I typed "y"... I am now suddenly, geekily and happily engaged :)

...or "How to propose to a geek girl".

The rumor spreads and everyone keeps asking - how was it? what did he say? Since it was very unexpected, geeky and with so many details, I thought it would be best to write down here and share my happiness with the world.

It was an ordinary Wednesday (November 7). The only 2 things that could be counted as "not ordinary" were the facts that a) I was sick and bedridden on Monday and Tuesday and b) my (now) fiancé was on a business trip in Stepanakert, Artsakh (or so I thought).

The card

On Tuesday evening, while tracking his journey on latitude, I asked him to call and wake me up on Wednesday morning and so he did. I promised I'd get up soon. But since my tummy was till aching, I decided to cuddle in bed a few more minutes and eventually fell asleep again. I woke up a couple hours later to find his messages like "Asleep again?". I started to slowly dress up and get ready to go to work. My friend Lia called to ask me if I was still at home and could take the pocket books I had promised to pass to her. It was around 1pm already. Then it turned out I had to buy my dad's newspapers. So I went out, bought the papers, brought them home and headed to work. (see the bullet points below the post to find out why I described these details)

On my way to work, next to the Charents monument pathway, a teenage boy handed me something. I asked "what's this?", in order to avoid the religious pictures that kids give on streets and ask for money. The boy eagerly replied - "vizitka!" (business card). I took it and saw a nicely designed business card (pictured below).

the QR code reads "Will"

I went on a few more steps and checked the QR code on a side of the card, which read "Will". "Hm.. Interesting", I thought and entered my office.
I told about the card to Azar, my boss. My guess was, that this is some promotion or maybe a puzzle, a quest..

The Facebook tag

In about half an hour I am being tagged on a picture on Facebook. It was in a closed group of AIESEC alumni. See below:

I was tagged together with a bunch of other people.. It had the same logo as on the business card.. and a QR code reading "You". The description was "Cool initiative, guys i am sure you will like this! Detail coming soon!". I started to suspect that it had something to do with AIESEC - some kind of a new project and I was lucky to get the card on the street! The comments on the post didn't shed any light to what it was.

The hack

At 6pm I had an appointment with Kristine, Gohar and Lia (TEDxYerevan organizing team) at The Green Bean Coffeeshop. Kristine had written us a week ago asking to get prepared for a dinner with the US Ambassador John Heffern (who attended TEDxYerevan 2012). We had to discuss our possible cooperation. Kristine asked us to dress nicely, no jeans or suits -- just a cute dress. She also asked me to bring my netbook, since we had to discuss things in Green Bean, before going for the dinner. I didn't suspect anything yet :D
I got there and we started to discuss our stuff. The waiter approached, and I ordered a bagel and no drink. Gohar ordered tea and Kristine insisted that they bring another cup for me to drink too, since i was recovering from cold. I got the Green Bean mug... and it had the "liveit" logo and again a QR code!

I got surprised and started telling them about the card and the picture from facebook... and then finally got to scan the code. Guess what? It read "Marry me?" ..... I blushed and smiled... and then immediately got a call from Azar (my boss), who told me that supposedly panarmenian.net was hacked and I should check it quickly and call him back, since he was outside, far from a computer. I turned on my netbook and opened panarmenian.net. I got this console screen instead (click to view bigger):

I typed "y"...

The waiter, in a white elephant t-shirt, was looking at me and smiling. She led me to the other hall of the cafe to find my Areg. With white lilies and a ring. On his knees.

We were surrounded by friends - who were involved in all this - cheering, applauding ... By that time i was blushing with my full capacity :).. shocked to find Areg to be in Yerevan and to have a ring on my finger...

The story didn't end here.
We sat at a big table with this company and everyone was telling details of the "QRաջարկություն" operation.. Something that was being planned around me for the past few weeks.

Areg's masterplan for THE day :)

It turned out that:

• Areg had created a secret group in Facebook for communicating the stuff for organizing matters. Sharing mindmaps, coordinating everyone's actions for the day. 
• Areg didn't have a business trip that week. It was just to enhance the "effect".. and also have a free Tuesday for arranging the stuff. 
• Areg was near my building since early morning when he called me. He was waiting for me to go out for several hours! Standing! Tracking me on the latitude if I was still there... until his phone drained out... (yep, I feel very very bad about this :()
• Speaking on the latitude.. he did arrange somebody to login with his account on latitude on the trip to Artsakh. That's why I was seeing him there...
• Lia called me to ask if I was at home to take the books with Areg's desperate request. 
• He asked his friend to follow me on my way to work. When i went to buy the papers, I could accidentally see them. They were hiding behind a car :D
• They arranged someone to wait for me near Charents monument, to hand the card. She was available only till 1:30 pm. Afterwards, they were trying to find someone else and in the end approached a school boy having a lunch nearby. The idea was to suggest him some "bribe" for giving me the card. The boy politely refused the money, and after some convincing ("heeey, it's our friend's birthday, we need to give her this card, blabla") he agreed to stand there and wait, only until their teacher (who was almost near) could notice him.
• Areg followed me on my way to work until he was ensured that I read the QR code on the card. 
• Lia had been thinking that I saw her trying to hide near the cafe at Charents monument, but in fact, I didn't. 
• Azar reported in the FB group, that I had told him about the card. He also called Areg when I went out of the office, saying "Объект вышел".
• Kristine had made up the story about the Ambassador and asked us to dress up, because she knew that on that important day for me, I would feel upset if I wouldn't be dressed :)
• Areg had prepared beautiful flower compositions for the Green Bean (partly seen on the picture with the QR code mug). They are still there, decorating the tables in the cafe.
• The hack was created by our friend Tiko and was "enabled" on panarmenian.net by Azar (CEO of PanARMENIAN.Net). It was targeted specifically for the IPs of Green Bean (Areg and Tiko have been tracking cafe's IP address for few days, to ensure it was a static one). While installing the hack on the website, Azar was testing it in our office's IPs, and as a result, the whole editorial was frustrated, unable to work while the testing and installing took place. 
• When I just got to Green Bean, I didn't order any drink, which was a little out of the plan, but thankfully Kristine managed to convince me to ask for another cup for me to drink the tea. That's when I got the mug with the QR.
• There were actually 2 t-shirts with a pixelated white elephant - one for the waitress and one for me.
• Areg had prepared special "Thank you" cards signed by both of us (i did it right there) for all the participants of the "operation". 

So.. this is the story :) I want to thank all of my friends (and the Green Bean staff) who were involved in the organization of this beautiful day.. it's really something that me and Areg will remember forever :)

At the end, there are a few pics...

giving out the thank you card

I'm a TEDx Organizer!

I have already told you how much I love TED and about the TEDxYerevan conferences that I took part in (also as a speaker).

I decided to actively take part in spreading the ideas of TED becoming a TEDx Activator. Now let me tell you what it is and why I'm so proud now :))

TEDx Activator is an experiment in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to support TEDx organizers who are using TEDx events to spread ideas in the developing world and unprivileged communities. Any community that does not have access to TED and TED.com qualifies.

TEDx - is an independently organized TED event by an individual who has to be granted a free license from TED. The event can be just viewing TED talks, or can have live speakers as well. TED rules state that if it's a full-day event, total 25% of talks have to be pre-recorded talks from TED.com.

In reality, TED is very strict about rules for TEDx and I actually enjoy being part of this!!! There is a strong community with many virtual collaboration tools which somehow reminded me of my beloved youth organization - AIESEC.

In the framework of the TEDxActivator program, each of the Activators will be organizing 4 TEDx events in 1 year, for the above mentioned unprivileged communities.

The first event I planned was for teenagers of various backgrounds, the others most likely will be in the regions of Armenia.

TEDxTumanyanPark organizers :)

The first event me and my friend Gohar organized on November 30, was for TUMO kids exclusively, named TEDxTumanyanPark, and made possible with the help of TEDx Activator Manager and TEDxYerevan licensee Kristine Sargsyan.  It was a viewing event with the theme "Creativity in tech". We invited 100 kids (announcing it on Facebook) to the cinema hall of TUMO.

We selected 5 short to mid-length talks with many visuals. We made sure the Armenian translations of the talks (most of which were done by me and Gohar) were there and were correct. We prepared small intros for the talks and also were telling the main points of the talks in Armenian, since some of the kids couldn't manage to read the subtitles or understand the English speech. We had a great support from the TUMO staff and it was a pleasure to work with them!
And based on what we heard from the kids - they really enjoyed it! I hope we will see TED speakers growing up out these kids who were just getting acquainted with TED :)

Here are a few official numbers about TEDx:

• TEDx began in March 2009.
• # of TEDx events 2009: 279
• # of TEDx events 2010: 952
• # of TEDx events 2011 so far (Nov. 29): 1645
• Total # events: 2876
• Countries: 118
• Languages: 40+
• Licensees: 3450+
• Videos (TEDxTalks): 10,500+
• Across various platforms, TEDxTalks videos have been viewed over 50 million times. 

Here are more pics from the event, made by my lovely cousin Semira Martirosyan.

P.S. My status msg on FB about becoming a TEDx organizer got 120 likes and 30 comments. As it turns out, there were rumors in the city that I had quit my current job and now I'm a full-time TEDx organizer :). Dear all, i'm still PanARMENIAN Arpik and I have no intention to change my job. Being a TEDx organizer does not require full time efforts, thankfully :)

"Guinea Pigs in Technology" or geek girls are cool! my TEDxYerevan talk

As I have told you already, I was honored to be selected as one of the speakers of TEDxYerevan 2011.

I was very excited about the opportunity and I also knew that it's gonna be a tough job. I had to pass auditions with the organizing team and prepare a talk which would be:

• short
• fun
• geeky
• inspiring

After my sudden success with the BarCamp's talk, everyone expected of me something similar: just an easy, funny speech about geeks and dating. But I really wanted my talk to contain a personal story (like in most of TED talks), have a message and to inspire at least some people. So i had many conversations with various people, met other geek girls. My closest friends were particularly helpful as they were "working" on my talk all the way from the start to the final submission. I even organized some small auditions at in my apartment, asking for feedback on slides, texts and even my body language when talking (a friend even recorded my rehearsal on a video so i could watch myself).

So here I can finally present the result. I'm posting the slide deck, narrative speech (a little extended with some parts that were cut out in the final speech) and also the video of the talk. 

"Guinea Pigs in Technology" or geek girls are cool (contains slide notes)

Do you know what guinea pigs and women in technology have in common?

This is an old joke i used to hear a lot some time ago. The popular answer is this: the common thing between women in tech and guinea pig is the fact that women are related to technology the same way guinea pigs are related to pigs. I'm here to tell you that this is complete and utter… nonsense.
Let me tell you a story.
So it’s about a girl, who was born in a very typical Armenian family. Normally her destiny would be pictured like this: she’ll go to school, enter university, find a husband, have some kids, become an exemplary housewife who can cook excellent dolma… and work as a teacher maybe.. well, in this particular family i'm going to tell you about, things went a little different.

Something somewhere went wrong and the first signs of the troubles have started to emerge as the family bought their first PC back in 1996 and their teenage daughter started to show signs of computer addiction.. becoming a «computer rat» in their words. Her initial plans to become a journalist quickly vanished and she started to dream of becoming a hacker.
Since the age of 13 she became the computer expert for her whole extended family, getting emergency calls whenever someone couldn't find a certain key on the keyboard, or couldn't change the font properties in the Word processor.

Since then, “Let Me Google It For You” has been a phrase she used a lot. Well and the RTFM.

She has been studying computer science and one day she realized that the profession she's chosen is changing her while studying databases when she was around 18 years old. She had this idea.. of being able to remember big amounts of information, to be able to connect things she heard.. and just to be able to fit in all the things she was learning. She found out how to optimize her brain's databases, arrange the tables with a 'foreign key' and index all the data, so that all the new information she gets, gets stored in the appropriate table with the keywords, and she can fetch the information quite easily. This was a remarkable moment when she realized that she somehow managed to optimize her brain the way, so she quickly connects the facts and random pieces of information and her memory is significantly improved…

One of the happiest moments of her life was buying a laptop. She needed a portable computer that she could use it even in bed and in cafes, and when she had it, it was not very common to walk in the streets with big laptop bags yet.. and she occasionally felt herself like the little Tiffany from the Men in Black.

With the web 2.0 and new media emerging, she became an early adopter, and was labeled as a tech evangelist. One who signs up for all the new social networks, manages to be aware of all the industry news… she has built some impressive online personality with big network, and with many followers and all…
She was labeled as a geek. Then she started to explore what’s in that word.

So who are geek girls?

These are the most common perceptions I’ve brought together.

• They are not feminine 

• They lack social skills, mostly hang out with other geeks

• Using a lot techno-slang 

• They must know good programming 

• And they work just in tech industry

Some of these things are truly just myths. In reality geek girls are:

1. Independent or better to say - self-dependent people. They solve most of their own problems :)
They can easily setup a home wireless network, configure a router, even without a prior knowledge in networking. They just know how to find it out digging through search results and technical forums.

2. Geek girls are smart, witty, tech savvy


3. They are gadget and connectivity dependentEven though they don’t depend on other people for their problems, they are very much dependent on their gadgets and network availability.

4. They learn really quickly and are actually very good at quick self-learning. They know how to google stuff, or youtube things like “how to fix damaged headphones” or simply “how to gift wrap a box”.

5. Geek girls are info-junkie and love sharing. They have to be up-to-date with the latest information on their interest and they all love sharing information and useful hacks. That’s why they are active in social networks.

6. Also, geek girls can be really cute
Just like socialites. Not convincing?

Well.. for the socialites we all know that they are:

• Obsessed with shopping and worship shoes 

• They actually admire lady gaga for some reason. 

• They are obsessed with SATC show and frequently quote the heroines. 

I know a geek girl who’s a shopaholic, with a particular passion for shoes. Well, she recently told us, she counted about 27 pairs in her 2011 spring-summer collection.
And not only her… among my geek girlfriends there are ones who think that Lady Gaga is actually cool. They read Cosmo and yeah, Sex and the City is one of their favorite shows of all time, they were noted to be stylish and pretty. Not quite like the perceptions, right?
Now lets go back to the girl I was telling you about in the beginning.

The netbook that’s the default accessory in her purse is actually pink. It has Google, Firefox, Android and Hello Kitty stickers next to each other. Among her 200 RSS subscriptions, there are many fashion, gossip blogs. Her smartphone has more fashion apps than you know existed J She meets her friends not by calling and asking where they are, or telling where she is. They have foursquare and other geolocation services for that. She tracks her not suspecting sister with the google latitude she had setup on her cellphone.

You can meet geek girls in some glamorous party, all dressed up, on towering heels, talking on her smartphone.. Explaining someone from her workplace how to fix the server..
You can meet a girl restarting that damn router at a café when they badly need a wifi.
This is Ani, she has written an alarm clock application for her friend’s phone, because it didn’t have one.

These girls - Nelly and Gayane, have created a very popular website dedicated to indie music all by themselves, coding, promotion and stuff.

Geek girls were active in Yerevan Barcamps’ organization, well; I was one of them and guess what? I was telling about “how to date a geek girl”. Somehow this presentation became a viral hit on the web, becoming the top presentation of the day, then week, then most tweeted and ended up getting about 20K views in couple of weeks. And I got featured in a Taiwanese website with a special mention of my netbook which turned out to be a Taiwanese pride. It got a huge positive feedback and I want to share some of the highlights.

When geek girl is dating a geek guy.. well. That’s predictable. They communicate via messengers (even when they are in the same room), they schedule meetings via google calendar invitations, their computers are sweetly connected via a shared folder in dropbox, and they express their emotions via likes and comments…

When geek girl is dating a non-geek. Either the guy gets paranoic thinking that their (potential) girlfriend can hack everything of theirs, starting with text messages on the phone, ending with email and social media accounts. And nothing good comes out of it.

You can never know that a pretty girl you’ll be flirting with in a bar, might have already checked your FB profile on her smartphone while you were looking away, and might have tweeted how bored she is with your conversations.
But, if guys are smart enough, they start exploring her ‘territory’, signing up in the social networks she’s in, following her posts and reacting to them.
If you follow these simple steps, a geek girl can give you the root password for her heart.

But actually, being a geek girl is really cool.

Being a geek girl makes you feel more confident, independent. You can solve your own problems actually. You become needed and demanded by everyone around, from your boss to your friends.

So what do guinea pigs and girls in technology have in common? Yes, they are both cute J

We, the geek girls of Armenia have decided to establish a community of our own. So i invite the girls to join us.

At last, I want to tell you that a geek’s image for girls actually comes with a ‘dumbness filter’. If you’re a geek girl, you can attract all the right guys and scare all the wrong ones J

Girls, enjoy being geeks.

The video of my talk

I'm really thankful to all the people who approached me, gave feedback, told me that they could relate to some parts of the talk and just told me they enjoyed it :) I'm thankful to fellow speakers for cheering me up when i was nervous and for all the support. I am so lucky to be part of this great team!

TEDxYerevan 2011 speakers

Don't forget to check out other talks on the TEDxYerevan website. 

me at TEDxYerevan 2011

Just came here to share some exciting news :)

Loooots of exciting things happened to me since I last wrote here and I'm having a terrific week now.
Now I'm very close to reaching another milestone.


You know, I've always been bad at public speaking. As a shy girl since school, I've always avoided public appearances, although they somehow followed me everywhere. I always knew I was bad at it and had a big desire to improve myself, so I started to take the chances whenever I was invited to do a training or presentation. It required a lot of energy with my self-criticism and perfectionism.

I remember, at BarCamp 2009, I was just an attendee and didn't have the courage to make a presentation. Next year I volunteered for BarCamp 2010 and did 2 presentations, got a lot of feedback. This year I also did two presentations, and spoke at the opening.. all in the big main hall! ...and the feedback was awesome. I am thankful to each and every one of my friends who were there, supported me and pointed me what had to be improved.

one of my biggest public speaking challenges at a Powerpoint Karaoke event: just a blabla on something you have no idea about :D 

During these two years I did a number of presentations and trainings in various places and every time i've been noticing my own improvement.

Last year at TEDxYerevan 2010 I watched my friend preparing for her talk and other speakers presentations and thought: hey, it'd be cool if i could grow up to be a TEDx speaker :) ...

so here I am :) in a great company! looking forward to September 24 to present my ideas on "Guinea pigs in technology" ;))

Watch the TEDxYerevan 2011 teaser here:

and btw, it will be held in TUMO!

Breaking: an Armenian guy found a big security hole on Google

I'm kinda proud and happy to share this while it's trending!

Vahe G. (an Armenian 21yo guy), installed a JS code in his blogspot blog (now closed by Google) and if you visited it while logged into your Gmail (even from an incognito window), you would receive an email from him. Creepy?

He has tried to reach Google for this but got no response. Then a friend suggested to write to Techcrunch, so he did. Now he's making headlines all over the interwebs.

Google has already shut the blog and responded: “We take potential security issues very seriously, and our team is actively investigating this one. We’ll share more information soon."

I don't personally know him, but he's been following and commenting me on buzz and twitter, for which I'm now pretty proud! :D

Seems like Google will have to hire him finally. Or maybe Facebook?

Hey Google, know Armenian guys ! Hovik, your brother is really cool! :)

PanARMENIAN Media - an enviable employer and my 2nd home

Continuing the trend, I also want to share how "PanARMENIAN" got into my life. It wasn't ever expected and now seems to me as a pure mystery :) Not going into the details and making the long story short, it goes as follows:

The man whom I didn't know then, but who was later meant to become one of my best friends and the-best-boss-ever© just invited me over for a talk and asked me to work there (I was recommended to him by some people, as a web developer, however). I clearly stated that I won't go for a programming again, but I also told that I'm not sure what I see myself in. He talked and talked for a while; told some things about me that shocked me to death and made very suspicious. How could someone know me so well before we even got the chance to meet personally? I started to guess about his affiliation with some secret services or hours he spent exploring and analyzing the information I have left online by that time. The other guess was that he was somehow coming from future (around this time, probably), when he has worked with me for months and knew me abbastanza bene. This option seems the most likely one to me now :D
Then he didn't mention a position, I couldn't understand why he needed me there so much... There were a lot of small factors that were keeping me from accepting the offer immediately, mostly connected with my habits and expectations of conditions based on my previous workplaces. And I couldn't get our conversation out of my head. It seemed too fancy and unrealistic. I couldn't believe that he really meant what he told me.

Moreover, something I was waiting for so long finally seemed to come true. I was accepted for a 1-year internship where all the expenses, including the travel, were covered. Still can't believe it, but I REFUSED the irresistible offer of my dreams to go to Italy and work in one of sub-companies of the Benetton Group.

I haven't regretted for it ever since.

At a meeting/presentation for the staff, telling about our developments and plans

In reality, this man has an extraordinary ability of seeing people through and attracting like-minded people, getting them together. The growth and continuing success of our company is substantially stipulated by the team that was formed and is being lead by a truly great leader.

Here, in PanARMENIAN Media, I got the chance to try out a completely new profession (or some of them) and for the first time in my life, I developed ownership feelings towards a company I was just an employee of. Ok, not just another employee, but part of the officer's team ;)

Do you know how it feels when your every waking hour is filled with thoughts connected with work?
When you treat your job as if it was your own business and can beat anybody that would try to make any harm or offend it?
Sense company failures as if they were your personal, or get extremely excited and happy for the achievements as if that were personally yours?
When your job is your hobby and vice versa...
When you have so much fun at work and enjoy your colleagues so much that you don't mind spending your evening hours in the office too :)
When you actually create your work yourself...

I wish you would feel as satisfied with your job, as I am with mine :)

On April 2, 2010, PanARMENIAN.Net turned 10 years old. It was the first online news website in Armenia and it's the best one currently. Believe me :)

For more than a year we've been developing this completely new engine and months of sleepless nights of certain people resulted to this completely new PanARMENIAN.Net that was launched on its 10th anniversary. It's still in beta and will be continuously developed to strive for our mission to become the pan-Armenian common information field. We acknowledge that there are still some flaws and it's not perfect yet ('beta' is a good excuse ;), however we try to make it so.

We work with firm goals, by fair means and are honest to both ourselves and our stakeholders. I would also describe hour working style as detail-oriented and very upright. We don't go for short-term benefits and trade quick results for long-time greater achievements.
It's founded on very professional bases and with a great sense of liability for our country's deserved positive image and civil responsibility. However it's also very cool in terms of being creative and witty, when proper and needed.
Truly amazing individuals form the key staff; people who are multi-talented, completing each other and devoted to the idea. Moreover, PanARMENIAN has got a big army of supporters and friends that we are proud of.

No matter the pageviews, visits, pageranks and other rankings, I reckon that we don't have competitors, but have colleagues together with whom we are working towards developing the media industry in Armenia and presenting the proper image of our country for the world community.

And here's the team that makes it all happen:

You can admire our faces while browsing this and this sections of PanARMENIAN.Net on the right side of the page ;)

Well, I'm not superstitious and don't really believe in evil eye, but, da bene esse I'm sticking my favorite eye amulet to this post ;)

Disclaimer: Despite my position in the company and considering the fact that this is my personal blog, opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the official position of the company or the editorial. 

mixed post about some recent updates and thoughts

Again I have abandoned my blog for some time.. but I must say that it's constantly on my mind and I'm permanently trying to bring myself back to the writing habit. One thing is that I feel more responsible in whatever I write since I get a lot of reactions and feedback concerning my blog and it even turned out that I inspire some people :) That really flatters me, but also increases my sense of responsibility.

The other thing is that I've been writing a lot of marketing materials for my job and writing in a personal journal also a lot, so probably it was my limit of typing/writing that was reached :)

However, I'll try to catch up with all the topics that I have scheduled to post here and in the current post will tell you some updates on what was happening around me lately.

About writing

Cascade complex (Cafesjian Center for the Arts) opening soon! My photo story

To me, the most exciting event of this fall is the long anticipated opening of the Cafesjian Center for the Arts, aka renovated Cascade complex. It took about 7 years for renovation, and as far as I know, the top of the complex is still under construction (see a photo from Dec. 2008 on the right), however the inside halls, and almost all the exterior has been completely constructed to welcome the public on November 8. With its current state, its already one of the world's most outstanding  contemporary art centers. It now houses a Visitor Center, Museum Store, Special Events Auditorium and over 1,100 square meters of exhibition space.

I have lots of memories connected with the Cascade and it's for sure, my very favorite spot in the city. I go there quite often with friends and mostly by myself. I usually spend there my Sunday afternoons, sit somewhere in the middle and with some nice music in my ears make plans for the week, enjoying the warmth of the sun. A photo from a typical Sunday on Cascade:

This year me and my friend spend some of our early mornings jogging to Cascade from our houses and then climbing it together. Here's a view of Ararat from an early spring morning on Cascade (taken with my cellphone camera):

The evenings are especially pleasant, however kinda crowded. One of my favorite photos taken by myself on March 2007:

...and by the way. This should not be missed!

The Cafesjian Center for the Arts Grand Opening Celebration will begin on the evening of Saturday, November 7th, with a spectacular fireworks display near the Cascade monument at 10:30pm.  On Sunday, November 8th, the Center invites the public to view all the renovations that have taken place inside the Cascade and to enjoy its outstanding schedule of exhibitions, lecturers, book-signings, and events. For this one day only, the Cafesjian Center for the Arts will be open to the public with no admission fee.
Grand opening highlights include the special Arshile Gorky collection, a re-dedication of the Khanjyan Triptych, an intimate conversation and photo exhibit by Beatles' former wives Cynthia Lennon and Pattie Boyd, the outstanding work of glass artists Dale Chihuly, Swarovski, and more!

For about 2 years the construction was put on hold for some reason (unknown to myself) and I was being heartbroken seeing the unfinished reconstruction of the complex and lack of interesting events at the base of Cascade that were usual before. About a month or two ago I noticed some changes... and firstly - the resumed renovation of the park leading to Cascade. Couple of weeks ago I took these photos, not being able to wait until the official opening and lose the autumn sun :)


20+ photos with annotations below!

About my pink netbook and software iRecommend

Buying a computer is always a big event for me. I still remember the excitement around buying my first ever laptop with own money back in February 2008. It wasn't the greatest and most powerful one... in fact it was the cheapest one in Media Markt of Rotterdam; the only one that was being sold with Win XP instead of Vista... it had a very simple design and fitted well to my needs.

I was excited about the idea that I can carry it with me (a cute orange laptop bag was meant for that) write from wherever I want, even from bed ! It won't make noise as my desktop comp., so I can work even when my sister is sleeping, etc etc...
However as time passed, it transformed just to a desktop computer because smth happened to the battery and it stopped working without AC power. Then it was heating too much and even started burning my knees... then the heating caused damage of the Wi-Fi adapter and it also stopped working. I was desperately seeking a laptop cooling pad in Yerevan, but didn't succeed in finding it. Well, despite of these troubles it served quite well for me and I'm happy I had it :)

In this era of lightweight netbooks and mini-notebooks with cool designs I couldn't not to be up-to-date with the technology. After some polls on which brand to choose and researching all the online stores in Moscow (a friend generously agreed to bring it with her) I stopped by ASUS Eee PC 1005HA which has a Seashell-inspired design, 160GB memory, 1GB RAM, 1,66 GHz processor, weighting only 1,4kg. But the best thing is its battery! 10.5 hours of battery work, cool huh? :) Oh yes, and I chose the PINK one :) I'm tired of black stuff around me and I'm for uniqueness :)
I couldn't wait until it arrived. So nice, so portable and smart!!! The only disappointment was that the Windows XP Home edition was already installed... in Russian language version :( I hate Russian language interface and i couldn't stand reading "Пуск" instead of "Start". The language can't be changed and the only option is to install new Windows...Well I got my license for Russian language since it was brought in Moscow :( However, I renamed all the icons and folder names and changed all other options to default English so I'm okay with it now.

pictured: my first computer, back from 1996

Then i started to transfer all my files from the previous laptop via wi-fi (luckily i have my own network at home). After that, I started to customize and personalize my new computer with the software i use, so this is a nice occasion to write down about some applications i'm using in case my recommendations would be useful to any of you. 

• At first, i downloaded the browser. Chrome this time and no FF. Sorry Firefox fans, i don't want to struggle with hanging browser anymore! And I also installed the new Opera 10 as my second browser.
• Then i downloaded my favorite picture editor and viewer Picasa 3.5, that scanned all my pictures for its database.
• Then it came the time for Winamp. It's my preferred music player since 2001.
• After that i downloaded the last.fm scrobbler to continue scrobbling the tracks i listen on this computer too.
• Then it was the time for the video player and my choice is VLC.
• IMs. I downloaded Google talk client. Skype was pre-installed.
• KDWin to be able to switch between keyboard drivers for Russian and Armenian.
• Flashget as a download client.
• uTorrent as a torrent downloader. 
• Activated Office 2007's 60 day trial to be able to use OneNote as my favorite note taking application.
• My favorite twitter client was Twitterfox plugin for FF, but since i don't have FF on my personal comp. anymore, I downloaded Tweetdeck, which I have used also before.

So... this is it! :)

about changes

The first change I'm going to write about is my blog's long awaited redesign. Yes I did it finally! Please welcome its new glamorous look and features.
Now I am showcasing more of blogs from my reading list. Those marked with "Arm:" indicate that they are based in Armenia and of Armenian origins but not necessary in Armenian. Also there are links to some popular blogs I'm regularly following and recommend you also.

I'd love to receive your comments and feedback concerning the redesign :)

Second thing is about the changes in my life.
There have been some significant changes around me this summer.
I found a new favorite hobby which is yoga. I'm going to write about it more detailed soon.
I'm not going to write a lot of personal updates, just it's worth mentioning that all of these led to the change of my outlook.
I lost some considerable weight... I didn't starve or diet, it happened unexpectedly, and I like it!  I also realized that I may have been extra-weight before :D (I wouldn't accept it ever !). Then I changed my hair style.
Some of you may have seen my new shape and haircut on Facebook.

by the way...
If you regularly visit my blog, consider adding it to your RSS reader (Google Reader for example) by clicking the "Follow" button on the right side.

BarCamp Yerevan

Armenian chess players won Gold at the Chess Olympiad 2008!

We won! Moreover, we defended our chempion status ! (Armenia won Gold the previous Chess Olympiad 2006 in Torino too).

photo from armenianow.com

Here's our team:

• Levon Aronyan
• Vladimir Hakobyan
• Gabriel Sargissian
• Tigran L. Petrosyan (who was my classmate for some short period)
• Artashes Minasian

During the final round, Armenia's only win came on board four where Tigran L. Petrosyan beat Chinese Li Chao.
Thank you Tigran and others!

And here's a nice photo report from the finals.

photo from the Chess Olympiad in Dresden official website

...and if you watch statistics of winners by each year in the wikipedia, you'll notice that USSR and post-soviet countries were almost in no competition for the recent decades.

For the second consecutive Olympiad, top-seed Russia failed to take a medal. From 1952 to 2004, they (and their predecessor the Soviet Union) never finished below second place.  (Guardian)

wedding preparations :)

A dress, shoes, accessories (purse, bijoux /earrings, necklace, bracelet/, belt, tights), nail color, hair style, make-up, outerwear, ... and all of this multiplied by 2 -- This is my preparation list for my cousin's wedding.

Nobody wanted it to happen this time of the year, but it happened as it happened :) and we have to wear something warmer during the first part (including the church ceremony) and then change it to something restaurant-friendly :)

I just came from their apartment, where they were getting ready - preparing the table, decorating rooms, the entrance etc :) and i saw my Gohar on her last eve of the unmarried life and at her current home.

The groom and his family will come and pick her up around 1pm and we'll head to the church. After the ceremony, the family goes to the groom's house and then at 5pm it's time for the great celebration in the restaurant :)

I guess this wedding will be according to Armenian traditions and you can expect colorful descriptions with photos from me soon. :)

here's the church "Surb Gayane" in Echmiadzin where the ceremony will take place tomorrow :)



This is the first wedding of such a close person to me and I'm very excited!

*Gone for nails, tomorrow I will be OFFLINE!!! :D

Earthquake in Armenia

I'm scared like hell... every time I'm feeling these shakes, it brings chills to the bone.. I guess it will be like this my entire life, the fear of earthquake is settled deeply inside all of my country-mates who remember the earthquake of 1988.

It was 22:53, just some moments ago... seems like many people felt it, my dog started to bark... and here's what i saw in my facebook's live feed:

According to the "European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre", it was an earthquake with 3.3 magnitude and the epicenter was located 45km south-east of Yerevan.

wedding on a boat :)

Recently, one of my good friends got married... my former colleague and a great photographer Abo! it was a very unusual wedding.. on a boat!!!... in Sevan lake... the ceremony was hosted by the Cilicia boat crew, there were about 20 people on the boat...

The interesting thing is that during the ceremony (when the groom was about to kiss the bride...) the boat turned over, but luckily no one got hurt... just some cameras and cellphones sank and got damaged...

I'm very happy for Abo and Nana and i wish them a very adventurous life together !!

You can enjoy some of Abo's photographs on his 35mm.am page.

Note: on the photo - the "tarosik".
By Armenian tradition, the married couple gives to all their single friends small "gifts" after the wedding. "Taros" means wishing the same, precisely - a marriage.

For their wedding, the couple has made themselves the "tarosiks" of clay. Both of them are very talented :)))