Guitar professor is in Iran now, and my great Motivator

I wonder how Lily is doing. After seeing her concert and connecting with her again, I gave her $30 USD to buy me anything from there written in Farsi, a novel or magazines, newspapers. I told her I especially want a Farsi-Arabic dictionary. I can read it pretty fine already, but it is different. The most gorgeous thing ever is the cascading script.

To the right here is a picture from Shakira in the studio. I need motivation, and she always seems to provide it at the right times in my life. I was taking college classes in four languages when her Oral Fixation cd came out (where she sang lyrics in eight, or something). When I dreamed of doing Ironman for children's charity, she was scaling up her childhood education efforts. I was 19 when I finished the 140.6 mile race, and she was 18 when she started her nonprofit Pies Descalzos. I started a train ride through Eastern europe, and I had tickets to see her show at the final destination, the furthest from England that I went, in Istanbul. It helped get me there, knowing she'd be waiting at the end to sing.

So her albums and tours seem to mimick the ups and downs in my life, and her philosophy and spirit help drive me to reach for my own goals. Similarly to Obama, she pushes the people that look up to her, and harnesses that energy. In a letter I wrote to Obama once that I never mailed, I told him how ' you can't ever ask too much of us, we believe and will do all we can.' In other words, don't understimate us. And I think Shakira is much the same way. Hate to blabber on about this, but it pleases me to have someone push me, that helps me to set very high goals and then surpass them. And she tries to engage her audience to make the world better, so I am only responding to that. The more she and Obama do that--as well as continue to live by the same principles and with that large well of compassion-- then the better for all of us.

(All of these photos are from her website shakira.com and her brand-new twitter feed, twitter.com/shakira)