Five Years of My Life

I don’t pretend to be an expert on Guantanamo but lets just say that I am not its biggest fan. I chose the readings that I assigned because I wanted to show you the story without making you read the entire book. The first section was to show his capture, the second was to show some of the torture he endured while in prison as a supposed terrorist, and the third section I chose because it really cut deeply into me. The third section I thought was so moving, this innocent man can no longer recognize his family after being tortured for five years unnecessarily. Who are we if we don’t have our family?

The torture scene I chose, I believe I explained to the class earlier in the year but I didn’t feel like I did an adequate job and wanted you to read it for yourself. If you read the entire book (not that you were required) you would have found that there were some torture scenes just as bad and even crueler. What particularly interested me about the scene I chose was that it reminded me greatly of the Roman crucifixtion. I also wanted you to ask yourselves how some one can do that to another person? Also if we claim to save the Iraqi people from their dictator and dangerous government are we not killing and destroying many lives by sending people to Guantanamo prison? Aren’t we just doing the same thing Sadaam did to his people (on a smaller scale)?

I’m sure that Guantanamo saw at least one actual terrorist or potential terrorist, but the vast majority of people were/are not and that is my biggest problem with the prison. Whether or not they are terrorists, no one deserves to be tortured as they are in this prison.

Arranged

I really enjoyed this movie and think that it is the best one we have watched so far. I felt like there was a bit of humor and a bit more relatable than some of the others we have watched. However I must admit that it was very much like a Hollywood movie in the sense that it ended happily ever after. If they hadn’t ended the movie with the women sitting on the park benches with their children and instead had ended with them getting ready to be married it would have been a bit less happily ever after for me. I think that the principal was my favorite character because she added so much humor and tension. She also showed that Americans can be so ignorant, but I think that we have seen enough movies that show Americans as ignorant. The one problem I had with the film is when Raquel goes to her cousin’s friend’s party. She only saw the drunken party side of the non-orthodox Jewish world. She couldn’t make a proper decision on whether or not she wanted to leave the orthodox community; she didn’t live a quote unquote normal westernized world. This is similar to Rumspringa, which is celebrated by Amish teens, many of whom live a life of alcohol, drugs, and sex, and don’t really see a more conservative westernized world. In general I felt like the acting was very real and believable, especially the children and the parents. The children showed that at a young age we are very curious and have a strong thirst for knowledge and unity. The parents of Raquel showed that all ages and generations have prejudices.

Beheading of a Cat

When I read the first of the stories maybe I read it differently from everyone else. I did not really like the character Nadine because she was obviously not the person that the main character wanted to marry. Clearly is vision of his dead matchmaker aunt told us this. She described a completely submissive woman, very stereotypical of a Middle Eastern woman, which shows us as readers that this is the type of woman that he really desires. I do not agree with his desire to chase and tame Nadine but I also do not believe he literally wanted to burn her and use the ashes to drink from. I do however believe that that passage was meant to be very poetic. Perhaps he is not the most decisive or the most respectful character but I did view Nadine through the perspective of whether or not she was a good person for him (forgive me for not remembering his name) to marry. So when professor Webb made that comment about me not liking Nadine because she was a strong independent woman deeply offended me.

Turkey Short Stories

World For Sale:

This story was confusing and difficult for me follow. There were a few times where I thought I knew what was going on and then the author would put a paragraph into the story that completely broke the flow. I would then try to figure out what the hell was trying to be said and then I would forget about the original idea. I also felt like the story jumped back and forth between past and present time, some times in consecutive paragraphs, this also made it difficult to follow the story line. I was especially confused about the people who were supposed to be dead but then they were alive again until the final paragraphs when the story seemed to be slightly more focused. I did feel like the title was clever but it did not really have anything to do with the story aside from the end where the author haphazardly threw in that Emin, the main character, wanted to buy the world.

Such A Story and Barba Antimos:

These two stories were so confusing to me that I could barely get past the first few pages. And even after reading each page I didn’t know what I had just read. I am curious as to what the Turkey group wanted us to learn from these stories, but we never got to have that in class discussion, so Turkey group feel free to comment and let me know J. Maybe there is some kind of meaning with in the text, but I am having terrible difficulties finding any kind of meaning because these stories don’t seem to follow a single plot line and stick to an understandable flow.

Honor Killings: Could you Kill the Women in Your Life?

There isn’t much I can say about the Honor Killing video aside from that these killings disgust me. I also have trouble understanding why these women do not just move away from the family members looking to kill her, or why she would try to commit suicide to restore the family’s honor, as many women are being forced to do now so that the men do not get sent to prison. Another thing I have trouble with is that brothers, fathers, uncles and grandfathers kill their loved ones, even if the women have young children or are pregnant. I would never believe that the men in my life could kill my sister or me. Honor is not a physical thing so how to offend or defend it is difficult. I remember looking at a video or an article that tried to show some of the types of honor killings that occur; one of the ones shown was one where a wife apparently spoke out of turn or against her husband at her son’s soccer game and the men of the family hung her from the goal posts. Though I wish these killings would stop I do understand how it is embedded in the Turkish culture and will be difficult to weed out of the country.

Paradise Now

Watching this movie sparked my interest further in the idea of suicide bombers and so I wrote my second paper on some of the information that I found. However, despite the research that I did and the point of view that the movie Paradise Now showed I still don’t understand killing yourself. Perhaps I would have to live in the situation to fully grasp the idea. Despite the fact that Said feels like his father was a disgrace to Palestine and that he wanted to regain the honor of his family, he left his family behind to mourn for him and I feel like that is selfish. Leaving his family was especially selfish because his mother figured out that Said was planning to kill himself and begged him not to and even told him that what his father did was to help the family. Originally I felt for Said but as the movie unfolded I started to dislike

his character and began liking his friend more (forgive me for forgetting his name). I did not really enjoy how the movie ended because I would have loved to see what happened to the friend when he returned to the village because the people who organized the attack would then view him as a traitor. I also would have liked to see the explosion when Said blew himself up and to see who aside from the soldiers on the bus died. This was the main reason I am completely against suicide bombing, unless the bomber specifically bombs the government building or a military base the bombers are attacking innocent lives (I did feel sorry for Said when he tried to set off his bomb and then hesitated because of the little girl who was getting onto the bus). Personally I think that Said should have tried to live his life instead of ending it along with ending the lives of others who probably did not want to die. However, after researching for my paper I have learned that Palestinians do not have any other way to fight Israel’s military, but I still feel that people could try to move or just find happiness in the things and family that they do have. Would you blow yourself up and perpetuate the violence?

Short Stories

As Ashley also said in her blog about the short stories we read, the title of the second is ironic. In fact there was no plan at all in this story. I also felt that the story was only from Isam al-Baqli and eventhough it was mainly his point of view and we didn’t see the story from different eyes I found myself strongly disliking his character. It was almost appalling the way he spoke to his mother, telling her to hurry up and die. I was also annoyed by how lazy and sarcastic this character is, usually I find sarcasm amusing but this was uncomfortable. I suppose that the idea driving this story is that if you want happiness money cannot be your only mistress, but I only got that idea from the very end of the story. Perhaps Isam dies alone but he dies happy with food in his belly and in death he still has not learned from his lazy lifestyle. He merely why God would give him money and then kill him, he does not understand that he has only asked and never given. In this sense I feel like the ending is ironic, he is given money (as he wanted) in return for his life. Over all I enjoyed the first story more.

Camels!

When I first started reading this book, I thought it was going to be geared towards a younger audience, perhaps a ten to twelve year-old. The boy’s extreme love for his pet and the writing style seemed to be simple. I was mistaken. The love this boy had for his camel seemed like an obsession. With in the first few chapters there was a gruesome and explicit scene involving two camels having sex. I did not enjoy this book very much, but I did enjoy that the book was given to us in a packet and I did not have to try to find it myself, so Thank You Arabic Group two! One thing that caught my eye when we did the in class exercise was that some one made the connection that the camel represented the seven deadly sins. From the way the boy acts around his camel I can definitely see, Greed, and Pride, and when you look further into the novel you can pull out the others. But in general I did not understand how important this camel was.

Out Side Reading 2

For about two weeks I have been trying to read my second outside reading book and have only gone through ten pages. I originally picked this book because I thought it would be interesting to see an Iraqi’s point of view on the war, but what I didn’t know was that I probably should have been on top of the news before I started reading. Because I do not follow the news I do not know about most of the people and events that this girl talks about in her blog. The book is Baghdad Burning by Riverbend. Another problem I have with this book is it is less about Iraq and instead she complains about people who comment on her blog and disagree with her. I am going to continue to try to slosh through this book but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you keep up with the news and do not mind complaints and rants.

Children's Literature

The last time I really read children’s books was when I was about 7 years old, and since then I have forgotten how simplistic the language is, but I never noticed how in tune with our senses and how political they can be.

The first of the stories played on the readers’ sense of sound mentioning the noises that even the sand makes. The narrator even said that his name became music in the symphony of sound that is his city. The narrator also played on the ideas of color. Using sounds and colors definitely adheres to a child when they are learning to read. This book though the actions of the characters are specific to Arabic culture the ideas about wanting to grow strong, being excited about a secret, and proud of learning to write our names in entirely universal.

The second story we were told to read was definitely more political than any of the children’s books I read as a child; but perhaps that is just due to the culture I live in, a culture where censorship is extreme, especially towards children. The books I read were ones like the orange cat put on a red hat and the dog wants to play. I did however read one book that was sort of political called Tiki Tiki Tembo by Arlene Mosel, but that was merely about how parents name their children in China. The way this second book was written seemed like it was targeted for a slightly older child perhaps third or fourth grade, but even still the narrator seemed so young to have been so comfortable with the danger he lived in. Furthermore, it seemed like the children were being used as political bait, when they were sent to march against the violence. Even beneath the political aspect of this story it still played on senses and the idea of growing strong.

Reading these books makes me think that perhaps I should re-look at some of my favorite childhood stories.

Arabic Group's Guest Speaker

I enjoyed the guest speaker that the Arabic group brought into class because he was a real person with real experiences, rather than the ones that are fictitious and written in novels. I definitely learned so much about Egyptian culture; it is far different from the culture of the Western World. First I can not imagine studying 12 hours a day in high school, or even now that I am in college; having a social life is hard enough as it is and I think I would die if I studied 12 hours a day. But that is just it, U.S. culture does not put such emphasis on our education, there are many people who grow successfully even after poor grades in high school. School has always been important to me but our guest speaker seemed so passionate about learning, listening to him speak was almost like listening to the Imam speak when we went to the Mosque. Another difference between the two cultures of education is that your high school GPA does not determine what types of programs and types of careers you can have. I had a fairly high GPA but that does not mean I have to go into Political Science, and I had friends with lower GPAs but they were not restricted to being farmers or teachers. Also the level of respect for teachers is far greater in Egypt than it is here in the United States, and to me this is a bit ridiculous, because they teach our future, they should at least have some respect. There is a similarity in the way teachers are treated in these two cultures however, both pay their teachers almost nothing. Although this is true, Egyptian teachers have it worse off, I cannot even fathom how Ashley’s Arabic professor survived on 16 dollars a month for teaching and having to work 12 hour shifts to make up for the difference and then returning to teach for the next day. Another interesting fact that our speaker brought to my attention was the fact that there are more women than men at the Universities and that the scientist behind the weapons of mass destruction was a woman. Though these ideas point towards equality of women I still have a hard time believing that women are equal to men, as the Professor was saying.

Our Trip to the Islamic Learning Center

I would love to say that our trip to the mosque was insightful, but if I did it would not be entirely truthful. Though I did learn some new information I would be hard pressed to pass a test if we were to be quizzed over the fieldtrip. Most of the information that I have retained from this class was information I had learned last year in my comparative world religions class. The Imam was so excited about his religion that he spoke a million words a minute in an attempt to teach us all about Islam and break down the stereotypes we might have had in only ninety minutes. For instance he would talk about all of the languages he had learned and that would spark a discussion about how he memorized the Qur’an in Arabic at age 9. Though this is beyond impressive, he did not return to the original conversation about the languages he knows. He did this on two other specific occasions: once when he was talking about the three holy cities, I never learned the third holy city because Jerusalem sparked another discussion; also when he was talking about Muhammad’s wives he said that Muhammad had two wives but the Imam spoke so much about the first wife and the idea of being polygamous, he forgot to mention the second.

I definitely enjoyed how excited and in love with his religion the Imam was, I wish that everyone was as passionate about something. However, I did feel like a few of his comments showed that he was accepting of other religions but not accepting of those who are not religious. I am not a religious person and so I felt like he was trying to push Islam and almost said that it was the only correct religion. As Bri mentioned in class, it would have been interesting to speak to some one who left Islam and hear their opinion on the religion. Being a non-religious person put me at an advantage, I feel, because I was able to learn about Islam without being bias and disagreeing with the differences between religions.

"The Road to Love"

Personally I did not enjoy the movie. The lighting was worse than home movies my parents have, and the fact that I had to read subtitles due to the language being spoken was a huge turn off. I had difficulty understanding what was happening in the movie if I wanted to watch the scene I had no idea what they were talking about and if I wanted to know what was being said I would miss what was happening in the body language.

I do not feel as though I know enough about Arabic culture to be able to take that step towards understanding their acceptance of homosexuality. And for this reason the movie did not hold my interest. Personally I think that a personal life should be just that, personal. I do not enjoy seeing a homosexual couple be intimate with each other just as much as I do not enjoy seeing a heterosexual couple being intimate. Thus this film made me a little uncomfortable. Furthermore, I was thrown off by the nudity, which is another belief I have, our bodies should be kept hidden for our eyes and our partner’s eyes alone. When nudity came on the screen I had to look towards the ceiling and again missed what the people on screen were saying.

For the reasons I have just given I do not feel like I have acquired any knowledge and did not retain any information. This film bored me.

Support our Troops?

For my outside reading book I am reading Five Years of My Life by Murat Kurnaz. It is his story of the five years he spent as an innocent man in Guantanamo Bay. This story, as far as I have read, really opened my eyes to how disgusting people can be. I know that I’ve talked about Hollywood using Nazi like propaganda, but the way the United States soldiers treated these prisoners is heading down the path of Nazi cruelty. I knew from pictures on the news that some of the soldiers treated the prisoners like they were less because of their racial background, but I did not know that they treated prisoners like test dummies. One of the torture treatments that disgusted me was one I shared in class; prisoners were hung up by their wrists from ceiling rafters for hours and for days, they would only be let down so that doctors could check to see if they were still living and if they were the prisoners would be raised up back into the rafters. Much like Nazi doctors the doctors Guantanamo used the prisoners as experiments. Prisoners were even tortured and beaten into admitting to being a terrorist, and then for admitting to it they were beaten and tortured more. Originally I picked this book out because I thought it would be interesting to look at the reactions of the innocent who were accused of being terrorists, just as another point of view in war, but I didn’t know I would be so interested in Kurnaz’s story. I also learned that most of the prisoners in Guantanamo were nowhere near terrorists. In factmost were victims of the United States paying bounties to countries for people that they could use in the media to pretend that they were capturing terrorists. I would definitely recommend this book to those who are pro and anti-war. How can this cruelty be humane and legal?

Blood and Oil

“The oil resources (of the Middle East) constitute a stupendous source of strategic power, one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”

-US State department memo August 1945

If since 1860 the United States of America has been the leading consumer of petroleum and today uses 25 percent of the world’s resources, how can we as a country not believe that there was a bit of motive and desire for oil control when we went to war in the Middle East? Our dependence on oil is vast and we no longer produce what we consume much like we did in the 1950’s and 1960’s. According to the US Department of Energy, by 2025 the United States will import 70 percent of its oil from other countries. Even from the time of World War Two and FDR the Middle East has been an interest for oil, so how can we be so ignorant to believe that it is not an interest today?

Part Two offers an fascinating piece of information, the United States has been allies with Saudi Arabia because of a contract made by FDR, despite the fact that they have no inkling of democracy and we attack countries for their lack of democracy. Furthermore we have over looked the lack of religious freedom and a lack of rights for the Saudi people, the very reasons we moved into Iraq, just so that we can have rights to Saudi oil. But when President Bush Sr. found that the public did not agree with sending troops to the Iraq/Iran war he stopped talking about Hussein’s thirst for oil and switched to Hussein’s desire for nuclear weapons. And because of this Congress agreed to send troops for operation “Desert Storm.”

Before Carter, the Presidents masked their motives on why they were supporting Saudi Arabia, but Carter himself said that Saudi Arabian Oil was a matter of national security and anyone who would attack Saudi Arabia would deal with the United States.

Even our enemies see and believe that the Untied States is after Middle Eastern Oil, “The biggest reason for our enemies’ control over our lands is to steal our oil, so give everything you can to stop the greatest theft of oil in history… for that will be the death of them.”

-Osama Bin Laden

Oil was at the root for his hatred and his war against the United States, so why is it difficult to believe that it is at the root for our Middle Eastern conquests, when we have depleted most of our oil sources. 1/3 of our oil went to Europe during the Second World War, and now we are in desperate need to fuel our addiction. It is difficult for me to believe that a new source of energy was not on the agenda when we went into war in Iraq, when President Bush was working on the energy crisis the country was facing at the time of his inauguration.

If we genuinely wanted to help Iraqis from a terrible leader, one we put into the seat of power, why do we treat all of its neighboring countries’ people like scum and pay bounty to countries to sell us their people to pretend that we are capturing the terrorists?

Suicide Bombing: a Sin or and act of Faith?

For many years the Middle East has used suicide bombers as a weapon. This idea has been used as a means to prove a point and defeat the supposed enemy. But in the Middle East suicide missions have not been seen as suicide, instead blowing themselves up is an act of Martyrdom. Often parents and family members are proud of their children who kill themselves and others in the name of Allah, to their societies they are heroes. However, it is not all of the Middle East who partakes in these types of missions, the majority of bombers come from the Gaza Strip. Further more, it is not all Muslims who practice such beliefs, only a certain sect of Islam believes that this act is an act of God, they are the Sufi Muslims

Muslims who participate in this act of violence create mass terror. I believe that the idea of killing one’s self is so terrific to the American culture because of the dominant religion Christianity, in which we are told it is a sin against god for some one to take their own life. As I am not part of this Martyrdom culture I do not understand why some one would want to take their life. How does a fourteen-year-old boy know that blowing himself up is the best path for him to take when he hasn’t lived out his life?

The use of child suicide bombers appears to be increasing, and while many children are educated and reared into this deadly fate, many are thankfully saved or removed before their actions have deadly consequences. Many have seen the images of infants and toddlers dressed in mock suicide bomber outfits in Palestine, and while they may not commit such acts when they grow-up, their fate is one undoubtedly leaning towards violence.

Though we are allies with the Israeli government, we must note that in their conflict, it is not only the Palestinians who wreak violence on their enemy. The feud that has been going on between Israel and Palestine for many years has become sort of a vendetta system. When a Jew attacks a Muslim, the Muslims retaliate, and so begins the on going cycle.

In Death/Family Relationship

In death do we show our true selves? Aunts Safiyya before she slips into her final coma she expresses that she will accept Harbi’s hand in marriage. Does this however mean that she originally want to marry Harbi or if she was really regretting accepting the Bey’s proposal? What is even more interesting is the act of the Father visiting Safiyya in her final throws of life, even though she cut all ties to her adoptive family. If I were the Father character I would have felt a gut wrenching sorrow upon hearing this confession, if that is what Safiyya really meant. The Father’s connection to Harbi is so strong that hearing Safiyya say “If Harbi asks for my hand, tell the bey I agree,” must have produced the thought, what if she had married Harbi? Would Safiyya have remained sane?

Possibly it was truly the Mother’s fault that Safiyya deteriorated, and maybe it was merely her genetic beauty. The Mother treated her daughters more fiercely than she did Safiyya because she knew that Safiyya would easily be married because of her beauty; whereas her children, not blessed with such beauty were treated harshly so that they would become a good house wife. Furthermore, the education that the four daughters received ultimately led to them having an independent mind from their husbands. Safiyya did not finish her education, which led to her being solely dependent on her husband and his well-being. In the event of the bey’s death Safiyya could not survive on her own. Even the life of her son Hassaan meant nothing to her. Now in contrast, the four daughters are educated, marry educated men, move to foreign countries and at least the youngest daughter has a job other than being a housewife. They are independent from their husbands.

Rumors: A Deadly Disease

Within our assigned readings that which has interested me most has come from chapter two; primarily after Aunt Safiyya has been married. Admittedly I felt as though Harbi reacted in an overly excited manner when he heard the news of his uncle’s son Hassaan, but I do not believe that he reacted as such because he now had some one to kill. Insight into who started and why these rumors of Harbi’s desire to murder Hassaan came about is not greatly divulged but even so their destruction of family ties is immense. These rumors were even believed by Safiyya who had grown up knowing Harbi, though that is not to difficult to understand because it is her child she separated herself from the family she grew up with. Our narrator tells us that many were jealous of Harbi because he was so close to the Bey, but then why would the Bey believe these rumors?

For the majority of his life the Consul Bey was a soft spoken man who was kind and giving but even the rumored threat of the death of his son drove him to unspeakable crimes. Because of his beliefs in these rumors he found Harbi one day and ordered men strip him down and to tie him to a palm tree. The men were then instructed to pull the ropes so that Harbi moved up, down, left and right along the tree, needless to say he no longer had skin on his back. The Bey even stated that he would make Harbi beg for death but would not be merciful and do so. He did not want to have to answer for his death. Because of the change in his uncle, as demonstrated by this action, Harbi with the strength of his pain ripped himself from the tree, grabbed on of the rifles held by a guard and shot the Bey in the chest. His shock was so grand and his pain was so fierce that Harbi no longer saw this man as his uncle, his father, and therefore had the ability to shoot him to save his own life.

Another major change that was created by these rumors was one that is probably more shocking. This change occurred in Safiyya. Our narrator, who wept in jealousy when his aunt was married, after a few months of mourning saw nothing left in his aunt except her

green-gold eyes. After the death of her husband Safiyya made predictions, ones than many people could have made, that created the idea that she had a second sight and Bey visited her in her dreams. After this Safiyya was no longer who all men desired but one whom all villagers feared. Even the gypsy woman, Amuna el-Baida was afraid of her, and gypsies are know as the ones who instill fear. Finally the greatest danger that these rumors caused was the fear Safiyya put into her own child. The narrator states that he feared the way she played with him and saw that he was being scared too.

Hollywood: Because we feel that Arab people are so different they deserve to die.

Hollywood, for at least 100 years, has been portraying Arab people as sub-human, worthless, and incompetent. And though I am completely disgusted with the fact that nearly 25% of Hollywood movies have racial slurs against Arabs and Muslims, I do not believe that every one of those movies is meant to attack those people. We, as a country, went to war in Iraq in March of 2003, which has ultimately increased the speed in which our country is becoming racist against Arab people, but even so was the war not made more acceptable to the general public because of the stereotypes we have been exposed to from the time we were beginning to climb out of our cribs? I believe that some of the movies created in collaboration with the department of defense are meant to rally support for the troops who are over seas or who have toured with the military, though the trials have been skewed in the favor of the American soldiers. Despite the few movies that may be geared to supporting the American troops, I cannot get the image of Nazi propaganda out of my head when a Palestinian character is thrown into a movie where it has no real reason to be in such movie or movies. It has been an eye opener to learn that the country I live in is creating propaganda much like that of the Nazi regime. How can the United States of America support such violence toward a people like such when we worked so rigorously to bring down the terror of Nazi Germany; a terror that many are still overcoming?

There are some forms of media in which support for American troops can be rallied and then there are those where my faith in this country falters. Images of troops posing with naked Arab men hanging by their wrists or thrown into piles as if they are autumn leaves makes me cringe, and these are supposed to be the men and women who are supposed to be "protecting our freedom?" Those images coupled with country leaders who merely state that it is just like a high school or college party makes me fear for those who are ignorant enough to trust those leaders and defenders of our country. I do not believe that this movie, “Reel Bad Arabs” showed enough images of people who have overcome these horrible stereotypes, not everyone in American is so ignorant to believe that all people are bad who come from Arabland. Even I, who knows next to nothing about the middle east, know that an entire people can not be based on the actions of one radical group; just because PETA is in existence, does not mean that all of the United States throws red paint on those who wear fur. The clips of comedy shown in this film I thought were hysterical, and do not feel horrible for laughing at these jokes. I believe that those who laugh at these jokes are the ones who understand that these stereotypes have gone too far and have lasted for far too long. In fact I am laughing at those people who fear Muslims when they walk into an airport.

09/09/09: Introduction

Hello,

My name is Molly White and for my first blog I thought I would start out by telling you a little about myself, just so that I could get a hang of blogging and so I could possibly meet a few people. I am a freshman and an English major who plans on becoming a Dance minor and possibly adding Sociology as a double major.

Dance is my first love but every one knows there is little to no money to be made in that industry so I have fallen back on my second love, books. As of right now the career path that I am strongly considering is being a Librarian. Surrounding myself with one of my passions for a career sounds superb. Along with working with books and studies, I would enjoy working with young children teaching them classes and showing them the joys of reading, much like the classes taught at the Portage Public Library on weekends and during the summer.

I have always loved the subject of English but never so much the grammar side, instead I have always had a fondness for reading and I often enjoy writing, but not enough to make a career out of it. I do enjoy discussions on books and their themes and often I would lead in class discussions throughout High School. However, I know very little about the Middle East and its culture so I feel a little wary about how useful my analytical skills will be for Dr. Webb’s class. Despite my lack of knowledge in this field I am excited to learn and to research all that I am able.