Thursday, August 30, 2012

Because of a lack of funding, the Avid program at a local high school is forced to sell food and snacks to raise money for it's programs.  The Avid program is specifically designed to help students from various backgrounds get into college and they are forced to raise whatever money they can through the students, to achieve this goal.  It would seem that a program like Avid would receive what they needed to function successfully in their pursuits in helping students become college bound, but this is not the case.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

My Name

One common practice amongst Bahais is to give names to their children from different martyrs or heroes of the Bahai Faith.  When choosing my middle name, Imon, my parents looked to my mom's ancestry where they found a man who was given the title Haji-Iman.  Iman's story consists of persecution, imprisonment, and sacrifice for his faith.  It was clear my parents wanted me to have a strong Bahai identity but at the same time wanted me to feel welcomed into western society.  To accomplish this they decided that I would use my first name, Sean, as my primary name but kept my strong ties to family and my faith using my middle name of Imon.  It is because of this that throughout my life I have been affectionately referred to by my family as Sean Imon.  I think they do it just because it rhymes.