Monday, December 29, 2003
23 Dec. Tuesday
it was about 10:30 in the morning, and it wasn't a sunny day...…
our teacher, Ali Mtashar, who is known as one of the best high school chemistry teachers in Iraq.Wasas explaining some hateful pointless chemical reactions "...So we have to figure out the pH of the solution made by mixing 0.1 Molar of sodium hydroxide with a liter of pure water, before adding it to hydrochloric acid in order to know the total pH of the solution, there are some laws we can use here like.." A student, interrupting the teacher, says "Ostath [stands for teacher], could you write that again in a larger font, and could you please write at the closer side of the blackboard to the window, It's too dark and I can't see a thing."
That was because there were no lights in the classroom. My high school, called Al-Mansour high school... Used to be the "fanciest" high school in Iraq, and the best for the last 4 years in a row.. But now, it looks much more like a hunted house, that's because all 'talented' high schools (found only in Baghdad, and there are about 11 of them, I think), as well as Al-Mansour high school and Baghdad collage (the best high schools in Baghdad, and of course in whole Iraq) were not included 'yet' in Becktel's contract for repairing schools, or painting them as what happened on ground. Maybe it was because we (good high schools) had to make compromises to the bad ones because Becktel could not afford painting all schools in Iraq together, or maybe it's a lesson to those fancy students like me in how to be more humble, yeah... I got it, our beloved leader Mr. Bremer is trying to teach us principles of life.
Back to our story, the teacher opened the door of the classroom and shouted calling for somebody to come an install some lamps in the classroom...In a minute, the headmaster came with four lamps with him and a ladder and installed the lamps himself. Unfortunately, he accomplished installing the four lamps without falling off the ladder; the thing that all of us, students and teachers wanted.
Anyway, maybe that whole "event" was a practice for the humbleness lesson, given by Mr. Bremer to our headmaster...
Today I had religion exam., and boy it was hell of an exam.! But I went good anyway.…
A cool quarrel took place in the center of the school, among four students... It appeared that they were playing a double-match of ping-pong, and after one team won, they realized that in a coincidence, they were both Sunnis, and both of the players who lost were Shi'as, so the victory took political and religious aspects ended-up with four injuries. That's the way things work here...
I feel very optimistic about the future seeing such 'phenomenons'.
it was about 10:30 in the morning, and it wasn't a sunny day...…
our teacher, Ali Mtashar, who is known as one of the best high school chemistry teachers in Iraq.Wasas explaining some hateful pointless chemical reactions "...So we have to figure out the pH of the solution made by mixing 0.1 Molar of sodium hydroxide with a liter of pure water, before adding it to hydrochloric acid in order to know the total pH of the solution, there are some laws we can use here like.." A student, interrupting the teacher, says "Ostath [stands for teacher], could you write that again in a larger font, and could you please write at the closer side of the blackboard to the window, It's too dark and I can't see a thing."
That was because there were no lights in the classroom. My high school, called Al-Mansour high school... Used to be the "fanciest" high school in Iraq, and the best for the last 4 years in a row.. But now, it looks much more like a hunted house, that's because all 'talented' high schools (found only in Baghdad, and there are about 11 of them, I think), as well as Al-Mansour high school and Baghdad collage (the best high schools in Baghdad, and of course in whole Iraq) were not included 'yet' in Becktel's contract for repairing schools, or painting them as what happened on ground. Maybe it was because we (good high schools) had to make compromises to the bad ones because Becktel could not afford painting all schools in Iraq together, or maybe it's a lesson to those fancy students like me in how to be more humble, yeah... I got it, our beloved leader Mr. Bremer is trying to teach us principles of life.
Back to our story, the teacher opened the door of the classroom and shouted calling for somebody to come an install some lamps in the classroom...In a minute, the headmaster came with four lamps with him and a ladder and installed the lamps himself. Unfortunately, he accomplished installing the four lamps without falling off the ladder; the thing that all of us, students and teachers wanted.
Anyway, maybe that whole "event" was a practice for the humbleness lesson, given by Mr. Bremer to our headmaster...
Today I had religion exam., and boy it was hell of an exam.! But I went good anyway.…
A cool quarrel took place in the center of the school, among four students... It appeared that they were playing a double-match of ping-pong, and after one team won, they realized that in a coincidence, they were both Sunnis, and both of the players who lost were Shi'as, so the victory took political and religious aspects ended-up with four injuries. That's the way things work here...
I feel very optimistic about the future seeing such 'phenomenons'.
# posted by Majed Jarrar @ 1:31 am 
