Simmons GSLIS: Dispatches from the Field

Hi every one… This is Khairi, Abdulateef. I’d like to talk here about the first few days that we have spent here in Boston.

My initial impression of the USA and Boston was very nice. I met a lot of nice and generous people here -no offense- more than what I had expected (with all due respect). That is because I have seen a lot of bad American movies which describe the people here in a different way (and bad way in many of them). In addition to that, I thought they will not be able to spend that much time that they have spent with us just to make us feel comfortable here.

At the same time, I have very good friends here. However they just shocked me in their extreme generosity and caring even more than what I expected (because they are very busy people and their time is very limited as I know).
The place here is very different from what I expected. I thought that all the buildings here will be very large and tall. It is big and nice (more than the one that we have there in our home). But I used to see very tall towers (in the movies and photos) in the USA. And I thought it will be like this here in Boston.

We have ventured out with some nice people who were sent by the very wonderful and kind Dean Michele V. Cloonan, and some other people from Simmons College. They volunteered to take us out in Boston. They took us on tours to discover the city. We used public transportation, and saw the important places.

We visited the MFA “Museum of Fine Arts”, the Boston public garden, and the historical places in Boston. We went to Boston Public Library and some others colleges in the neighborhood, like Harvard and the MIT which are two of the most famous universities in the USA.

There are a lot of universities and colleges in our neighborhood. In fact, we live in the middle of University community here. One of the things that we did not know was that a lot of the educational institutions that are called Colleges here are Universities!?!. It is a confusing thing. One of the best examples of that is Simmons College. We thought that it is only a College. But it is a University at the same time. It contains many colleges in it. The colleges are called “schools”. Simmons College contains many schools such as the GSLIS (Graduate School of Library and Information Science). It contains also other schools which are: School of Management, School for Health Studies, School of Social Work, and College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Studies. It has M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in it. Some of them have B.A. in it, and others are not (like GSLIS).

For us, we haven’t started our studies yet. But Simmons College arranged an English course for us in the Boston languages institution for 4 weeks. We tried to improve our English language as much as we could before we start the courses.

We hope that we will succeed in that “Insha’Allah”…

Yours truly,
Khairi, Abdulateef Hashim

Posted by Meaghan O'Connor at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi every one… this is Khairi, Abdulateef here. I’d like to tell you about the day that we spent here with Harvey.

It has been a very long time from the last training course in UAE in 2006. We were very eager to meet all our best friends here, especially Harvey. We came here to Boston and waited for the day that we would see him again. But unfortunately, we heard some news here that made us sad. We heard that he would come in the next week, but would be leaving Massachusetts to go to another state to start his new job…

The news just shocked us. But at the same time we heard that he got a good job there. So, we were very happy for him, and sad at the same time.

After one week, we heard that Harvey has arrived in the USA. We had been told that he’d like to meet us the next day. We met him, and it was a very nice moment. He was our close friend, so we were very happy to meet him at last.

We had lunch together. We talked about a lot of things. He asked us about all the things that we have done in Baghdad up until we arrived in Boston. Then, he confirmed the news about his moving to another state. He invited us to visit his house the next day, because he had to move out the day after that.

The next morning, he picked us up at the main door of Simmons College’s main building. Before we went to his house, he took us on a nice tour of his neighborhood. It was a very nice place. The natural surroundings there were very attractive. He showed us some historical places where some famous people had lived.

We went to his house. It was a very nice and warm house. We met his wonderful wife there. She was a very nice and kind lady. We had a very nice time there.

When we left Harvey’s house, we went to a market near there. We saw some nice things to buy. We picked out some gloves and a scarf, but Harvey insisting on paying for them. We tried to tell him that we are ok, and that we can afford it. But he refused to listen to us and he paid for them. He is a very nice friend and he says that this is what friends do for each other.

When he got us back to our dormitory, it was a very sad moment. We were almost in tears. He told us that we should visit him some day, and spend some time with him in his new house. He will be in place far away from here, but he said that we can visit him when we have the time for that. We told him that we will do that some day, and that it will be an honor for us.

During the time when we were in his house, he asked us about the computers, and if we had gotten laptops yet. We told him that we were still checking the prices and quality of them. He told us that we should go to see one of the employees at Simmons College next Monday, and she will help us. But the shocking thing was that when we met her, she just asked us about the type and the quality that we need. Then we discovered that Harvey had sent some money to her, and asked her to help buy laptops for us…

We cannot say anything here that could describe the generosity and kindness of this great friend that we have… But all we can say here is… Thanks dear friend Harvey… We will never forget what you have done for us… we cannot pay you back for all the nice things that you have done for us… We miss you a lot already. We wish you all the success in your new job… And hope to meet you very soon Sir.

Yours truly,
Khairi, Abdulateef Hashim

Posted by Meaghan O'Connor at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)