Blong Entry 6: Personal Essay

A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.

I was born and raised in New York City. I lived there for eight years until 2003 when my Moroccan parents decided it was time to go back to their home, so that my brother and I could get to know the Moroccan side of ourselves. After the 9/11 attacks, New York City became a different place, at least that was what my parents told me. A different place for Muslims was what they really meant. Thousands of people were killed in the 9/11 attacks that shook America. Things just weren't the same anymore. I remember hearing stories of friends of my mother who wore the hijab being harassed on the street. "Go home!", they would scream. What home? America is the home of people from all over the world. A melting pot. But things had changed and politicians were preparing for a war against terrorism. My parents decided it was time to pack up and leave. For two years my parents talked it over, argued about it, and finally came to a conclusion. June 2003 was the deadline. Off we go.

June 2003 was not the first time I would see Morocco. We went every summer. But this time, I had to go to a new school and live there. The idea of living in North Africa was new to me but I had no choice. My dad kept telling me about George Washington Academy. How it was an amazing school, even better than the public school I went to in New York. I was excited to start fourth grade in a new place but I was sad about leaving my old friends behind. Old friends they became. Fourth grade was an interesting year for me. I met new friends, made many enemies, and learned to adjust to something totally new. I learned to read and write Classical Arabic and French. My teachers liked me but I remember having problems with my classmates. However, growing up in GWA and getting used to my peers has changed that.  I learned to like Morocco.

Even though I had gotten used to Morocco after my first year. I began to harbor bitter feelings. I longed for home and home still was not Casablanca or Morocco at all. It was New York. I missed my friends. I missed my teachers. I missed my life back there. Realization just hit me later than it should have. I began to sink in these bitter thoughts and throughout Middle School I did not feel like myself anymore. My grades dropped my self-esteem even lower and I was falling into destruction. Ninth grade registration day came along and I was a different person. I pushed myself to motivation. I pushed myself to strive for the best. I realized that I am in high school now and slacking off was not the way to success. I pushed myself to my highest potential. That year I worked hard and got good grades, made new friends, and saw life in a different light. I thought that in four years it would be graduation time and I would be starting a totally new life with new people. And here I am as a senior, my final year of high school. The excitement is running through my blood and I cannot wait.

Through my experiences, I have learned that falling down and scraping your knees is a part of life. Things cannot always be perfect. We all make mistakes, we all fall down at some point, several points, in our lives. However, there are wrong and right ways to look at your failures. When I fell, I looked at my failures the wrong way. Instead making the best of the situation, I made the worse of it but later, I learned from my mistakes and realized the huge flaw in the way I was thinking. I was not getting anywhere by focusing on my issues and not trying to fix them. I learned that the way to fix my problems was to look at them objectively and positively while trying to find a solution. We are all diverse through our experiences but in the end we are all human and failure, as well as success, is something we all deal with and share.

Blog Entry 5: Done!

Change: The characters change continuously throughout the novel. Baba becomes more open towards Amir and seems to love him more due to the new situation he finds himself in; he loses his wealth and is reduced to an exile, fighting to provide for himself and his son after fleeing his home country. Amir matures through falling in love and reflecting on his past as well as finding the courage to go back to Afghanistan to save his nephew and manages to forgive himself towards the end when Assef beats him up. Hassan moves on from the incident that scarred him horribly by also falling in love and marrying, which brings him a great blessing that soothes his past pains, Sohrab.

Relativity: The themes are strongly universal. The main theme of family is something we deal with everyday. Each and every one of us has to face conflicts that arise between family members and the problems that have to be solved with the whole family standing up together. The novel emphasizes the importance of family and its strength in society. Blood ties dominate Afghan tradition, which is another strong theme in the novel. We all deal with the pressures of tradition in our lives. Our parents expect certain things from us like taking a certain career path or marrying a certain person. Failure and learning from one's mistakes is another universal theme in the novel because we have all faced failure and have had to learn from our mistakes, whether major or minor. Our mistakes are obstacles that we all have to face during our lives over and over again. This novel teaches how even if one makes a mistake, there is always a way to repair the mistake and the most important step is forgiving oneself, then learning from it.

Experience: Reading this novel has been a great journey through the sad and happy moments in Khaled Hosseini's unique characters' lives. I received a strong insight into the character's lives and surroundings through the author's talent with words, which has been beneficial to me because I learned more about Afghanistan and the depth of its conflicts. I am definitely planning to read A Thousand Splendid Suns!

Blog Entry 4: Halfway There...

This story makes me depressed :( but I love it! The main theme that permeates this novel is the theme of Family. Ali and Hassan, Baba and Amir, Assef and his parents, The General, his wife, and Soraya. Each grouping is a family with their own problems and history. Each family has to deal with some kind of strife at some point, going back to their ties to Afghanistan, a nation in turmoil, a nation with no apparent future. Another theme is Regret. Amir regrets watching what happened to Hassan and not having done anything. His regret grows so strong that it begins to control his life. Insomnia, going out of his way to avoid facing Hassan, which includes suggesting he and his father be fired, an idea that angers Baba. He even puts money and the watch Baba gave him under Hassan's bed to make him look like a thief. This is the final straw and against Baba's will, Hassan and Ali leave the house, never to go back. The third and fourth themes are Tradition and Nationality. Tradition is an important part of Afghan culture, especially when it comes to gender roles. Men get to have the most power and can pretty much do whatever they want and manage to get away with it but women have limits. Men can have sexual relationships before marriage but if a woman does, her reputation is ruined, as seen with Soraya. No one would marry the poor girl because she had a made a mistake once and ran off with a man. However, the forgiver shows through in Amir, who loves her and marries her for who she is, not basing his decision on her "purity". This theme also shows up in the relationship between Baba and Amir. Baba wants Amir to be a tough, strong man but that is just not what he is like. He has a weak stomach and is very emotional, crying at every sad thing that happens. And to add to that, he is not good at sports like Baba nor does he enjoy watching sports, he prefers reading and writing. Nationality is a strong theme that every Afghan character seems to have some bit of. Each character dealt with pain in Afghanistan when the Russians or Roussi waged war against them and took over. Thousands of Afghan fled to Pakistan and left their homes, angered and saddened at the sudden change that occurred in their once comfortable lives. Everything changed quickly. Everything. But through their hardships, they remained loyal to Afghanistan and held it close to their hearts because it represented their nation, their home, their hope. I like Amir. He is one of the most interesting characters I have ever met. I love how he defies what a "real man" should be like. He cries easily and has a weak stomach. Even though I disagree with what he did (letting Hassan be raped), I feel that he is being punished everyday through his guilt. His guilt shows that he feels bad. If he were a horrible person, he would not feel guilty. His guilt is what keeps me from getting angry at him. He is obviously being tortured every single day. Sure he has moved on and made a new life but Hassan will never, ever leave his mind. I have a couple of questions about the second half of the book...How will Amir meet Hassan again? What has been the outcome of Ali's and Hassan's lives? Will Soraya and Amir manage to have a baby? I have been really enjoying reading this novel. I love the themes and the way the author describes the setting vividly and I can feel as though I am there, with the characters in Amir's grand house in Afghanistan, in the cramped basement in Pakistan, and in Fremont, California, where Baba and Amir start a new life. I have no problems reading the book. Sure its sad and some parts are shocking but it is such an interesting novel that I cannot stop reading it!