaks the truth. curious, i finally found a book of his poems. and he was right. no one has so succicntly summed up the transient nature of human existence.

اسرار ازل را نه تو دانی و نه من
وین حرف معما نه تو دانی و نه من
هست از پس پرده گفتگوی من و تو
چون پرده برافت نه تو مانی و نه من

---

خیام اگر ز باد مستی خوشباش
با ماه روخی اگر نشستی خوشباش
چون عاقبت کار جهان نیستی است
انگار که نیستی چو هستی خوشباش

---

squirrel suicide

i have a habit of looking out for little animals while i'm sitting in the car (as driver or passenger). mostly in toronto it's squirrels. i’m usually amazed to see them running around in the snow, leaving cute little footprints in their wake. i know some people argue that they are just rodents with glorified tails but i think they’re rather cute (despite first hand experience of their destructive powers once they make it into one’s house … that’s another story for another time).

so yesterday, sitting in the car and chatting away merrily with my mum, all of a sudden i see a squirrel on the curb contemplating its next move. basically, to make a long story short, it hoped into the road, changed its mind, then got hit by the car in front. i saw it take its final breath. it’s been more than 24 hours now but it keeps coming back into my mind. it’s silly, but i was in shock and had a good cry about it too.

in totally unrelated life happenings i have my ticket for la! i can’t wait to get out there next month for g’s wedding. it should be fun. it’ll be my first time in california and given the recent terrible weather here i’ve been seriously craving moving to a warm climate and cali is a good option. it’s also the holyland of the majority of iranians who seem to end up there somehow. ironic? i think it’s the love of sunshine.

reveling

just as a bit of harmless fun i get short little horoscope things in my email everyday. this one was just too good so i felt obliged to share it:

"Flowers draw bees just by standing there, and you draw attention just by existing. Revel in the attention."

who writes this stuff? sometimes its somewhat accurate but that's only b/c it is adequately general/flattering that every few days you'd feel some connection to it.

in other news: i have way too much work on my plate right now. i can't believe that it's feb and that i only have 2 weeks to do all this work. so it was probably not a good time to sign up for facebook... while it's an interesting social/anthropological/psychological experiment, it's mostly just a blackhole for productive time. on the plus side i've found friends from back in high school! from another continent! can't wait to catch up with them and see what they're all up to.

and the too much work pain is made slightly better by the fact that the work is all interesting. even the tax professor is fun/funny. and as for the papers i have to write, i'm mentally engaged with the topics which should make the process rather more enjoyable than usual. even the law review articles i'm reviewing this semester are far more interesting (NAFTA's chapter xi and environmental protection, labour standards and tackling workplace violance, ...:)

so for now, i'm riding the wave, trying to stay awake.