HW 35: Letter to My Blog Readers !

Throughout this time period of keeping my own blog in this class, I have learned many different things. By having a blog, I was able to communicate in a different way, by expressing how I felt about readings and certain topics to the rest of the world. I have become a better thinker an writer and have learned how important blogging is to the rest of the world and ones own personal being. I hope that someone else will be able to feel what I feel through my own posts, and see the importance of blogging and the amount of feeling that goes into it. I feel the most proud about my "Least Favorite" blog post, because I chose a topic that I was very passionate about and therefore the post had a lot of emotion and feeling in it. I believe that once this class is over I will definately keep my blog and refer to it from time to time, or I may even eventually add to it, I'm not quite sure yet what i would like to do from here. I definately believe that blogging had become the new form of technology that is being used in the world today, and it is a great way of staying in touch with te rest of the world, and it reflects of the type of person you are through your feelings.

HW 34: Responding to Riverbend

The custom of evening tea in Iraq Is very traditional and common in their culture. I found this topic specifically interesting. In the evening, most Iraqi families gather together for "evening" tea. No matter how busy the day, everyone will sit around the living room, and wait for tea. " Iraqi tea isn't a simple matter of teacups and teabags. If you serve teabag tea to an Iraqi, you risk scorn and distain. A teabag is an insult to tea connoisseurs. It speaks of a complete lack of appreciation for the valuable beverage(Riverbend 108). The process of making tea is generally a three stage process. The kettle of water is first put on the burner to boil. Then the boiling water and a certain amount of tealeaves are comined in a seperate teapot and put on a low burner until the tealeaves rise to the top and threaten to boil over(Riverbend 108). People drink tea with breakfast, at midday, in the evening, and often with dinner. "Our tea in Iraq is special because it is flavored with cardamom and served in istikans. Istikans are little glasses shaped like the number 8 but open at the top, and flat at the bottom. They are made of thin glass and sit in little glass saucers or porcelain saucers with intricate designs drawn on them. The color of the tea has to be just right, clear yet strong, preferably a deep reddish-rown color(Riverbend 109). Ont these occasions, they sit gathered around a small coffee table with a tray of tea and something simple to eat such as biscuits or bread and cheese. One person will pour the tea, and add the sugar. In most cases the discussion around the table consisits of the troops and war topics. Such a ritual as drinking tea in the Iraqi culture is often taken for granted in our own culture, although we do have our own rituals here in the United States.

HW 36: Gabcast

Gabcast! A Blog of One's Own #5



Episode 5

HW 33: Podcast

Episode: Challenges at a Girl’s School in Baghdad
Series: Alive in Baghdad
Date Published: May 21, 2007
Link: Challenges at a Girl's School in Baghdad

The general topic of this podcast is about getting an education. They interview a few 8th grade girls and a few teachers. In this podcast, there is a lot of discussion about how there is an all girls school who is in danger because the school is in a dangerous part of Baghdad. Therefore girls are deciding to leave because of the danger of thier lives rather than by their own free choice of wanting to stay and get an education. It is even becoming difficult to find teachers that actually want to teach becuase of this. Dispite all this violence going on around the school, the girls still feel the need to continue with their education. Jinan Jamal Mattmoud, who is the director of Al- Safina speaks mainly about the schools even surrounding the area and what the teachers and students have to deal with. Just by simply watching this podcast it is very clear as to the the amount of money that is actually put into the school systems. The walls are all faded with paint and the desks and classroos in general are very old and look like they arent really cared for and kept up nice and neat. The streets are all run down and old, ad seem very secluded. Someone watching this episode might learn the way Iraqi's live, and the challenges they have to face. This video is very similar to others that I have seen on Iraq. The atmosphere and settings all look very familiar. The thing that stood out the most to me while watching this podcast was the idea that girls were afraid to go to school because of how dangerous it was. We dont have to worry about things like that around here and I just that very unusual.

HW 32: Responding to Riverbend

After reading Riverbend's October 5, 2003 post she talks a lot about shopping for school supplies. In this post, Riverbend makes an interesting point. She states "Yesterday, I went with my cousin, his wife, and my brother E., to shop for school supplies for his two daughters, a pretty ten year old and a loud seven year old. Every year his wife, S., takes the girls to pick out their own pencils, notebooks, and backpacks but ever since the war, she hasn't let them step outside of the house unless it is to go visit a relative." (Riverbend 94). From reading this section I realized that we do things very differently over here in America. Usually going school shopping isn't an entire family event in most cases especially beyond the immediate family. She also states how the girls arent aloud to step outside unless they are going to visit a relative, which in my opinion is a very scary thought. I could never imagine not being able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. Another interesting point that Riverbend brings up, is when they are in the store and she starts talking about erasers. " We've all tasted an eraser at some point or another. In the end, we went with some strawberry shaped erasers that oddly enough, smelled like peaches.....S. said I was confusing the kids but I reminded her that they had never tasted strawberries anyway....her kids wouldn't know the difference." (Riverbend 95). This idea is very strange to even consider thinking about. The idea of not knowing what a strawberry looks like or even smells like. In this case coming across an eraser that smells like something very unfamiliar to some yet very familiar to our culture here in America.

HW 31: Responding to Riverbend

In the reading for this week, I became very interested in learning about "Depleted Uranium."Riverbend speaks about uranium as something that is in many Iraq households. It has been proven to have a large effect on the environment and has been proven to have an effect on the rate of cancer increasing. Riverbend talks about how babies are being born with one eye, three legs, or no face at all. After looking up more information on it, I found that it is weakly radioactive and an external radiation dose from depleted uranium is about 60% of that from the same mass of uranium with a natural isotopic ratio. Depleted uranium, commonly known as DU is “uranium remaining after removal of the isotope uranium-235 (wikipedia.com). DU is considered both a toxic and radioactive hazard that requires long term storage as low level nuclear waste. Originally, DU was conserved in the hope that more efficient enrichment techniques would allow further extraction of the fissile isotope; however, those hopes have not materialized. It is often used in the military for defensive armor plate and other applications. Depleted uranium is also used as a tamper in fission bombs and as a nuclear fuel in hydrogen bombs. After researching information on depleted uranium, I definately have a better understanding as to what Riverbend has been talking about all along. Th elink to this site is, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium.

HW 30b: Citizenship symposium 2

The speech that I went to see was spoken by Tom Lantos. His speech was about World War II and the Holocaust. In my opinion this was a very good speech, and it was very interesting as well. The topic of the Holocaust in general is a very sensitive and emotional topic for many, and in this case it was sad as well. The Holocaust is something that generally everyone knows something about, and in this case I am the most familiar with this war, more than any of the others. Tom Lantos was introduced by his daughter, Katrina Sweat, who presented her father, who happens to be the only Holocaust survivor to be elected to serve in the United States Congress. She spoke about how her father came to America right after World War II when he was 19 years old. He decided to run for congress in 1980. In 2006 he became a the head chair member of the foreign committee. Tom spoke a lot about American History and how freedom came to be today. In the conclusion of Tom's speech he spoke mainly about how the new president has a great deal of responsibility to uphold. Throughout this whole speech it is clear how much Tom appreciates his country and has a lot of respect for every aspect of America.

HW 30a : Citizenship Symposium 1

The Syposium that I attended was called "Citizens Gone Wild" and the speaker was Nancy Tobi. Nancy spoke mainly of democracy and how it came to be. Nancy grew up in Lexington, Ma. Throughout Nancy's speach she explained about the state of New Hampshire, and how their votes are counted.She discussed two ways in which votes can be counted, a hand count vote with community counters, and then the Diebold count which is eighty-one percent of how the voted are counted. One way to get the votes to be counted in an open meeting is to bring it up with a petition in your town meeting. The main discussion and point that I got out of Nancy's speech, is that hand counting ballots is a lot more beneficial and accurate than a machine doing most of the work. We may not think this to be the case but there are proven to be a lot more errors in machine counting than in regular counting. Basically Tobi is trying to get across the point of how our government is run, and how the Declaration of Independence has an effect on how the government is run.

HW 28: "An Open Letter to Riverbend"

After reading all of your blog posts up to August 30th, 2003 really opened my eyes to the world in a way in which I have never seen it before. I love how you put so much feeling and meaning into your blogs, this only makes me want to read more about everything you have to face on a day to day basis. Through your blogs I was able to feel in myself some of the heartache that you face, and this really makes me feel grateful for what I have in life. The fact that you constantly have to worry about where guns are being fired, the constant nightmares you have to deal with, and the frequent deaths you have to see, is something I cant even picture happenening or having to think about. The entire time I was reading your blog, all I could think about is how different our lifestyles are from eachother. Over here in America it seems like we have everything so easy, or atleast for me. I spend days complaining about things that have no significance to the meaning of survival at all, but yet for some reason I tend to think that this is okay because its the only thing i've come to know. Why is my country so concerned with the materialistic and always needing to be perfect and right, when you have to wake up everyday and deal with all these struggles? It doesnt make sence to me now and it never will. The strength that you have in youself to wake up everyday and face a new battle in your life is something I wish I could have, or to be even half as strong as you, is something I can only strive for.

HW: 27 Annotated Bibliography

Baghdad Burning is a book about a girl named Riverbend who writes about her experiences in Iraq as the war goes on around her from a day to day basis. The blogs in which she writes, become the main source for people around the world to read up on her about her experiences and status throughout war. The people around the world tend to rely on her for updates. The reason why this book relates specifically to the work that is done in class, is because the class relates directly to blogging and how blogging is changing the world. In this case the simple idea that Riverbend uses her feelings and ideas to share with the rest of the world, is exactly what we are learning in class. From this blog we are able to learn what it is like for a girl in Iraq to go through a period of war and difficulty, through her eyes. Being able to see things from anothers perspective, is a great way to feel what others feel and invision what others see, which is a great way to learn about anothers culture and way of life.