Blog Comments

  1. Buh4Bee's Avatar
    I remember you! I understand what you mean about coming here and feeling nostalgic and then leaving. It's very quiet these days.
  2. Danik 2016's Avatar
    Thanks, Farmoosh,
    It´s much better now. Changed the color of the text too, for the sake of visibility!
  3. tailor STATELY's Avatar
    Thanks for checking in
  4. farnoosh's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Danik 2016
    Dear farnoosh
    Just asking a favour. Please write your texts in white or yellow. It makes better reading with us that are shotsighted and one can still fully apreciate the stars in the background.
    Cheers
    Hi Danik2016
    Done thanks for the feedback
    Kind regards
    Farnoosh
  5. Danik 2016's Avatar
    Dear farnoosh
    Just asking a favour. Please write your texts in white or yellow. It makes better reading with us that are shotsighted and one can still fully apreciate the stars in the background.
    Cheers
    Updated 03-07-2022 at 07:10 AM by Danik 2016
  6. Virgil's Avatar
    My advice is to get off the internet, or spend less time on it. Certainly not a whole afternoon. I think the internet is corrosive to the human soul. It only accentuates your depression.
  7. NikolaiI's Avatar
    That's wonderful to know.
    You are most welcome, farnoosh!
  8. farnoosh's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by NikolaiI
    I found it - from chapter 17 of Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte.
    No way!!
    You've just made my day Nik. I love that book, haven't read it in 5 years I think. But the passages in that book meant a lot to me at the time. Now reading this one I've found, I think they still do. Guess some things don't change


    Thanks for finding it my friend!
  9. NikolaiI's Avatar
    I found it - from chapter 17 of Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte.
  10. farnoosh's Avatar
    I wish I knew. For all I know I could've just copy-pasted it from a magazine or something, years ago.
    Sadly, back then I didn't always document the original source location
  11. NikolaiI's Avatar
    Agreed with most all of this, and a lot of the same things can be said about money and power to a certain extent.

    Then again our ideas of beauty are quite subjective. All life is quite beatiful, when you spend time reflecting on how unique and precious it is. I think our definitions of human beauty, at least in common use, have strayed a little ways; it seems to make more sense to me to equate good health with beauty.

    Definitely it's interesting. . I do like how the quote mentions we learn these things in childhood - I remember my dad teaching me as well, some of these ideas. I always found it funny, that although he told me these things, he didn't fully believe them himself. Being the trusting soul that I was as a child, I took them to heart. It's one of the things that has made the most difference.

    The quote is quite poetical and beautiful itself - who is it by?
  12. farnoosh's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Virgil
    Oh you should go back to Les Misarbles. I'm reading a volume each year. I can't read the whole 1400 pages in one year. There are five volumes, each one is almost a novel in itself. I read the first last year and will start the second in another month or so. Jean Valjean comes in mid way through that first volume. I remember the beginning as rather philosophical, but that changes soon. It really gets better. Perhaps your problem is reading off a Kindle. I have trouble with long works off a Kindle. I need to be able to go back to things and it's very hard off a Kindle.
    Yeah I guess you're right. Les Miserables is not the type of book that you can read off a Kindle.
    P.S I seriously did not know there were 5 volumes!! As it is all stored in one PDF file... wow!! I've got some serious reading to do
  13. Virgil's Avatar
    Oh you should go back to Les Misarbles. I'm reading a volume each year. I can't read the whole 1400 pages in one year. There are five volumes, each one is almost a novel in itself. I read the first last year and will start the second in another month or so. Jean Valjean comes in mid way through that first volume. I remember the beginning as rather philosophical, but that changes soon. It really gets better. Perhaps your problem is reading off a Kindle. I have trouble with long works off a Kindle. I need to be able to go back to things and it's very hard off a Kindle.
  14. NikolaiI's Avatar
    That's pretty normal, I think. What's more, it's a good thing. . or it usually has been for me; those are the times when there's peace, and you have time. I went looking for a quote of Whitman's, a poem actually, something about leaving books behind, and going out and living the open road and traveling; I couldn't find it, but speaking of Goodreads, I came by a couple interesting ones.

    “Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.”
    ― Walt Whitman

    “Peace is always beautiful.”
    ― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

    “This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
    ― Walt Whitman

    https://www.goodreads.com/author/quo...8.Walt_Whitman


    I think what I'm saying is it sounds like you're at peace

    I recognize the feeling you're describing - for me, that's actually one of the nicest times of life. . of course it's a step along the journey, but it also seems close to when Rumi says "there, the world is to full to talk about."

    Also, there is a very interesting thought Schopenhauer came up with. Very shocking when I first read it! I didn't want to think about it as possibly being true because, I had always been brought up to believe in the virtues of reading - and those are all still there; but I've gradually come to understand it's true. It's from the essay "On Thinking for Yourself" - a similar idea is definitely expressed in Whitman's poem, the one I can't find. Anyway - it definitely reaffirms my belief in the idea of selectivity - there are some works which contain a thousand worlds of beauty, and to find those and read them will still take a lifetime, so why would I spend time on anything less? This way of looking at it would just seem to say that you just need to find more interesting books - again in the words of Rumi, "let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love."

    I found a poem by Whitman - not the one I was thinking of, but similar,

    http://www.bartleby.com/142/82.html
    (from here)


    “When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another’s thoughts. So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk.”
    (the Schopenhauer quote)

    Or Socrates:
    'The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.'

    Just some thoughts - like I say, it's a feeling I recognize, and I realize today it's actually a very nice thing - or at least, I remember it as such.

    Or another way,

    “You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness.”
    ― Terence McKenna

    Enjoy :-)
    I hope you grandmother recovers nicely.
  15. farnoosh's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Virgil
    Oh I see. Yeah, that makes sense, especially if you want to get away from your country. There are lots of universities with good engineering departments in the United States. I don't know the complexities of applying from outside the US. My advice would be to ask other students and engineers how they did it. Do you know any engineers from your country who are working for such institutions? Ask how they did it. Follow their path is all I can think of. Or you could write to the companies and institutions you are interested in and ask them what paths make sense for someone like you. I wish i could help you more but I just don't know. Good luck.
    Well since I need to fund my masters program on my own in the US- due to limited funded masters program opportunities- it's a bit of a risk sending applications for US departments although they do have really high profile research projects. I thought I'd apply for Europe and Canada instead and if I do change my mind by the time I finish masters I'll apply for Ph.D in the US. I've applied for 4 programs so far, but I really want to get in Western University in London, Ontario. Keeping fingers crossed.
    All the people that I know are in the business did the exact same thing as I'm doing: first a masters degree from an outside uni then apply for work.
    Thanks for your help though Virgil
  16. Virgil's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by farnoosh
    Hey Virgil. Well yeah that's the thing, in order for me to get into work or be accepted is to have a degree outside my country especially in the oil and petroleum industry (where I take an interest in) companies aren't very keen on the idea of hiring a foreigner particularly from the middle east to be their process engineer. So I need an advanced degree from another renowned institution outside the middle east in order for me to continue my research outside of my country.
    If you have an idea for me, I'm all ears
    Oh I see. Yeah, that makes sense, especially if you want to get away from your country. There are lots of universities with good engineering departments in the United States. I don't know the complexities of applying from outside the US. My advice would be to ask other students and engineers how they did it. Do you know any engineers from your country who are working for such institutions? Ask how they did it. Follow their path is all I can think of. Or you could write to the companies and institutions you are interested in and ask them what paths make sense for someone like you. I wish i could help you more but I just don't know. Good luck.
  17. farnoosh's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by NikolaiI
    Wonderful poem, thanks so much for sharing. I thought you had written it until about 3/4ths of the way through.
    You are very welcome I'm not writing poems NikolaiI
  18. NikolaiI's Avatar
    Wonderful poem, thanks so much for sharing. I thought you had written it until about 3/4ths of the way through.
  19. farnoosh's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Virgil
    I haven't been on Lit Net in a long while, so just seeing this now. You may have decided by now. I don't know engineering schools outside the United States, so i can't can't offer advice. May I ask why you're so fixed on grad school rather than work? Some places of work will pay for a graduate degree if you meet their requirements. Also I personally have not found new job applicants with grad degrees to be any better than those with just bachelors. The grad degree seems to build the mathematical skills more, but real life experience trumps that. Good luck with whatever you decide.
    Hey Virgil. Well yeah that's the thing, in order for me to get into work or be accepted is to have a degree outside my country especially in the oil and petroleum industry (where I take an interest in) companies aren't very keen on the idea of hiring a foreigner particularly from the middle east to be their process engineer. So I need an advanced degree from another renowned institution outside the middle east in order for me to continue my research outside of my country.
    If you have an idea for me, I'm all ears
  20. Virgil's Avatar
    I haven't been on Lit Net in a long while, so just seeing this now. You may have decided by now. I don't know engineering schools outside the United States, so i can't can't offer advice. May I ask why you're so fixed on grad school rather than work? Some places of work will pay for a graduate degree if you meet their requirements. Also I personally have not found new job applicants with grad degrees to be any better than those with just bachelors. The grad degree seems to build the mathematical skills more, but real life experience trumps that. Good luck with whatever you decide.
Page 1 of 6 123456 LastLast