Kathy to Hilary, January 9, 1972 cont., Tehran, Iran Keep jumping around. Sorry. Lots on my mind. I wonder if all the preferential treatment we got in Seminar, in math, in English was really that good for us? What is left of the Seminar people in your knowledge? Have we really amounted to anything? Also, are you going to take the Advanced Placement courses? We don’t have anything like that at Iranzamin--what you do is take Upper Level or Lower Level courses in the Baccalaureate program. To have German as anything on my Bacc. (if I am still here in 12th grade), I’ll probably have to take it this summer. But we may go to Venice for the Bienale--I doubt it. It’s one of Dad’s Ambitious Plans.
Next year at school I’ll probably have to take Philosophy, Chemistry, Biology II, Math Level 4, German III, Advanced Spanish, Upper Level History, and U.L. English. Can she do it? The horrible thing would be to work so hard on my Bacc. and then not be able to continue into 12th grade and take the tests. If I do--well, we hear stories of people who have their Bacc. being accepted into really good colleges--MIT for example or Oxford or the Sorbonne without taking the entrance exams and being placed in the sophomore year. So...my ambition is still to go to Oxford or Cambridge and maybe work on Early English and Medieval Literature--an obscure scholar poring through musty piles of books. But I loathe Chaucer, so that’s probably out. I guess being a complacent student of literature is a little out of character for me anyway.
Bucket is currently trying to roll my hair in curlers--she sticks the hair through the middle of the curler and lets it stay like that. I hate to see myself when she’s finished! Despite everything Bucket and I do, I’m getting uglier and uglier. When I’m 25 no one will be able to look at me, even if I have contact lenses. Fortunately Rupert the cat loves me, and he doesn’t care about appearances. He’s a grown-up cat now and spends most of the time sleeping in front of the heater in the living room.
Dad still refuses to send your Christmas package. It’s rotting away on the piano. He’s having a party Wednesday night. I’m going to confine myself in my room. It sounds so dull. Half of the guests are Iranians from the boonies, and I imagine half the wives will come in chadors--their piece of cloth concealing all charms, like small tents. They’ve got a band and all the blacklight posters in Iran, and all my outdated records and dad’s works of art. A table made of beer cans, a painting on wood of an Alice in Wonderland scene, a Tarot card, Jack of Hearts, a clock made from the Kaballa game, a mask of a chicken, the African masks, and so on and etc.
Well, I’m sorry the W&L SCA is so ineffectual. For all I know Iranzamin doesn’t have one. Why not be old-fashioned and burn down the building so they’ll listen to your demands and arrest you as well. What is it that’s so awful about the sponsor?
I’ve petitioned my parents about visiting this summer, but they said 1) “you’ve got to take German this summer” (and after summer school?) 2)”where’ll we get the money?” 3)”and we don’t want you traveling alone.” If I can win the $300 maybe they can pay the rest. IF (I’ll have to find a lot of talent somewhere. Maybe IF I can finish the Great American Novel and publish it I’ll get some money. But at this moment, besides unhatched chickens, I have 2,940 rials or about $35. Thank heavan for the devalued dollar. How much is youth fare, do you know? Round trip tickets are about $1400. I can trot down to Pan Am one day and find out. So...but I will try valiently to scare up enough money...go rob a bank or two...
Since it is nearly the end of the paper and I won’t be able to fill another I shall bid adieu.
Love
9:44:42 AM 
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