A Star from Mosul

A few days ago, I went to the dentist, and we had to sit in the waiting-room for about an hour.

We were lucky that there was an air-cooler in the waiting-room, you probably wouldn't mind if there was no air-cooler in your dentist's waiting-room, but in Iraq, and in days like these, the weather is impossible to stand.

There was something interesting in the waiting-room, the magazines patients read while waiting for their turn to come belong to the 20th century- 1990. Believe it or not, I was reading a magazine written when I was TWO YEARS OLD. If it was a book, It's OK, but a magazine!

Well, that's it, it's our turn, my heart began to beat fast, I didn't know why my teeth ached that much, but every thing went well, my teeth just needed filling :(, he gave me the treatment I needed but in the meanwhile he was talking to my mother about an explosion that happened a day ago, near the clinic, all the patient ran to their houses. He was lucky the windows were opened, because otherwise. they would definitely break because of the pressure.

Who knows maybe the situation will get better now, we have a new government, at least there's no explosions, so far :-)

I really want to put some links in the slidebar, but i don't know how to do it, please help me..

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Talking about my school will never end. I am hoping it'll get better as the holiday ends. Yet, I will continue talking about how it was to make sure that you know how much we fight to get knowledge.

Before the war, Our school used to study with free and brand new books, I admit, the information in it is very old- the newest book in the references goes back to 1980. Now, and because the printers couldn't work during the war, we use very old and unusable books, full of the thoughts of their previous owners who had to study during the war. I don't know who to blame. Some schools received new books and we were promised to receive them too but we didn't.

Although my school is supposed to be special (Hint: its name is Al-Mutamaziezat school: For special girls). A teacher once told us that the only thing that shows us as special girls is the small small sign in front of the school that says "Al-Mutamaiezat school". We have no labs, we've never done an experiment in either Chemistry or Physics, we never used the sound room (Even before it was looted since it needed electricity and maintenance), which is by the way the case with almost all the schools in Mosul, if not all Iraq.

The teachers are supposed to be good, yet it amazes me how we -the students, are better than them at times, whether in English, computer, chemistry.. This saddens me, since my purpose in going to school is to get good knowledge.
One bad teacher changes the face of a generation, I believe. If our teachers do not care about educating themselves properly, why should we? If the teacher tells us that there's no way to understand this subject and that the only way to succeed is to memorize, what should we grow up to be? (With all due respect to some of the teachers who truly deserve all my appretiation).

One thing you should know about education in Iraq is that it is free, which is a very good thing since everyone with a will can really find a way. Even books are free.

I wish that one day, I can get my kids into a school in Iraq where they can acquire knowledge that will prepare them to be the scientists of the future. There are good private primary schools in Baghdad, yet there aren't any in Mosul, and there aren't any private secondary schools anywhere in Iraq as far as I know.

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Here you can see the barbed wires that the Americans put around the school.


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This is a close look into the water(eggs, tomatoes).


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This too is in my school, believe it or not!


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that's what you'll see if you looked out of my class-room's window.


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my school yard


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Hi people,

This is my first letter in my first blog, I'm 16 years old, a student in a secondary school. And I'm from Mosul, a city in Iraq, you know it all, even if you didn't before you sure know it now.

My essential subject is my school. Before the war, it has chairs to sit on, computers to work on, no air coolers, no water coolers, no cafeteria with very bad services. Now after the war, the chairs are still available but they are mostly broken, the computers disappeared, no air coolers, two water coolers, one cafeteria (a very lousy one), I sat once in it and I couldn't stand it for more than 5 minutes.

The most interesting and disgusting thing in my school is the school yard, it's some thing I can't describe with my very limited vocabularies but I'll try any way. My school lies in a very low level which causes the water to gather in its yard and stays for a long time, sometimes it stays till summer. Then the frogs will come, plenty of frogs in any size you want, but this year the headmistress made a very wise decision she simply ordered the employees to pour gasoline over the frogs and then all the frogs died, disgusting, isn't it?

Oh, I forgot to mention something very important, my school's name is "Al-Mutamaiezat school", I thought alot about how to translate it but I didn't find any word more suitable than "special girls school", the students are supposed to be intelligent, clever and special in every thing. If you wanted to join it you must take an IQ test, and your grades must be more than 95% and must be more than 80% as long as you want to stay in this school.

that's it for today
good bye and take care

Technorati Tags: school, iraq, mosul, mutamaiezat