Keyvan Nayyeri

Or it could be as simple as “Hello America” but it's hard to forget the past good days in where I grew up and found myself.

In today's web, thank to Twitter and Facebook, cats don't live inside the bags anymore, so it didn't take a long while for that cat to get out of that bag. Yes, the cat is out the bag and as Jayson, my dear friend, has written on his blog, I'm already here in the US!

I didn't have any intention to write about it here on this blog, and was trying to hide everything in regards to these matters from the public, but I thought that I have to, at least to thank some great friends that helped me overcome arduous problems in the hardest process in the world. Yes, getting to the US for an Iranian citizen is so hard and we owe that to our governments. The second hardest thing in the world is getting a Ph.D. in the US and I'm going to do that, too!

I had a very long and tiring journey from Tehran to Doha then to Houston, and finally to Austin that took 28 hours, and I arrived on December 8. I've been here staying with Mehrdad, my very great friend who was such an influential person in taking me here, until I recover from the jet lags. Shortly, I'll move to San Antonio to settle in there to begin my doctorate studies in Computer Science by concentrating on Programming Languages and Compilers design. I'll be there for the next few years until I earn my Ph.D. and I hope that I can earn it as soon as possible.

To be honest, my intention to get back to the academy started a short while after graduating from the university in 2006, and strengthened during the time. Older readers would remember how happy I was when I got out, but soon after going out to the society and working space, and involving in the military service, I realized that this life is not my type and I'm supposed to do something else. Since then (almost for 3.5 years) I had a very tiring, arduous, and sometimes frustrating process to come here to the US for my graduate studies, but thank to all the help and support from some friends like Mehrdad Ebrahimi and Kouroush Ardestani (Robin Pars), I finally made it!

As everyone knows, the past few years of my life were such a mess. Serving in the armies was a total shit and the next 1.5 years had their own difficulties, but recently they turned out to be so helpful to me and making me mature enough for the future events that could melt everyone without strengths. So I should confess that I had some big mistakes about many of those events, and have to apologize for writing some disappointing stuff about them on this blog from time to time. If I go back in the time, I will definitely choose to serve again and pass all the troubles because without the experiences to live under difficult conditions and resist to many problems, I was unable to complete this process. Luckily, I had the chance to have a strong background and resume to go directly for my Ph.D. and save 1-2 years of this wasted time in the military service.

It's hard to write about the motivations to earn a doctorate degree and I don't think that anyone can understand that except those who have engaged in such a program. At some point you notice your talents and what God has put inside you. To be honest, I also realized that it's hard for me to deal and work with ordinary people and it yields complains on my side as many of their actions don't make sense to me. I'm not saying that others are good or bad. I feel that we have different worlds and that's all. Therefore, I was looking to be somewhere and work with some people who are closer to my opinions and viewpoints, and the best place could be the academy.

Besides, I chose to come here to the US for several reasons. The first and foremost one was the unique and world-leading education system that is much stronger when it comes to the Computer Science because almost everything in the computer world is introduced and developed here. I was looking for a real cutting-edge research and it wasn't easy to find it in many countries including Iran (despite the very strong system that we have in there and many of the new generation youth don't know). Furthermore, if I had to choose a third country to be in for a long while, it could be the US because I knew their language, culture, and many other things much more than any other country in the world, and I proved to be good at communicating with these people mainly because we share some interests specifically the passion to lead and be that number one thing!

All in all, to make the long story short, I switched from doing what everybody does and what the environment forces me to do to something that I'm supposed to do, and it's my purpose to be in this world. Unfortunately, this costed me too much but after all, I'm happy with everything happened. I could start my Ph.D. at 22 or 23 but still I'm so young and maybe one of the youngest Ph.D. students here at 25 specifically as I met many people studying at college at my age even older.

The upcoming years are hard as earning a Ph.D. is, naturally. It's harder for me because I'm switching from Mathematics to Computer Science, and am going to live in a new environment missing my family, and that's usually difficult for Persians as we are very emotional.

Leaving my homeland was really hard, and it was a matter of choosing between losing some stuff to have new achievements when I was doing that. I won't be there for the coming years but I hope that our people can get their share of liberty as they proved to deserve it. Believe me or not, there aren't many nations in the world who truly care about their freedom to sacrifice their bloods for it. I think that all the recent events showed the huge difference between the Iranian nation and the regime, and I hope that Iranians can get a better assistanship from the outside world rather than some stupid sanctions that are eventually weakening them and empowering the dictatorship.

In the end I have to thank everyone who helped me in any way in this process again, and thank the American nation, especially these warm Texans, in advance for hosting and enduring this monkey for the next few years! I hope that I can contribute back to this country to assist them in accelerating their progress that has slowed down in the past decade. The least I can do is opening up new job opportunities and a leading position for them with my research even though I've proven to be able to do more.

Humankind can go and get to any point that he imagines. It just mandates him to really want it, and put enough effort into that, and I've experienced that in my life several times. I never earned anything in one night (even disregarded anything came to me that way) and achieved everything by hard-work and it's been the main reason I could continue my progress in the time.