A Star from Mosul

When I saw that this blog was written by a young Iraqi woman, actually living within Iraq, I thought that it would be much more interesting to hear her thoughts rather that more from American soldiers and reporters. The author’s name is Najma, and she is a student of Engineering at the University of Mosul. Most of what she discusses in her blog relates to how hard it is to live in Iraq and how she is trying to find the good in living where she is. Her writing is very informal, choosing to detail the events of her day in a way that many teenage girls do. For example, “There wasn't anything to do if I woke up so I closed my eyes only to be awaken by mom after what seemed like only minutes later.. it turned out to be 1 PM however!!” Her tone is one of frustration and depression from a life that she is unhappy with. “Possible results of the curfew are (unless I killed myself before its end): gaining some weight, getting back to my natural skin color and I think I am going to be a claustrophobic.” She is definitely unoptimistic about her situation and surroundings. The author seems to always feel down or look for things to be bad before they happen, even when someone gives her encouragement or reasons to feel good. To be honest, the blog kind of depressed me because the author was always down on things, but, I guess it is hard to expect her to optimistic when so much bad is happening around her.