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From iron to bronze. I've entered level 3! It's starting to become a routine.
The Little Popcorn.
A pop a day — I’m here to write my little bursts.
From iron to bronze. I've entered level 3! It's starting to become a routine.
The Little Popcorn.
On Friday, after visiting my cousin’s house, we stopped by a store on the way back. I picked up some groceries: milk, breakfast cheese, spicy pickles, pitted olives, shrimp, bologna, breakfast cream, pasta, mayonnaise, and a Rani drink for myself. I also got some milk, bologna, and fish fillets for my parents. 1300900 Tomans. My sweet mom accidentally grabbed a pineapple-flavored Rani instead of peach — and I absolutely hate pineapple flavor! But today, while I was Talking to Behnaz on the phone, I ended up drinking it anyway.
The Little Popcorn.
Lately, I’ve been feeling really sick — worse than a normal cold. Deep down, I can't shake off the feeling that this might actually be a mild form of COVID, not just an ordinary cold. You see, throughout my adult life, I rarely ever caught a cold. As a child, I used to get sick all the time; my throat would often get infected until I had my tonsils removed. After that, things got much better. Since my teenage years, the only times I’ve caught a virus were directly from someone else — never just from being exposed to cold weather. Usually, when I get sick, it’s the typical stuff: feeling tired, having headaches, a runny nose, a heavy body, sore throat, and maybe some coughing. But this time, it’s different. This time, it feels like I can't even breathe properly — like there’s not enough air. A simple cold never felt like this before.
The Little Popcorn.
Yesterday , I bought an eyeliner as a gift for my cousin, Maryam, and today I gave my dad some money to buy a birthday cake. We were going to her house — it was her birthday. I had a feeling no one else would really remember. Sometimes, you do something kind just to make someone smile, without expecting anything in return. Not from them, not from life, not even from karma. And the beautiful thing is, it's often these little acts — the ones you expect nothing from — that somehow find their way back to you. The older I get (or at least that's how it feels to me), the more I find myself doing good without keeping track, without counting, without waiting. It happens less often now, but when it does, it feels so pure, so right.
The Little Popcorn.
I finally got my period today. The past week has been a lot — not just physically, but emotionally. People always joke about PMS like it’s just random mood swings, like you're crying over nothing. But it’s not like that. It’s that all the things you normally deal with, all the small and big struggles you usually carry without even thinking, suddenly become too much. It's like my emotional skin gets thinner, and everything cuts deeper. Every little frustration, every small sadness, every tiny disappointment feels heavier, louder, harder to ignore. It’s not that the problems are new — it’s that my ability to hold them together just slips through my fingers. I hate that feeling of losing control, of feeling so vulnerable without being able to explain it properly. Today, getting my period felt almost like a weird kind of relief. Like, okay, now I know why it’s been so hard to breathe lately. Now I can at least let my body do what it needs to do. It’s still tough, but somehow it feels more real now, more tangible. I’m tired. But I’m also proud of myself for making it through another month of being gentle with myself when everything inside wanted to break.
The Little Popcorn.
In my latest online stock-up of drinks, I decided to swap my usual hot chocolate for a dark hot chocolate. And wow—what a difference! Rich, intense, and delightfully bitter, it had all the indulgence of dark chocolate in liquid form. No sugary overload, just pure, deep cocoa satisfaction. Sometimes, the smallest changes lead to the most delicious discoveries. This time, I also tried something completely new: a rosewater-saffron syrup that instantly became one of the most delicious flavors I’ve ever tasted. It brought back nostalgic memories of childhood Ashura offerings—sweet, fragrant, and deeply comforting. Among other things I bought: a pack of espresso-flavored candy, each carrying 50 mg of caffeine (tiny but mighty!); a 650g bag of non-Iranian saffron karak tea that came with a lovely crystal mug as a gift; a green tea & cinnamon herbal blend; and another saffron & ginseng infusion. And finally—after giving away my old single-cup moka pot ages ago—I treated myself to a new one. Back to moka mornings! One small surprise from the dark hot chocolate pack: a scoop-like plastic tool, maybe to replace the usual tablespoon method. It seems sturdy enough to use regularly with future hot chocolate batches.
The Little Popcorn.
I finally gave NotebookLM a shot today — and wow, I seriously regret not trying it sooner. This thing is next-level. It doesn’t just store your files, it works with them. You can drop in a bunch of sources — PDFs, .txt files, audios, whatever — and just start chatting with it. Ask questions, get answers based on your actual sources. It even creates podcasts from your notes, builds mind maps, study guides, and more. You can add your own quick notes, or save its smart answers straight into your notebook. It’s like having a personal assistant or even a private tutor who actually reads your materials and helps you to study, research, understand them. And fun fact? The chat interface literally calls itself “Teacher.” Total game-changer.
The Little Popcorn.
There’s a deeply unsettling feeling that comes from not knowing where your donation really goes. In Iran, there is little to no independent oversight of charities. Sure, you might be shown a child’s medical file, but who’s to say how much money has already been raised using that same file—or how those funds are actually being spent? Over time, I’ve become more cautious. Some charities own luxurious real estate under their name—multi-billion toman buildings that seem completely disconnected from the everyday struggles of the people they claim to help. And I can’t help but ask: What good is a luxury home for them, helping someone who can’t afford their next meal or medication? Recently, I received a call from a children's charity. A woman on the line mentioned the name of a newborn and offered to send me their medical documents. I tried to politely excuse myself by saying I was already working with another organization. She pressed on—”Even 50 or 100 thousand tomans could really help.” I declined. I didn’t trust the organization. But afterward, I felt awful. Really awful. Because I didn’t give the money and because of the guilt, the possible emotional manipulation, and the deeper discomfort of not knowing if what I gave would actually make a difference. That moment pushed me to take a step I’d been considering for a while: to look for Iranian charities that are subject to international audits and transparent standards, not just local approvals. Eventually, I narrowed it down to two: Mahak, and Nikan Mammut. While Mahak is well-known and specialized, I was drawn to the broader scope and smaller scale of Nikan Mammut. I made a donation from income I had already set aside, and decided that going forward, I would give 1% of my income to them whenever it reached a threshold. But it didn’t stop there. The idea of contributing as a volunteer life coach came to me naturally. I’m currently finishing up my certification in Life Coaching and Solution-Focused Coaching with the Universal Coach Institute. I filled out their volunteer form and offered my support—not financial this time, but emotional and transformational, for those who might be ready for it. If they respond, that’s wonderful. If not, I know I’ve done my part.
The Little Popcorn.
There’s a kind of stress that doesn’t leave when the problem is solved. The kind that’s lived in your body for so long, it stops needing a reason. You carry it through quiet days, peaceful moments, even joy—like background noise in your bones. When you’ve spent years surviving something heavy, stress becomes a habit, a reflex. And when the original trigger is gone, your mind starts looking for new reasons to justify its presence. You reverse the cause and effect—stress first, reason second. It’s exhausting. Chronic stress reshapes you slowly, subtly, until calm feels unfamiliar. We deserve to feel safe inside our own skin again. We just forget how.
The Little Popcorn.
In a country where the value of money evaporates faster than time itself, young people are learning too soon what it means to lose hope. The Iranian economy is not just collapsing on paper—it’s crumbling in hearts and minds. Every rial lost is a future postponed, a plan abandoned. This generation, my generation, was raised among sanctions, inflation, and uncertainty. We've become fluent in survival, experts in disappointment. Yet, through all this, the importance of money has never felt more brutal. Not for greed—but for dignity, choices, escape. We are not materialistic. We are just tired of counting dreams we can't afford.
The Little Popcorn.