This image is from the moment when I launched a new site called Iran Medical Research Connect.
Right now it is hosted on ning.com.

Iran Medical Research Connect is a community building web portal that will connect medical professionals from Iran and around the world.

The intention is to help medical educators, professionals, and researchers to share papers, learn about projects and events, and to connect with Iranian and non-Iranian medical professionals from around the world.

It is a user-test, which i developed because a number of doctors and researchers that I know in the medical field are working with Iran, and were interested in having a place to come together, connect, and exchange information and ideas. I want to see how different tools can facilitate cross-cultural exchange projects. You can read more about my thoughts as i update them in my thesis site.

If you or someone you know is interested in joining, please email me at pm1135@nyu.edu
and I will then send you an invitation. Once you join, you can add other members as well!

I am planning on making a site that could be for medical researchers, one for artists and filmmakers, but all dealing with getting people to connect on a grassroots level, with little or no government intervention.

Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks,
Parastou

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0lWr7xbKkA

Its really a remarkable group of people who share a passion for learning, art, beauty, storytelling,

and a common belief that children books can be "delicious" and "nourishing."

On that note, I came across this article in the latest issue of Utne Reader, which underscores my desire for my children to have time "to hang out" "to stare off into space" "to get lost in their thoughts" when its tempting to schedule their lives with classes and events.

http://www.utne.com/2008-07-01/Politics/The-Future-of-Creativity.aspx

Good food for thought.

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By Daniela Montabaur

Everyone who moves to another country goes through a cultural adjustment cycle. Some take longer to go through the cycle than others.

Expatriate Amy Hart, a North Carolina native who has lived and worked for 11 months in Munich, Germany, helps us to differentiate among the five different stages of the adjustment cycle.

1. Honeymoon Stage: At first stage everything in Hart’s her new surroundings was profoundly exciting and interesting. She had the feeling of a dream finally coming true and being in the middle of a great adventure. Just like a honeymoon, the bliss of beginning a new life can be rose-colored, happy, and hopeful for most expatriates.

2. Culture Shock: After six to eight weeks Hart moved into the culture shock stage. “Overall, I hated the feeling of not being independent. It’s as if you are a child again. Your personal freedom is suddenly taken away from you,” said Hart. It’s typical at this stage to physically feel that something is not right.

Hart often complained about headaches and stomach upsets. She felt tired and couldn’t concentrate on her work. Her sleeping patterns changed as well. She felt homesick and as if she was living with one foot in her American culture. This stage lasted for about another eight weeks.

3. Initial Adjustment Stage: After the culture shock period Hart went into what we call initial adjustment stage and became able to connect with local people in social and business situations. Though she was still missing her home, she gained self-reliance. Being needed in her company helped her feel better.

It was hard for her to realize that she then had to go through another stage of negative feelings.

Pennsylvania expatriate Kelly Payne lived and worked in Germany and Japan. She found it easier to enter this stage of initial adjustment when she learned how the ways of relaxing in her new host country differed from her own.

North Americans are active and try to crowd as many activities into an hour as possible. Wasting time is wasting money. In cultures where there is less emphasis on competition, people are able to let time “fill itself.” They place more emphasis on quality of actions than quantity of actions.

During the initial 40-minute subway rides to work in Germany, Payne felt the urge “to be doing something.”

“When I forgot to take my book or my walkman with me, I felt so useless just sitting in the subway. It took a while until I learned not to feel guilty when I just enjoyed watching people or letting my mind wander,” said Payne.

4. Mental Isolation: The initial adjustment stage is followed by another wave of integration ups and downs.

During this stage Hart really needed support and help from her friends and co-workers. She felt anger toward the host culture and doubt about her decision to live in Europe. “Maybe the people back home are forgetting about me,” said Hart.

She complained about the fact that everything is “verboten” (forbidden) in Germany and that the food was different. People were staring at her in a way she was not used to. “I sometimes felt as if I had an imaginary American flag on my forehead. People just knew even before I spoke. “I got the ‘you’re different’ type of look,” said Hart. She lost motivation to continue learning German, and you could tell a difference in her personality. The sparkles in her eyes were dimming but her mind was expanding as she transitioned.

5. Acceptance and Integration: Finally, Hart entered the last stage of the culture adaptation cycle: acceptance and integration. She stopped trying to change the host culture and stopped making constant comparisons to her own American way. She developed strategies for everyday life in Germany. She was willing to take German classes again, tried to speak German to everyone in the office, and seemed to be more content and less moody.

“My sense of time was mixed up in my first months here in Germany. At a restaurant with my German friends, I felt strange when they kept sitting at the table after finishing dinner. I felt the urge to pay for the meal and leave. I was ready to go to another bar or cafè. I learned not to be in such a rush and to have dinner for two hours or more instead of 45 minutes. I began to let go of the feeling that having a tight schedule was important and productive.”

The key to overcoming cultural difficulties is being willing to look behind the façade of appearances and learn to understand the basic human emotions we all share. For individuals from different cultural backgrounds, the possible ways of perceiving the same event can differ greatly.

“You can only see what you know.” Learning this is the key to understanding.

Q: Do you think Iranian blogs can give you an image of Iran that we do not find in the mass media? Can you cite an example?

I definitely think that, especially in the case of Iran, blogging gives a welcomed alternative perspective that often diverges radically from what traditional mainstream media provides us here in the US. In my mind this is one of the most important contributions that the Iranian Weblogestan makes.

One of the most interesting and exciting discoveries I made during my study was the perspective of the Iranian blogosphere. The odd mix of familiarity and strangeness of their worlds provided a much more complex, nuanced, and sympathetic picture of Iranian society than traditional sources of news did.

The fact that I had such access to these people also gave me an important sense of empowerment. Learning about the intricacies of taxi culture in View From Iran’s “Taxi Talk,” or about daily street life from Mr. Behi gave me a glimpse into the heart of Iranian society that traditional media stories left out. Daily coverage of the Iranian-US nuclear stand-off and Iranian involvement in Iraq by the mainstream media continually creates a false impression of Iran that blogs often work to deconstruct.

But the Iranian blogosphere represents a very small demographic. As in other “developing” countries, the internal “digital divide” between those with access and those without significantly shapes the perspective and climate of the Iranian cyber-society.

Reading Iranian English-language blogs in the months and weeks leading up to the 2005 presidental elections, it would have been hard, if not impossible, to predict that Ahmadinejad would win. Clearly the views of these bloggers were at odds with a substantially large portion of the rest of Iran. The surprise/shock/denial illicited by many of these blogs in the aftermath illustrates how specific group this group was/is within the broader Iranian population.

The photo is from a blog event where “The Frogomist Award” (Golden Frog) for the best Iranian blogs in various categories was given.

I have just finished my master’s thesis which focuses on the Iranian blogosphere. The purpose of the thesis is to examine how blogs become a part of the public sphere. When I talk about the public sphere in this context I primarily refer to the press. I had the chance to go to Iran in April for three weeks on a grant from the Danish Institute in Damascus, where the purpose is to encourage cultural and scholarly exchange between Denmark and the Muslim worlds.

Unfortunately I do not read Farsi but I have read a lot of examples from blogs that were translated, and have followed some of the Iranian blogs in English. My primary source of information was communication with Iranian bloggers who discussed the content of their blogs as well as their experiences and ideas about blogging. In Iran I met with ten different bloggers.
The bloggers I met had very different profiles regarding age and gender. Some of them focused on social and political matters, while others had blogs that were more personal. A lot of the bloggers I talked to were only writing in Farsi even though their English was extremely good. They said that they felt that the subjects they wrote about were mostly relevant for Farsi speaking readers inside or outside of Iran. A few even expressed that they did not want to add to the negative picture of Iran that Westerners seem to have. So they would rather keep their critique to themselves and their fellow countrymen.

On the other hand, I believe that blogs are a way of opposing prejudice. The blogosphere enables a pluralistic exchange of opinion and contributes to the eradication of prejudice. Most of the bloggers I talked to explained that they are participating in the blogosphere regardless of whether they agree or disagree with the blogs they read. This indicates that the blogosphere is not just a free-for-all for ideas, but at the same time promotes networking and allowing people to be better informed as well as more politically conscious citizens. Reading about everyday life in Iran and seeing pictures on a photo blog from Tehran might change a lot of Western idea about Iranian society. One of the Iranian bloggers I met developed a more nuanced view of the hejab after reading about women who actually wore it voluntarily.

The conclusions in my thesis have changed somewhat after my trip to Iran. Before my departure I was very optimistic about the possibility of mobilizing public opinion by means of internet and blogosphere. I am still optimistic, but perhaps a bit more realistic. Although the virtual and real worlds are interconnected, there are still important distinctions between the two. On the one hand, the internet can have a very positive effect on the people who communicate with each other, but from there to real life outside cyberspace is something else. The society-transforming potential of blogs depends on how the medium is utilized, since technological media are only instruments for social interactions. As with all other media, the social context determines how blogs function as a part of the public sphere.

I am very interested in knowing what other blog-specialists think of my conclusions? Are they too pessimistic – too optimistic?

- Caroline Nellemann