A Star from Mosul

Since my name starts with the letter "s," I chose to read the blog A Star from Mosul. The reason I initially chose this blog is that, out of the blogs I had to chose from, it was the only one that involved the point of view of an Iraqi citizen. Instead of all the other blogs, which in general focused on news and media, or perhaps the point of view of a soldier, this blog focused on the life of a student at the University of Mosul, in Mosul, Iraq. I thought it would be interesting to see the war out of the eyes of someone who was about the same age as me.

I'm not totally sure what I expected from this blog, but I was definitely surprised by what I read. I was expecting stories of a young man struggling to live a normal life and get a good education in a turbulent and troubled place, yet there were few to no explicit references to the war, other than perhaps mentioning how annoying it was to have mandatory curfews and such. Yet still these problems were casually regarded, as though only a simple nuisance, while if any American student were forced to live in the same conditions, they would not now how to react to the lack of justice. The author, Namja, talks about things any normal teenager would, from the joys of sleeping in, to playing sports and hanging out with family. Now while this may seem sexist on my part, I cannot deny that I expected the author of this blog to be a guy, so I was reasonably shocked to discover that the author was actually a girl. I would never have expected a young girl, in Iraq, to be able to talk so freely. Although I hate to admit it, I suppose this foolish idea led me to the misconception that the young women in Iraq were much more reserved and un-opinionated than those around the rest of the world. As I read more of the author's posts, which were always about her day to day life, I realized she was like many girls I know, and I began to feel guilty for being so judgmental. Her tone differed from post to post, angry to happy, but were always simple and honest. Now that I think about it, I can't believe I was surprised by something that should probably be regarded as normal.