Enjoying School

I may owe you a correction. In one of my recent posts I noted that 70,000,000 of Iran's citizens were under the age of 30. Today I read that Iran has 70,000,000 inhabitants, 2/3 of whom are under the age of 30. In either case, that is a pretty large number. Just reporting what I read.....
Since there is really nothing new to report on the riots in Iran, I decided to check on an amazing 17 year old girl who attends school in Mosul, in northern Iraq. In her latest blog, she tells about studying and restudying for her exams coming up on June 20. Doing well in school is of extreme importance to her, because she wants to become either a pharmacist or an engineer. She has had to put up with quite a bit of inconvenience to get the job done, but she is still hanging in there. Once, a bomb destroyed part of her house,and she has had to find different ways to get to school to avoid insurgent attacks in her neighborhood. In this blog, she tells about she and her fellow students pooling their money to buy some gas for the school generator, so they could have lights and power for a fan. Evidently it gets warm in the summer in Iraq. I can't help but contrast her attitude with those of many students in the U.S. Our students get a free education in an air-conditioned school, with free lunches and trained teachers. In the face of all this largesse, an apalling number cannot even motivate themselves to go to class, let alone graduate. Motivate is probably the buzz word here. The girl in Mosul calls herself "Sunshine", and I think this name describes her positive attitude. She is definitely motivated because she can see a bright future for herself, but she knows it won't happen without a big effort on her part. My heart goes out to her, and I wish her every success.