Blog World

Gabcast! <a href=”http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&b=play&id=8538&cast=74107″ target=”_BLANK”>A Blog of One’s Own #139</a><br><br><object classid=”clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000″ width=”150″ height=”76″ codebase=”http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/mp3player.swf?file=http://www.gabcast.com/casts/8538/episodes/1209421052.mp3&config=http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/config.php?ini=mini.0.l” /><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent” /><param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always” /><embed src=”http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/mp3player.swf?file=http://www.gabcast.com/casts/8538/episodes/1209421052.mp3&config=http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/config.php?ini=mini.0.l” allowScriptAccess=”always” wmode=”transparent” width=”150″ height=”76″ name=”mp3player” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer”></embed></object>

Gabcast! <a href=”http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&b=play&id=8538&cast=73801″ target=”_BLANK”>A Blog of One’s Own #123</a><br><br><object classid=”clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000″ width=”150″ height=”76″ codebase=”http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/mp3player.swf?file=http://www.gabcast.com/casts/8538/episodes/1209254530.mp3&config=http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/config.php?ini=mini.0.l” /><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent” /><param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always” /><embed src=”http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/mp3player.swf?file=http://www.gabcast.com/casts/8538/episodes/1209254530.mp3&config=http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/config.php?ini=mini.0.l” allowScriptAccess=”always” wmode=”transparent” width=”150″ height=”76″ name=”mp3player” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer”></embed></object>

Gabcast! <a href=”http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&b=play&id=8538&cast=72262″ target=”_BLANK”>A Blog of One’s Own #87</a><br><br><object classid=”clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000″ width=”150″ height=”76″ codebase=”http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/mp3player.swf?file=http://www.gabcast.com/casts/8538/episodes/1208456362.mp3&config=http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/config.php?ini=mini.0.l” /><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent” /><param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always” /><embed src=”http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/mp3player.swf?file=http://www.gabcast.com/casts/8538/episodes/1208456362.mp3&config=http://www.gabcast.com/mp3play/config.php?ini=mini.0.l” allowScriptAccess=”always” wmode=”transparent” width=”150″ height=”76″ name=”mp3player” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer”></embed></object>

The video that I have watched was from the series Alive In Baghdad. The title of the video was called “Challenges at a Girl’s School in Baghdad, and was published May 21^st, 2007. The video contained children and teachers being interviewed. The school was called Al-Safina Middle School and was located in Adhamiya but served to many girls all over Baghdad. One problem in the school is the continuing violence that is making the situation for students more challenging, but even despite that the students are determined to continue their education. One child said that the Americans are always searching around the school and the area. One teacher said that this is not just a problem at this particular school it is a problem at every school around the area.

Video:  http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/05/21/challenges-at-a-girls-school-in-baghdad/

It is hard for the staff to get to school and even if they do that are endangering them. Many of the students miss many days and it is hard to catch them up. When the whole town is under search it is hard to get to school because of all the road blocks, checkpoints, and traffic. One student said she was used to all the shootings that are around her on her way to school. They featured on of the teachers and told the viewers that there has also been a decrease in the school systems and many of the student’s parents are worried of their child traveling to school and want them to quit because of all the dangers around them. It is also very stressful, so it is hard for the students to raise their grade because of all the violence outside the classroom. She also says it is hard to ignore what is happening, and they say they never know what is going to happen tomorrow. The background of the video was the students in the classroom. The classroom did not seem as nice as they are here in America. There are not as many objects in the classroom. It also showed the streets, which were dirty and a lot of the buildings were torn down. I think that this is a terrible thing that the students have to suffer from getting the education that they need. I think it is crazy that it is so dangerous just to go to school every morning. I have learned what is it like over in Baghdad because I did not know that the war was effecting everyone. The most memorable clip in the video was when the interviewer asked one of the students if they were used to the shooting and she said yes. This is a really moving video and I would recommend watching it.

Saturday, August 30^th 2003 River bend started off her blog about Al-Hakim. That was the day he was assassinated. She says that him and his followers had a big part of the actually bombing, were 126 people died, and over 300 wounded. While looking for him online, he was born 1950. He is an Iraqi theologian and politician and the leader of SIIC, the largest political party in the Iraqi Council of Representatives. He was also a member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and served as its president December 2003. I thought it was very important because he and his followers had a big attack on city which effect many people’s lives, even Riverbend’s life. She also says that many of his followers have turned on him when he returned to Iraqi. I think that this is an important person because he was in charge of some of the bombings and people’s lives, and because of his death they were somewhat celebrating because some of the bad was gone.

        After reading your first blog I felt very intrigued in what I was reading. I now understand what is going on for people living in Baghdad. I think with all the information you stated is very important for the other side of the war, the Americans, to know what is going on in the war. We only see what is on the news stations, and that isn’t the real life stuff. Reading you blog gives us a chance to see how awful it really is to live during a war.  It must be awful living in that situation, and especially being a female. It must be really hard not being able to leave your house without having escorts to bring me where ever I needed to go. I would be so scared to leave the house and I can’t imagine living like that. I think that even if there is a war, the people living in that country should not have to suffer like you are. I really appreciate giving us the information that no one knows of. I understand how you can hate Americans and what we are doing because I think it is very wrong too, but sometimes we have to do what we have to do. By reading your blog I was informed of what living in Baghdad was like with the war around, and without the war and I think you’re doing a good thing and I enjoy reading your blog.

Ahdaf Soueif, Baghdad Burning, New York: The Feminist Press, 2005.

                The book we are currently reading in class is called Baghdad Burning. The book is about a young woman named Riverbend telling her life experiences with the war. She is in her mid-twenties, lives in middle class section of Baghdad with her mother, father, and brother. Her and her brother sit and watch Baghdad burning. Sitting and watching the war was a way of life. The book starts off her information about her life and continues with background information about the gulf war and the war of 2003. It relates to our class because it is a blog, and our class concentrates on blogs. This includes people who are writing blogs. From reading this book, you will learn all about the war. As soon as you start reading the first blog, she rears you in and you can not stop reading it. I think this is a good book to read. You can learn about someone else’s view of the war and how she lived with the war going on in her life.

Burning Bagdad is the blog of a young woman named Riverbend. Riverbend is described as a girl blog from Iraq in a very unique way. She is in her mid-twenties and lives in the middle-class section of Bahgdad with her mother, father, and brother. Before the war, she was an English writer. The reader is giving us insight to what her life was like and the hardship of what she had to go through. Her blog has been the most important source of news from Iraq because it is her was her way of life. The author then goes on to explain what happens with the WW1. We are told about the great politics that are discussed throughout the book and that the main purpose of the books is to give the minds set on one opinion about the Arab and Muslin people. When going into the introduction, a man named James Ridgeway begins to tell us about Riverbend and her blog. He also wrote about his opinion, in which he thought she was a unique person because of her background and the situation she came from. He discussed the events during the Gulf war in 1991 which lead to the way in 2003. Through out the introduction I have learned a lot about the war and most of it was very shocking to me.

Woolf states that “It is necessary to have five hundred a year and a room with a lock on the door if you are to write fiction or poetry” (pg.105). I feel that I do not always have a room to my self. I live in a college dorm room so there not much alone time. Woolf also says that “There must be freedom and there must be peace” (pg.104). Living with two other people there is never any alone time where I can think. Woolf says that women through out history were not able to do the things we can do now, and that is why she puts so much stress on making sure women have a room of their own so they can take advantage of what we are aloud to do. “I had come at last, in the course of this rambling, to the shelves which old books by the living; by women and by men; for there are almost as many books written by women now as by men” (pg.79). As time goes on, Woolf tells us that women are growing, and they are more appreciated for the things they have done since the beginning of the book. She also says, “Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves” (pg. 108). Woolf is trying to say that women were never good enough to have such intellect and to be noticed for it is such a big thing, so it is important for women to have a space of their own so they can concentrate we can be listened by all, which I feel that I do not have a room to my own in which I can do so.

After reading the article in the feminist blog I thought to myself what has this world come to? Do we make our own choices in everything we do in life? Women never got to be so powerful in the sixteenth century. Women even get there own blog for themselves? Women can express how they feel without something bad happen to them? That was a bit strange to see. I was shocked with what was written in some of these blogs, women have their own room were they can sit and write, we could never have done that. One blog explained about marriage laws, we never got to choose who we wanted to marry. I was also shocked to see the language used. This blog was all about women, which is very different from what I am used to, usually only men, like Shakespeare are only aloud to write, and the women’s wall was empty.  Women are so involved with everyone that is it just so different.