A Star from Mosul

Something is missing. It's been a long time, months maybe. Probably ever since college started, and probably because I miss my friend.

I've been searching for another reason but I think this is the one.. She was the kind of friend who I could fight and be very angry at and in a sec we'd be best friends again, we got along very well. We didn't spend the whole time together but she was always there when i feel frustrated or lonely. Last year she failed and now she's spending most of her time with girls from the computer department who she studied with in the second attempt exams. She's still my friend but she's killing me, last year she kept telling me she's studying well but proved otherwise, and this year there's no evidence of improvement. She skips classes a lot and makes me crazy about how much she cares about insignificant things like her mobile cover, she's bought at least three since the beginning of the year, and we haven't walked together and talked for a looong time now.

I feel like a complete stranger in the middle of the class.. The whole class just isn't going to be a unit. Every word is interpreted as an insult and every move as intentional and everyone hides it and thinks bad of the other.

And lately the weather has changed, and i feel like my whole system has been destroyed. I can't have breakfast 'cause I usually have nausea in the morning, I can't have lunch because when I'm back from college (around 3PM) I'm dead tired and again have nausea because of the heat and just want to sleep.. I eat when I wake up and can't have dinner because it hasn't been long since lunch. And when it's around midnight and I try to sleep I have insomnia and end up more alert and hungry than any other time of the day. In short: I'm driving myself crazy.

I am not spending ANY time watching TV, and most importantly the news. But I hear things.. and what I hear is more than heartbreaking and so I'm just ignoring the whole situation and trying to live through it.

***

I used to love the programming lesson so much last year, the prof was just great and I still feel happiest when I greet him and get a warm welcome. His questions needed thinking and I very much liked taking them.
This year we're always required to find the average of the sum of the factorial of the prime numbers between two numbers except numbers that can not be divided by four without a remainder, or something like it.. Finding Factorials, testing prime numbers, summing and finding the average, that's all we do and all the students have just memorized the procedure so the exam doesn't really prove anything. Visual Basic is such a beautiful language but we just aren't getting to the core of it.

This year's engineering Analysis lecturer has left to England on Saturday to study for his PhD. He had been encouraging me and my friend a lot. We used to go to his room so as to ask him questions and when he asks us how we're doing and we start whining and he knows exactly how to make us feel better that every time we leave his room we're both smiling and optimistic. We took a photo with him the last day we saw him and I've taken his email and sent it to him and am waiting for a reply.
Before he left he told us he wishes that when he comes back he'd find us teaching in college.. He sounded much more like a friend than a lecturer then, was holding his mobile camera and taking a video of college and that was very sad to see.

***

I keep comparing this year with the last and it just doesn't stand a chance.. I admit, I feel discomfort whenever I feel threatened by a student. I like to have the highest marks in all subjects and the fact that I don't this year in 3 out of 8 gets me really stressed. In fact, to know that ANYONE has understood ANY subject better than me, and even more has gotten a better mark, gets me more depressed than anything.

***

My friends have been asking me to explain all that we've taken in communication since they didn't understand the lecturer. I couldn't stand the idea but said I'd try. A friend from another college talked to me over the messenger the other day and upon complaining she yelled at me saying that I'm being selfish. It was a wakeup call. My friends couldn't believe it when I spent an hour and a half standing and explaining the lectures, and I admit, I kind of liked teaching then. But now I feel guilty every time they do not understand anything associated with the subject thinking I have done something wrong or should have taken a different approach or or or.

***

Mu cousins who is with me in college is going to graduate this year. I'm already worried about next year. He and his friend have been like real brothers to me. They're very funny and make me feel better no matter how bored or depressed I am, and if there's a curfew or anything I can always call him and problem is fixed. He, too, is feeling depressed since he doesn't know what to do after graduation.
I always feel jealous of their class.. They are a much larger group than our class and have managed to make a large group of friend out of the good ones present: My cousin, his friends and about 15 girls. The girls are very nice and outgoing and I like them all.
I made him promise that I shall take a photo with him and his friends in their graduation robes, and I'm eagerly waiting.

So, after all the whining and editing I am feeling sorry for myself for having to put up with such a whiny depressed person (me). I thank God however that my studying hasn't really been affected, though I study much less and start very late I am still on track and am not letting myself get carried away with laziness.

Wish me luck.. I'm going to watch Ratatouille this night, my cousin's given me many cartoon movies last time we went to their house. They keep me happy for at least two days before I get depressed again!

Labels: college, depression, rambling

I haven't posted any photos of Aya and Ayman for a long time.. Yesterday I sat, looked through the photos and chose few to post here.

Anas however is so not photogenic now, and the camera is well hidden since we started expecting home inspections, so the last photos of him (taken by the mobile camera) make him look more like Gollum (from LOTR) than anything.



Aya's growing more and more beautiful everyday.

Ayman is very cute and his smile is charming but he starts jumping up and down and we can not really take a good photo of him smiling.

The photos are not recent, and this is deliberate, just in case.
These days Aya is sleeping at our house with her mother while Ayman sleeps with his father at his grandparents' home. He stays with us all day when his father goes to the clinic though.

Our house has become a kindergarten with the exception of the constant presence of guests.

Labels: aya, ayman, family

This happened at 6PM, on the 10th of March, 2008. Little Anas is now sleeping about half a meter aways from where I'm sitting. He's very tiny, has black hair unlike his brother and sister, and I'm not sure about his eye color.

Aya was excited, helping her mom and looking anxiously at her new brother. She's been holding her jealousy inside and has started crying as soon as mom announced that she was going to sleep near my sister and the baby to help. And so mom's now sleeping with Aya and I'm here sitting by the baby and my sister.

Ayman was more than happy to have his mom back, ignoring the presence of the new enemy entirely. He then started to look at him with disgust, and yells at him the moment he makes a sound "Hush, mom's in pain". He's adorable otherwise, and was so tired at last because of all the excitement that as soon as I hugged him he fell asleep.

Tomorrow we have a picnic in the university but none of the girls are going and my friend who went with me last year has failed the year and so she isn't coming. I am therefore taking the chance to stay at home and help with the baby.

Today the situation was tense, there was an assassination attempt to kill the university's vice president, and there were many security measurements inside the university.

We discovered today that a dear classmate, M, was shot few days ago. They told me it hit him in the leg and he's okay. I was shocked to hear the news, nobody has told us, as if we do not care. Last year, he used to be optimistic and his laugh had a special tone to it that I liked very much. He reminds me of one of my cousins, he just has to laugh at every joke we say, even a very lousy one. But this year he's become very calm and depressed that I didn't even notice his absence! I look back at last year's photos and remember how cheerful he was, how very different from how he is now. I can't help but worry about the reasons.

I'll pray for him today, I'm just hoping he'd be back and healthy soon, and gets back to what he used to be.

Labels: Anas, college, family

I have replied to your inquiries about the book project in the comments section here. I would however appreciate it if you e-mail me for information about the project to get a quicker (still slow though, ASAP however) reply, and so I can keep track of how things are going.

Email address is: nblog04 [at] gmail.com

And thank you for cooperating.

These are Dan's recommendations for shipping books:

I would like to add to something Najma said about shipping books. She said just use regular mail. Well, that might work for a letter from America or a small package, but perhaps not for a heavy box of books. I have found only two ways to get books to Mosul in a way that is relatively safe for Najma. The first is by setting up a credit card account with DHL gloabal Mail. They take it all the way. But you first need the account and you also need to fill out the paperwork and get one-time-only approval from the US Department of State. But on top of that, DHL Global Mail has their own shipping containers, and none of them are suitable for how I want to ship to Najma.

Here is my method, it is known as M-Bag mail with the U. S. postal service (and NOT all postal clerks know how to do this). Follow these steps... (and I'm talking to Americana)...

1. Go to your post office and pick up a supply of Customs Declaration CN 22 - Senders Declaration forms. Also get a supply of string tag cards that will be tied to the neck of the shipping sack with your book box(es) inside. The card has addressee information, customs declaration information on it and a postage paid stamp.
2. Get a supply of box material that you can shape into regular shippong boxex and a roll of clear plastic shipping tape for sealing the boxes. Also get a supply of large labels with adhesive backs for affixing "TO" and "FROM" labels to boxes of books that go inside the sacks. I am currently usinng 15 X 12 X 10 inch boxes from Office Max, but I have used smaller.
3. When finishing up with sender - recierver labels on the boxes and voids inside filled with styrofoam peanuts ( or whatever), write "M-Bag postage paid" in the corner somewhere. All this is in case the boxes in the bag get separated from the bag.
4. The US postal service ships your mail by air to Dubai. It is then delivered by DHL Global Mail to Iraq and handed over to the Iraqi poatal service

The cost for this is about four dollars per pound. My out-of-pocket expense has been noticeable, but it is the best money I have ever spent in my life, and never, ever, have I hesitated because of expense - privileges don't come cheap . I now have a network of colleagues who donate books and the money to pay for most of it, where it is most needed and valued.

You can't put a price on that.

Dan

I have asked my cousin to give me permission to send literature books directly to the English Literature department and will post the address as soon as he gets it.

Labels: book project

The evil part of me is coming to the surface.

Last week my friend asked me to explain a lesson to her, it was the one lesson we missed because of skipping college, I told her I can't.
I hate teaching. They know it. I've told them, if we skip college, I am not responsible for anything we miss, and they just have to learn to respect that. Of course the day of the exam students came and asked me about the lesson and I answered, but this time I was evil.

***

Yesterday I went so angry on a female student I was about to explode in her face. My friend saved me by asking me to go out with her, or should I say she saved the other girl from my killing her.
She's asked me before if I had a messenger on my mobile, and I said yes. She said hers is costing her so much and she doesn't know why, and since my messenger was different from hers I couldn't help her. I recommended another messenger and that's it. I don't like talking to her much since when she talks to me, she's always either asking me to explain something to her, get her something in my way or asking me why I got such a low mark. I know she hates me, she's watching my every move and enjoys my many mistakes.

She asked me to take her mobile home and install the file, I told her I have seen it on one of the lab computers and that she can do it. She asked me to copy it for her since -she claims and swears to God- she doesn't know how to use her flash disk. I would have to get down two floors, walk all the way to the other building, up one floor so she would be pleased with me. I told her she should do it herself. She begged me. I said no. Again begged me.. and I started boiling and was so close to screaming in her face when my friend held my hand and said: "Let's go walk in the corridor".

I've been spending every moment when we do not have a lecture outside the class so I wouldn't meet her and have to hear her remarks and commands. I used to sit in the class five minutes before the prof comes so no matter how early he comes, I'm there before him. Now I spend every moment outside unless the class is crowded so it would be easier to pretend that I can not hear her since she always talks to me from her seat, never standing or facing me.

I do not know what's changed, and what has given her the impression that I should enjoy her bossing me around.

Few days ago my friend SMSed me saying that this girl wants my phone number and asked me if I would mind giving it to her. I told her that if she couldn't pretend that she hasn't received the message, she can send her the number but she has to tell me first so I would turn off the phone. My friend was kind enough and made the first choice.

I remembered my friend from the secondary school, she used to say that we have to get lessons on being evil so we can survive. I had to be evil so they wouldn't take advantage of me.

I know that on Sunday I'll see her again, greet her like always, hear some remark from her and again be asked about the messenger. I can just take the phone and throw it out of the window! Oh, well, I'm not that evil. I am just enjoying the power to say NO.