Weapons in a university

  The two Hummers came flying through the open gates of the University of Technology while the Bradley stayed out in the street, they took a right, then a left and stopped in the depth of the parking lot, killed the engines and got out. There were about seven of them, with an Iraqi female translator. The good thing is that they stopped in the parking lot, not in front of a department, which meant this was just a patrol. The sight of U.S. soldiers in the street is a very normal sight and not something you would stare at, choppers like Apaches and Cobras are now known to Iraqis and most of us could identify them by sight, even the Abrahams tank isn't very rare to see. But at the university things are different. Weapons are not allowed, so the sight of armed soldiers walking through the university was the special of the day. Like all the places in Baghdad the university has had it's share of terrorist actions, a year ago a bomb was found in one the labs, police scrambled into the place with U.S. specialists to disarm the bomb, since then the security has been very tightened, to discover that many would come to college armed with small guns. And in the beginning of this second year of mine in the university, it was a target for mortar bombing which created such a panic then, one of them went very near the central library of the university, and many students were injured because of the flying glass.

  The front entrance of the university, which is on the left side of Al-Sina3a st. (The industrial st.), is well guarded and students are searched for weapons before entering the university, which is supposed to make the place a safe area, but the back entrance is a place where there is no government. There is only a single guard, who doesn't bother to search anyone, just stands there. Even though plenty of students come that way, because this entrance is closer to the Baghdad Al-Jadida Highway (The new Baghdad Highway). A week ago there was a problem between the students of the computers department, and the students of the former Rasheed military college, police came and the front gates and entrance were closed to prevent anyone from getting out and in, but the back entrance was going on as normal. I guess it is going to take more than bombing to make those folks realize they need to start searching for weapons before letting anyone come in.

  My finals are starting on the 24th of this month, and going on until 16/6 so I'll be very busy until that time, because for someone who wants to get a PhD in the future, it is going to take a lot more than just succeeding my exams to get things going. Last year I came second on my branch, and third on the whole department, very good huh??. This year though is not as good, my mid year exams weren't that good, so I'm not sure if things are going to be like that. Any way I guess I'll be posting less than once a week in the next few weeks, it took me 3 days to write this, each day I write a paragraph and today I'll post it.

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