Biography

I was born in Bartella a village north of Iraq. I spent my childhood in Baghdad until the war raged on. I was in Iraq until March of 2008, which was when we could no longer stay there because of the dangers that affected both me and my family.

We moved to Turkey because of the war. When we were in Turkey, we applied to be refugees in the United States. After nine months, we got accepted and we flew overseas to come to this wonderful place. We arrived to the Untied States a week before Christmas and it was the best christmas that I had in a long time.

When I first stepped onto American soil, I realized that I had the opportunity of turning my dreams to reality. Soon, I soon found out that it would be more difficult than I anticipated because I was unable to attend school for almost a year, due to my stay in Turkey. This caused me to forget most of the materials that I learned in which resulted in placing me in extremely low math and English level classes when I began school during January of 2009.

Being placed in low level classes did not discourage me, but allowed me to excel. Within two and a half years, I did not only finish the remedial classes, but also all the requirments to get accepted to a university, which included four years of regular English.

Now, I know that I will not let anything hold me back from my dreams. I have overcome the war, the challenges of learning a new language, and have graduated high school in two and a half years. I give everything in my life a hundred and ten percent despite its significance because I know that the only place success comes before work, is in the dictionary.

To know what my highschool counselor has to say about me click here.