At 9.40 am my master student arrived, whom a had not seen for the last 3 month after he did his last experiments.  Two weeks ago he called to tell me that all his MSc thesis drafts got lost after he visited Munich Oktoberfest. O.k., I thought, the guy will have to rewrite the few parts he had not backed up then. A week ago he send an e-mail to tell me his parents had used his backup USB stick to store all holyday photos on, thereby overwriting the backup.  Today he came around with a MSC thesis rewritten from scrap within a week, to ask me my opinion and corrections.   I asked him to show me his protocoll-book with the original records and data. He sad “Sorry, but the Lab-book was also stolen at the Oktoberfest”.   This is the final disaster:  Without the original protocol documentation, all his master thesis are worth nothing and publication is a joke.

At 11.20 am a secretary from another Institute asked me for an advice of how to organize a lecture series. I told her this and that, and also that the students usually like to have name badges to be identified as course participants at the cafeteria. An hour later she asked me how such name badges can be made, and what she should write on them. I remained very calm, I don’t know why.

After lunch my office door opended and in came a strange guy from Japan. Looked like a world traveller with two suitcases. Explained me he just arrived from Minnesota University, where he skipped his BSc biology study. Asked me if he can work with me, doing proteomics and radiation biology. He said he can not go to Japan, cause everything there is radioactive, and he has documentation in his suitcase, and therefore the Japanese police is after him. He can not return to the US, since they also hunt him, because he knows too much. He said he does not want to study further, ’cause Master or PhD is too hard for him. And becoming a professor would not satisfy his ambitiouns to tell the world all the things he knows (and which are written in his documents).  He also considered becoming a director of his own company, but he is not so much interested in making lots of money. At the moment he has not a single pence to take the bus to town, therefore he asked me very politely if he could sleep somewhere in our institutes building   ( I like the Japanese people so much, for their politeness. He bowed again and again, even if I told him that our Institute is also completely contaminated by radioactive stuff, and that he would risk his last few brain cells by staying here overnight).

So happy, that tonight I go rehersing with our rock band. I hope we play some dirty Punk tonight in the backstore of this Munich petrol station.

Sorry, but I did not managed to work on the manuscript, or on the DSc thesis.  But I promise, tomorrow I will do nothing else (unless a silly MSc student comes with new horror messages, or a stupid secretary askes for advice how to sharpen a pencil, or a Japanese weirdo wants to colaborate with me to teach the whole mankind).

Ghazal my Dear,
Two month ago, in September 2012 Israel seemed to be the most relaxed and calm country one could imagine. Except for very rare security checks at the entrances of large shopping malls, concert halls or the Jad Vashem museum, there were hardly any signs of the immanent threat of violent attacks. As travelers we were more concerned about the possible failure of the air-conditioning in our flat, or about the trouble to release our car from the car-park that was suddenly locked on Sabbath.
In an attempt to dissociate myself as far as possible from the tourists (many of whom visit Israel for its christian heir or because they come on a cruise with a one-day break in Haifa) I was lurking around Lev Hamifratz Shopping Mall. There, a memorial plate told that during construction of the mall in 1991 it had been hit by a scud missile launched by the lunatic Saddam Hussein. Some years later an attempted car bombing attack by the Libanese Hisbollah was prevented by police that sapped the vehicle on the car-park outside the building. This suddenly reminded me of an ever-present, albeit latent danger for life or injury in Israel, and this might to a certain degree prompted me to decline to the invitation by the Magen David Adom (the Israeli equivalent to the Red Cross) to donate blood right there at the shopping mall. I never donated blood before, except when it was recommended before a surgery in hospital. When I laid down on this rubber-covered bed I had some time to talk to the doctor and the nurse about the most likely occasion when my blood (of course processed and perhaps mixed with a lot of Israeli blood to dilute out the Goi-factors) was used for transfusion. Anything could happen in Israel like anywhere else: car accidents, surgical operations with sudden complications, caesarian sections. The prospect of a military conflict was rather unlikely, two month ago.

Now, after Israel started its counter-attack to protect its people from the Gaza-launched rockets, it appears that victims of air-strikes, bombs or rockets blowing living-houses will be more likely to be in need of blood-transfusions. If my blood finds a way out of the deep-freeze storage into the circulation system of a patient, it could be a civilian who’s house in Ashkelon or Ofakim or even in the suburbs of Tel Aviv were hit by Hamas rockets. It could be an IDF soldier who is about to enter Gaza in an attempt to neutralize the terrorists of Hamas. But most likely, it will be an innocent person living in Gaza, who has been misused by the terrorists as a living shield, who finally is be the most vulnerable and least cared-for victim. Israels IDF recently circulated a Twitter news promising that it will open the Gaza check points to permit delivery of emergency medical goods, maybe including my blood.

When I donated blood in September in Haifa, I had to fill in the form below, and of course without understand much hebrew I simply followed the suggestions of the Magen David Adom nurse and clicked any field she recommended to me. 

I did not asked her, if any of these fields to fill in were refering to the intended usage of my blood. Did it possibly exluded its use during military operations ?  Or for certain minorities ? Or could it even be that non-kosher blood from a Goi like me would only be used to rescue non-Jewish victims ?   Everything is possible, but I hope in the case of life emergency, people forget about race, nation, faith, and give the blood to those who need it most.

Hi Michael, not sure if I shall recommend you to see that new movie by Lars v. Trier “MELANCHOLIA”.
It started in Sweden already in May, but I did not had time before to go.
It has some very beautiful scenes, in particular at the very beginning. It shows some moments in the life of the main character (Justine, played by Kirsten Dunst) in extreme slow-motion. It is so extrem slow-motion, that a blink of her eyes takes 2 minutes, and when she is doing a step forward on the field, this takes 5 minutes.
It reminded me a bit what you wrote me last week, that my fear that time is passing too fast is a pure illusion. Because it is so subjective how we anticipate time, it is perhaps also possible to manipulate the speed of time.  You might even manage to slow down the speed of time, like in the movie.

Melancholia from Zentropa on Vimeo

But except for these first scenes, the movie becomes sad and tragic. It appears that the earth is going to collide with another planet, and all life will be destroyed. But Justine, who suffers from episodes of depression during her wedding ceremony, suddenly becomes very calm and self-confident when this huge planet approaches the earth slowly. All other person, who were initially the strong and successful ones, start to panic.

In particular her sister Clair changes completely, from a 100% self confident and rational person to an emotional ruin.

Take Care

/ghazal

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Ghazal my Dear,

Melancholia will start next week in Munich. I only saw a trailer, it was amazing to see how the earth is slowly absorbed by this new planet Melancholia. It is a beautiful scene, very aesthetic. It is an extraordinary idea of the film director to show the end of the earth not as a big disaster with noise and explosions and distraction, but with a very calm and almost harmonic “operation”.  By the way, the planet Melancholia was also visible over Munich:

Do you know that Clair, the sister of Justine is played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. Do you remember we were listening last year to their song “Je t’aim – moi non plus” . I hope you are calm and self-confident and strong, and you don”t have to worry about nothing at all.

All you need is love (just a citation from a Beatles Song).

Take Care, my Dear   Michael

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Hello Michael,

It is difficult to imagine that the actress who played this emotional fragile Clair could have been the product of this amazing song, and of two very strong parents.

If you want to watch the movie when it starts in Munich, I recommend you to go not alone.  Some scenes might be not just melancholic, but depressing. It is better to go there in companie.

Take Care

/ghazal

I did not knew before that UV-light is also essential for our body to produce vitamine D. Interesting aspect, I have to include this into my PhD-project. So maybe after UV-exposure my TK60 cells are really better of, cause they finally get some vitamine D after spending weeks in the dark incubator ? And what do you say now: Last year you have been wondering why I prefer to walk home instead of taking the bus. I then told you it is just relaxing for me to let my thoughts float freely. Now it could be that intuitively I knew that it is good to spend some time out in the open to reconstitute my vitamine D reservoir.

I already saw the movie “Darbareye Ely” (what means “all about ely”) about two years ago, after it received the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin film festival. But I watched it again yesterday with Shava.

I liked the movie, although it was no easy entertainment. It had no Happy End, but a Tragic End. The story starts very relaxed, showing three young families (including Ahmad, brother of one of the women, who just came from Germany where he divorced) spending a weekend at a seaside cottage at the Caspian sea. The three families have the silly idea to bring together the lonely Ahmed with the baby-sitter Elly, although they know that she is engaged with another man in Teheran. Whereas all the three couples and Ahmed start to make stupid jokes about this plan, laugh about Ely when she is not around and all appear very superficial to me, Ely herself is much more closed. She is a girl with some mysteries, she keeps secrets and does not like the continuous jokes about the attempted matchmaking a lot. She tries to do the job that she was officially hired for: looking after the little kids of the three families. She frequently calls her mom, who is ill, and after one day she decides that it is better to return to Teheran. The three couples don”t want to let her go, they hide her luggage and her mobile phone. She says that she has to leave and would even walk home. The three couples and Ahmad ignore her and start to play Volleyball and go shopping. Ely helps the kids to fly a kite, but suddenly one of the little boys falls into the water and almost dies. The three man interrupt their game, suddenly get panic and jump into the sea, so finally the boy is rescued. But after some minutes they realize that Ely is missing. And suddenly, the relaxed relationship between the three couples and Ahmed turn into aggression and hate. Everybody accuses the others of being responsible for the disaster.

After one day, indeed Elys dead body is found in the sea: She obviously died while trying to rescue the little boy. The three couples now have to inform some relatives of Ely about the accident, and they can only find Alireza, the man to whom Ely was engaged since three years. They find out his telephone number and ask him to come, claiming that Ely is just ill. When he arrives at the site, finding out that she in fact died, he breaks down. The three couples don”t want to admit that Ely was only invited to this weekend trip to match her to the divorced Ahmad. They try to make Alireza believe that Ely was hired exclusively as a baby-sitter. So they want to get around the conflict by adding more and more lies on top of each other. You can feel how their only concern is to get away with their responsibility.

I think Asghar Farhadi, the movie director, tried to show that this practice of organizing relationships for somebody is bad. It is based on an arrogant belief that relatives know what is good for their son or brother or daughter, and they can easily find a suitable partner. It is obvious that Ely hates this, since she is not sure about her 3 year long engagement with Alireza. But the three stupid couples and Ahmad think, that they have the right to interfere with her emotions. They make impolite jokes about Ely, they lie, and they don””””t respect her privacy. They are to superficial to see, that Ely is full of doubts about her future, and that she does not want to be pushed into a new relationship. She has thoughts that are not for the public, emotions that she does not want to show around. At the end, this stupid idea of pushing two person together leaves behind two victims: a physical one (Ely, who dies) and a mental one (Alireza, who breaks down emotionally). The bad think is that the three couples continue to lie to Alireza although they see how much he suffers from Ellies death: They tell him that Ely knew from the beginning that the weekend-trip with the three families was intended to bring her together with Ahmad. By insisting on this lie, the three couples so cruel leave the mourning Alireza believe, that his girl-friend Ely was searching for an easy adventure with another man. But Ely, in fact, never agreed with this, she said she only joins the company to look after the kids.

I would like to hear what you think about the movie.

take care
/ghazal

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Ghazal my Dear,

Tonight I went to see the movie “Darbareye Ely”. It was shown in one of the very small cinemas here, which are specialized on Arthouse movies.

Although you had told me already a lot about it before, it was nice to see it. After the first 5 minutes of the movie, however I thought that we might talk about two different things, cause it started so nice and relaxed, when they drove through the tunnel and all were just shouting for fun. And then they had this short stop-over at a small river, and I immediately recognised the russian Samovar, because we have exactly the same one (as part of a big collection of even older ones). And in the beach cottage, I recognised the old russain fridge, type “Wolga”, cause we have the same one in our cottage in Bulgaria. So initially I was a bid distracted by pictures, also had problems to follow the subtitles and at the same time understand the relationship between all the characters and their names (you should have provided me with a sort of set-list of all character and who is married to whom and which kid belongs to which couple). Anyhow, after a while I got the impression that all the seven characters are interchangeable, they looked differently but acted similar. The only exception was Ely, who was mysterious. When she disappeared after the accident with the boy I was hoping for about an hour, that she might not have died in the sea, but just left the place to escape the silly jokes and the attempted match-making. When she was eventually identified in the mortuary it was really sad and I was almost ready to leave the cinema.

Ely reminded my a lot of you, Ghazal. She was also calm and the exact opposite of the loud and superfiscial society around her. She had secrets, that she wanted to keep for herself. She had an aura of pride and aristocracy, which stoud in sharp contrast to the other characters who never thought about the right of privacy or secrets. It is a pitty that it was Ely who died in the movie. I so much wished to see her finding a new live, deciding about her own future, to stay strong and nice and get happy.

As usual , I wish you all the best, success with the project, happyness in daily life but also exciting dreams.

Take Care, Ghazal.

Michael

Michael

More information about this case is available in an article of the german newspaper FAZ and in the New York Times.

Tonight I have something very unusual to tell you. It is so unusual, because it is something commercial, about shopping and beeing happy to have found something very useful.

I know you got excited now, don”t you ?
You can”t stop reading any more, right ?
You wan”t to know what it is, don”t you ?

(You are really sweet !!)

But be aware: it again has something to do with you and me !! (just a little material and technical aspekt in addition to all the happiness that you brought to me by your shear presence).

It is about the little Smartphone-Adapter-Plug that somehow broke
(Could be that it broke because you poked and bended and cut it, since you thought it is a piece of your fingernail ?) It is not so important, how it broke and why, it is just the adapter, its wasn”t the Smartphone”s heart that broke, I know you wouldn”t be able to do this, you are too much an angel to break hearts.

Well, I searched this special Hewlett Packard Smartphone shop today and guess what:
I found the adapter (same colour: black, as you prefer for men. No pink. If there would be a pink one, I would have bought both of them: one for me and a pink one for you in case you need the GPS again).

And what is so amazing (and for this I have to be grateful to you, since I would have never found this):
This little adapter thing comes together with a SOLAR ENERGY RECHARGER !!!!
This means, I can not only mount the Smartphone to the car again, but now I can recharge it in the sun !!!

It will always remind me of this summer 2010, which in my memories will always remain as the most sunniest summer ever.
Although the nights in the moon-light and under the meteor showers and the stars were amazing as well. Who knows, maybe the light of the stars and of the moon is sufficient to recharge the phone with this little crazy adaptor.

Ghazal, my dear, tell me what you need to recharge your life battery !
You are always so calm, sometimes I”d like to make you explode, to beat me in the face, to shout on me, to see you holding a gun on me (of course only with bullets that hurt, but don”t kill), only to see that you are full of energy.

But this probably would change everything, you would not be you anymore, and for me the illusion, that you are the grown up daughter of the persian family that I met 20 years ago in Berlin would fall down in pieces.

Are you o.k., happy (I know, its hard to tell. One always could imagine beeing a little bit happier).
I permanently feel guilty, sometimes feel as if I have taken you as hostage here in Munich, keeping you in this single room in the guesthouse like a nun in an eremitage.
I only feed you with words, but they can not get rid of your loneliness.
At least I should have given you a cat, such one as Holli Golightly had in “Breakfast at Tiffany”s”. It could lean on you in the evening, and purr if you crawl its fur. It would jump on you lap, when you watch a movie or listen to some music.

Wish you a pleasant night, funny dreams, sleep well

Michael
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michael,

im glad you found a better adapter for your phone! didnt know that such thing exsist, an adapter that charges the phone with sun. interesting.

haha i dont want to hold a gun against you and shoot, i will stay calm.think it is better. dont think my mum thinks im calm at home.

dont worry about me. i enjoy unterschleissheim. the guesthouse. i feel so relaxed and calm when i am here. and i am so happy with everything.
cats are cute, but only when they are babies.

see you tomorrow

/ghazal

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See you tomorrow, my Dear.
Thanks to confirm that you enjoy and relax. Even if you would have told me this already a million times: I”d like to hear it once again !

Sleep well, dream something happy.

Michael

PS: Ghazal, my Dear, Can you imagine the head-lines in the newspaper:
“MSc student shoots down its supervisor”. This would make us sooooo famous.

Anyway, have a sweet night, but this time I think I have to take care :-}

When he drove back, it must have happend at the narrow part of the road, where again like several times before, the young light-grey foal was standing. He had completely forgotten than he was not riding the bike tonight, which would have allowed an easy to maneuvering around the foal, but that now he was driving a car that was almost as wide as the entire road. The high speed for sure would have made a rapid break useless, so instinctively he turn the wheel to the left and ended at the corner-wall of the villages cemetry. Without the seat-belts on, he must have immediately crashed his head into the wind-screen. That was at least what the police wrote in their report. He woke up 6 weeks later in an intensive care station for coma-patients. After the first few days of this new life passed by with doctors doing tests all over his brain and body, a police inspector appeared for a few questions. The inspector wrote down what the man recalled about the accident, but strange enough, he insisted it was not a light-grey foal of the horse-farm that made him crashing into the cemetries wall, but that a white unicorn was galopping in front of him. Several times the inspector questioned this, and in particular after he visited the location himself came along with the idea that I might have been misled by a horse from the nearby ranch. After refusing any such suggestions, they next send a psychologist and neurologist, first to collect hundreds of questions about his mental state and potential excessive-phantasies, for which they apologized saying they have seen a dramatic rise of halluzinations in this hot summer 2010. After finding out that he was exceptionally realistic and rejected any idea of an extrasensual world, and that he even reacted angry when they asked him about his spiritual experience with the holy god, they also called a neurologist. His job was to find out if and to what degree the man had experiences with halluzinogenic drugs. Of course the doctor was sure that the man was a blunt liar insisting, that he never in life had tried any drugs, because he could get high immediately by either listening to Jimmi Hendrix, or by diving deep into science, or by spending some hours with a girl. The neurologist confirmed him, that there are indeed people (unfortunately not many) that have a genetic “abnormality” in their serotonin and their dopamin regulation that enables them to get into euphoria by intentionally choosing one ore several intellectual stimuli.
And that this can happen by the obsession to adored person was not by chanced claimed again and again by singers from Frank Sinatra over Dalia Lavi and Hildegard Knef to youngsters like Jamie Cullum.
Dalia Lavi “Das haut mich nicht um”
Hildegard Knef “Das haut mich nicht um”
Frank Sinatra “I get a kick out of you”
Interested to know who or what in this special case might be the source of this conscious-driven endorphine release in the man, the neurologist insisted to stay until he has seen a picture of the girl. Since the mans hand were still severly impaired, he had to spell letter-by-letter the URL http:persian-cat.de, where behind a hidden link on the first blog-entry. the one describing the encounter of the two on the Zugspitz Glacier, line after line the girls face appeared on the screen. The neurologist, who had served as WHO aide in the first Gulf war and who was involved in a large survey studying the increase of neurological disorders among the iran civilians during this 10 year long conflict, was strucked when he saw her blue eyes. As part of his neorological survey on the war-affected iranian people he also measured the pupillary light reflex in perhaps more than 8000 patients of all ages, ethnicities and socio-eoconomic groups. He could recalled iris colours of all shades of brown, from an almost dark green over light-tea, yellow-brownish to and a deep, almost black colour. There where, however cases, in particular among the zoroastrian minority, which harboured a few light-blue segments among an otherwise brown iris. And when he asked these few patients if they new of close relatives with a similar pattern they denied this, explaining to him that this has nothing to do with family relationships, but with a legendary golden and blue-eyed camel-cow, on which their Prophet Zarathustra managed to escape the rising waters of the deluge. This deluge, accoring to the Epic of Gilgamesh, happend thousands of years before in the low-lands north of the Taurus Mountains, an area we now know as the black sea. According to legend of the Zoroastrians, the two, Zarathustra and the golden, blue-eyed camel were the only two survivors of the big flood, and consequently they gave rise to a new specie that soon populated large parts of the middle east from Aserbaidshan, through Persia up to the indian sub-continent. Over the generations and by mixing with other tribes and etnicities, the Zarathustrians inherited almost every gene variant that is common among the aryan people in Persia, except the few blue fibres that were sometimes still visible in their iris. And these few blue spots always reminded them on their unique origin and their historical relationship with the young camel-cow, who saved their prophet from drowning. As an ever-lasting promise to them, the legend predicted than once a young girl will be born, that unlike all other kids wont lose the blue colour of its iris. And this girl will unite the traditional wisdom of the Zoroastrian people with a modern and enlightend intelligence.
Could it be, that this young girl for whom millions of Zoroastrinas all over the world were waiting since thousands of year, had taken refuge just here somewhere in northern or middle european, maybe washed away by a deluge that happened in the 20th century and was not mythologic, but very real and that chased the persian nation away by an endless chain of military putsches, oeconomic exploitations by the US and british, the complete humiliation of freedom and humanity by the 1979 islamic revolution follow by attempted attacks by CIA and an 10 years long war with the neighboured Irak, to which the US had given their “Go” to Sadam Hussein.

When I wrote you yesterday evening “Thanks for the wunderful summer” this was not a spelling mistake !! It was such a nice evening that on its own would give the whole summer 2010 a special glory. You have a very professional way to choose the right radio-program. I did not know that just a few fingertips away from the radiostations I usually hear there is still so nice music. I will try to find some of the titles among my records and bring them to you tomorrow.

Ghazal, you know that in Germany it is illegal to make photographs of somebody without asking his or her permission ? I don”t mean the white swan. First of all, swans are usually very vain, and like to be photographed as often as possible. And in addition to this, he received some cakes as a payment from us. But you forgot that there was also me on the picture, and I was not officially asked for approval. I mean I”m not so concerned that you will do something bad with the pictures (like putting them on facebook to make the entire world laugh about me). But, maybe as a compensation, you could finally agree to have a photograph made of you on the bike wearing the beige coat. It would be more than logical, especially since you said that lady with the bicycle on the french poster does not bear much similarity to yourself. I somehow agree with your opinion, I think you would look much more attractive.

I hope you enjoy the evening

see you tomorrow , take care (don”t kill the spiders, germans belief they can bring you luck).

Yours Michael
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hi michael,

im glad i could find a good radiostation that you like.
i did not know its illegal to take photos. only your arm is on the photo. so it doesnt count!:)

i havent seen more spiders and im glad.

see you tomorrow and good night.
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Ghazal, my dear.

How nice to read that you keep your sense of homour. About the photo, I”d like to keep the final decision open.

Take Care.

Michael

PS: Ghazal, I just want to tell you: In case of an emergency (candle setting your apartment on fire or a spiderman starting an attack on you), you also can call my mobile number instead of 112. I”ll be at your site for help probably faster than the police.