Baghdad Burning

So as I lay in bed convalescing, I am coming to appreciate how blessed I am to have a job that lets me work from home. I can be ill, in my pajamas, and doing just as much work as I ordinarily would today. My plan was to prepare for class Monday by reading the work I've assigned my students. Though I'm teaching the department syllabus, I was allowed to select the reading for the final third of the course.

I chose a blog I read for a grad school course called Baghdad Burning. I just want to take a moment to gush about the way Riverbend is able to write in such a way that makes me simultaneously question my role as an American and appreciate her life as an Iraqi. The way she works details into her posts, the way she has captured American English idioms and sarcasm...I just can't believe how talented she is.

The post that moves me most this morning is this one. What must it be like to have to develop such a talent? To one day work as a computer programmer in a rather modern city and the next be sleeping on the roof, able to recognize various types of gunfire? My brain is somewhere far away today. I feel really grateful that I found this website and that I'm aware of the insider's perspective of this "war on terror." It feels really important to me to have read this.