Greetings, world. I’ve been in Armenia for slightly over a month, although it feels much longer than that. Every day is an adventure, good or bad. Every day the heat gets more unbearable than the day before, but the nights are burning here, too, with love and laughter until the morning hours. Time moves strangely here and so does life. Trying to remember every experience and express it with words is becoming increasingly difficult, although I am making updates on my Tumblr when I can. A roundup of stories I’ve been working on, until next time:

• Improving Traffic Safety in Armenia

• Armenia: Animal Activists Demand End to Stray Dog Killings

• Intersections: A Place Best Understood Up Close

• Intersections: The Challenge of Returning Home

• Yerevan Activists Promote Humane Solution to Stray Dog Crisis

• Intersections: Rings of a Heritage’s Tree Trunk

• The Big Picture: Armenia’s Vernissage in Mobile

• The Yerevan Street Shoe Project

• LGBTs still facing discrimination in Armenia

• Armenia: Debating Sexual Abuse Against Women

• Choose Life: Activism Against Suicide

When I look through old i.d. photos of my mother, aunts and grandmothers collecting dust in shoe boxes from a time in Iran where hiding in the basement after hearing air raid sirens was normal life for a while, I am fascinated with their black, plain roosaris, the Farsi word for hijab.

Though Los Angeles has a sizable enough Iranian and Pan-Muslim population, you won’t find people wearing the hijab as easily as you will in London, either a condition of leaving behind the symptoms of oppressive regimes, the California heat or other personal reasons. Or maybe I’m not looking hard enough, since the layout of  my pedestrian-challenged hometown, with its freeways and wideness doesn’t allow for too much interaction with as many people as I’d like.

Whatever reason these particular women have for wearing a hijab and despite opinion and legislation against this expression, it is interesting to see not only the inter-mingling of the world’s cultures on the streets of this city but how the women who choose to wear the hijab, and make it fashionable – a far cry from the hijab wearing of my mother’s day.

Here are a few iPhone portraits I managed to take, mostly walking on Oxford street.

A few links:

Hijab Style, the UK’s first style guide for Muslim women.

We Love Hijab, advice on how to wear a hijab, haute hijabi couture and more.

What It’s Like Without the Muslim Headscarf, a personal blog post by Egyptian science journalist Nadia El-Awady, who also reported on the recent Egyptian Revolution.

Why I Do – Or Don’t Wear the Hijab, an interesting video report from Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty with interviews from women from a variety of countries:

All photos © writepudding.com

Big Bear Lake, Calif.

I’ve been exploring Southern California for the last few weeks, taking a few short trips here and there on the weekends, trying to branch out to see my surroundings before I leave for at least a few months for the other side of the world.

First it was Santa Barbara and Solvang, that quirky little Dutch town that seemed much more fun when I was 12 years old. Then it was Big Bear Lake, where I got  overcharged $125 for mandatory snow chains, paid someone $30 to put them on, drove into a snow ditch and almost got stuck and then couldn’t get the chains off.  Despite all that, it was lovely and as snowy as ever.

A few days ago, it was Joshua Tree National Park, made famous by the U2 album of the same name. I didn’t realize at the time that everyone was driving up there to partake in Coachella, that music festival I can assure you I have never been to, and never will. Being in the dry desert after snowy hills made me aware of how much diversity there is in the state. It’s pretty interesting to think that snow and sand are just a few hours away from each other.

Joshua Tree National Park, Calif.

The road to Ararat and Khor Virap. Khor Virap is a monastery that has the St. Gevorg Chapel, constructed in AD 642. It is the site of the imprisonment of Saint Gregory the Illuminator. It is said that Gregory remained incarcerated in an underground pit (which I went down into, mostly by force) by the pagan king Tiridates III of Armenia. I took this when the van broke down and our next plan of action included getting out to eat sandwiches and homemade wine bought on the side of the road in Areni, naturally.

Completing a trip you’ve been wanting to take for years to a place you’ve endlessly written and dreamed about in 5 days is no easy task, but that’s exactly what happened.

I wasn’t even sure I was going until about three days before I found myself at LAX, anxious about a journey to Armenia via Moscow, all 15 + hours of it, each way.

With my camera around my neck, Flip video and tape recorder in my pockets, pen in my hair and notebook in hand, I climbed up hundreds of steps to ancient church ruins, interviewed villagers, rode a donkey in a village, drank homemade wine on the side of a road and more.

The jam packed trip, accompanied by meetings with friends I was seeing for the first time left no room to sleep nor reflection. It’s been 10 days since I got back, and today is the first day I woke up at a normal, non-zombie hour. It also took me a week to finally extract the jumbled words in my mind to form coherent sentences. The result is this:

The Armenia Diaries: Foreigner in the Homeland

I have so much to write, photos to circulate and video to edit, but I find myself feeling extremely nostalgic about my short time there. I ate the food I brought back sparingly so I could savor what Armenia tastes like, I’ve watched the video I made below more times than I’d like to admit so I don’t forget what I saw and every time I sit down to write, it becomes clear that I’m reflecting on something that was, and not is. I know I will be back again, and be given the chance to absorb and reflect, but the present makes me miss this incredibly country infinitely.

I found this yesterday while browsing on the web in the early hours of the morning, a new found freedom I’ve discovered since my departure from the cubicle. It was made by General Electric during WWII and from what I understand, is considered a propaganda war poster.

The message for me, is about no regrets – a theme I’ve always try to keep constant in my life, but one that got away from me for a while. It’s what 2011 should be about though, for a lot of people and me.

So, with that in mind, I thought I’d start adhering to the theme three weeks early by doing something that has been years in the making: in less than a week, I’ll by flying off to Armenia, a country that I’ve not only written endlessly about, but one that an incredible group of people that I’ve come to grow so fond of call home and one, that as an Armenian, I have called home, from thousands of miles away. When I get over the initial shock, I’ll write more about it all either here or there, but for now, the only thing I can say is that I finally feel like I’m living.

There is so much to write about, so much to explain; about lessons I’ve learned and challenging experiences I thought I could never plow through. About regret and gratitude and love and hate and all those moments that don’t move fast enough and those that move too fast, like a train you cut through fog to run after but never catch up to.

There is so much to write about.

About still believing in journalism, about wanting it. About embracing its faults and challenges, about cradling it close to your heart like a child and wanting the best for it in this crazy, wild world. About New York Times’ bylines, BBC contributions  and Los Angeles Times’ beats, and good, chill-inducingreporting that you fight for and sweat for and go to extraordinary lengths for because you still believe. About seeing your name in the pages (and web pages!)  of the publications you grew up daydreaming about, and writing about communities, issues, undiscovered controversies and brewing trends that are worth discussing.

About  people you meet, the subcultures you discover, the connections you make. About beautiful, ancient countries and cultures engulfed in war and misunderstanding and politics, thousands and thousands of miles away, whose beauty and significance is often underrated and ignored. About your quest to make a difference, on one side of the world or the other. Or both.

About fear and anxiety and intrepidity. About making decisions in a life that you’ve never lived before, and hoping for the best. About wanting to be something more, something higher and looking back and maybe realizing that none of that really matters.

There is so much to write about.

About the projects I’ve been working on lately, the articles that have been written and the ones that will be written. About leads and adventures and emails with editors that make you want to cry happy tears and emails that never get returned even though you’ve made sure to follow up, and follow up and follow up.

About new directions that life will be taking me in, about uncertainty, about changes, about everything.

And I’ll do that, very soon.

For now, London is all I can think about.

I don’t even have a clear answer as to why. It just feels like my home away from home, a place with connections, a place to relax, clear my mind, figure out my plans and how to tackle them and breathe. A place where I can escape and take it all in and return home to let it all out. A place to ride the metro,  walk around Covent Garden, visit the Tate Modern, meet friends and because I can never  ever escape it even if I tried,  make some connections in something I still believe in and am hungry for (the Guardian and BBC, I’m coming for you).

Life is changing, but London is calling.

Nearly six months have gone by and I still haven’t posted photos of London or Paris. Shame on me. Does it count that the photo above of our feet was taken in London?

I have a feeling that I haven’t because it’s too painful, because it’s a reminder at the latest time in my life when everything felt ok, even if it was just for two weeks. The hustle and bustle of Portobello Road on a Saturday morning, the mulled cider I thought I could drink fully, the anticipation of watching Celebrity Big Brother after a day exploring a city that feels like a second home – all those wonderful memories stirring in my mind again would do more harm than good, and to be frank, I can’t afford that right now.

There are wonderful experiences and important people that I miss and an emotional outburst would not end well, let me tell you.

So I’m keeping my swirling visions of the underground and the patisseries private just for a little bit longer.

And while I have more material to accumulate in this humble space than just my travels, there is a road block preventing me from sharing it all. Perhaps it’s all too raw, or blurry. The thoughts in my head loop around like long strands of DNA and separating them from each other can be quite the challenge. It seems these are all tasks which require concentration and energy, two things I’m running low on.

the sounds of silence prevail, at least for now.

When I traveled to London, Dublin and Paris earlier this year, taking photos of people actually reading newspapers became sort of an obsession for me. As a young journalist who was thrust out of school a little over three years ago into a melting media market that bled jobs daily, life became uncertain and depressing and well, worrisome.

I felt as though the dreams I had been building upon since middle school of becoming a writer were falling through the cracks – and that I would never get them back. I never could be a Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, writing about worldly problems and changing the world in the process. I could never be a Ben Badikian, an editor at the Washington Post who came into possession of The Pentagon Papers. I would never be in that atmosphere. That excitement, that time.

I could never write for the Los Angeles Times or Atlantic Monthly or the dozen other publications which I cherished more than life itself.

And while now, I have resolved my fear and am more in the “I can” rather than the “I can’t” box, the possibility of not fulfilling my passions is still a frightening concept. I know I have what it takes to write for the L.A. Times and the NY Times and whatever else. I just know it. It’s the one thing in my life that I am completely, 100 percent sure of. When I get there, I don’t know. But I will get there.

In the meantime, I found comfort knowing that there were still people who actually read newspapers, even if it was overseas. There are papers everywhere you go in London. On the tube, in cafes, on the street – it’s really a reading culture, and as someone from Los Angeles which suffers more from a “tv culture,” it made me feel at home.

The world of media is changing right in front of our eyes and it’s amazing to be in the middle of this revolution. I am excited to see what the future holds for journalism, but for now, I revel in the fact that somewhere in the world, someone cares.

The following are excerpts and photos from my travel journal about time spent in Dublin, January 2010.

Dublin – 10 a.m.

We just arrived and I am already loving it. It’s green everywhere and all the buildings are brick red. The weather is nippy, but absolutely perfect. It is the most quaint town I think I’ve ever been in.

We’re sitting in Butler’s Chocolate cafe, the Irish equivalent of See’s Candies. The town is just waking up, going to school, to work, to start life.

As for me, I feel like I’m cheating life at the moment because my only worry is checking into our hotel in a few hours.

London was freezing compared to Dublin. This seems like a perfect blend of a metropolitan city and a small community.

I love hearing Irish people talk and I also love how all the street signs are also written in Gaelic.

This is  a writer friendly town, with homages to James Joyce and Oscar Wilde and more.  Somewhere were writing is not only respected but praised and admired.  As far as I can tell, Dublin is a  great city to foster creativity.

Ah yes, they also read newspapers. I already love it.

12 p.m. Dublin Writer’s Museum

1 p.m. Francis Bacon exhibition – Dublin City Gallery

I like old women who come to museums in the middle of the afternoon in a large group. The Francis Bacon exhibition moved me. He was an amazing talent and I feel lucky to have seen it in such an amazing city.

In the gallery café, I had creme of mushroom soup and the famous Irish soda bread. A woman dropped a five euro on the ground and I had K tap her shoulder and let her know.

She was grateful.

8 p.m. Man Utd vs Manchester City game at the International Bar. A big cauldron of soup sits in a corner, and people are slowly piling in this comfortable, yet dark space. I order a Guiness, my first ever.

I hate beer, but in the spirit of Dublin, I decide to try it. It was smooth and light and glided down my throat like water. Drink. Watch. Cheer.

I felt so happy. Do you know how that feels, to be truly happy? I felt it.

Gráím thú, Dublin.

If there was a way to lay out the thoughts in my head in a straight line, they would circle the globe three times over. That was before I took my trip to Europe, and now that I’m back – it’s ten times worse. I hope to update with photos, observations, revelations and more, but suffice it to say that I had such an amazing time that I considered canceling my flight and now, three days later I still can’t get London, Paris and Dublin out of my head.