ISSUE NO 6: EDITORIAL: FAILURE IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS

FAILURE IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS

Success will come after failure. In other words; if you do not commit a mistake you will learn nothing in life. This is why we must have WILL and DETERMINATION to solve our problems by ourselves without any help. Of course you will be definitely sad if you fail and you want to turn back the time to correct the mistake that you have committed. But, you must bear in mind that this is not the end of the world and you should be flexible to accept every result. Sometimes intelligent students become pessimist after they get unsatisfying marks. This is wrong, instead of being passive; you must be active by transforming this low mark into a positive reaction that motivates you in order to get higher marks next time. Sometimes people become desperate in a certain situation of their lives due to difficulties and bad consequences. 

One may ask the question: how can we tackle these problems? The answer is very simple: you can handle them up by your confidence, and for this reason you must have self-confidence. Maybe, you are wondering, why the writer of this article used "must" many times, well, because we must, and we have to understand life better otherwise we will come to a dead-end. I myself witnessed so many hard times, but fortunately I overcame these crises just by knowing that one will not be a good learner, if he doesn’t commit mistakes.

IBRAHIM T. AL-BAYATI

ISSUE NO 6: An Interview With The President Of Al-Mustansiriya University

An Interview with the President of Al-Mustansiriya University
Prof. Dr. Ihsan Al Qurashi

Q 1: Who is Prof. Dr. Ihsan Al Qurashi as a president of a distinguished university in our beloved country? and what are his qualifications?
- I am Prof. Dr. Ihsan Kadem Al-Qurashi, a professor in Mathematical Statistics. I was born in 1955. My civil service career is nearly 36 years. I hold a Ph.D. from Al-Mustansiriya University. I’m married and have three daughters, one son and five grandchildren.

Q2: What are the achievements you made during your presidency of Al-Mustansiriya University?
- The cooperation between the university president and the Council of Teachers and Staff has created a lot of achievements on the administrative and service levels. In the scientific field, we have established in the past year 15 scientific conferences (note that such conferences were absent from the faculties of the university since the year 2000), in addition to 35 scientific and intellectual seminars that were attended by important figures such as Deputy Ministers. On Science Day, our university received the award for First Professor along with other five scientific awards, in addition to winning 17 scientific rewards by our teaching staff. As for extra-curricular activities, we have started exhibitions of painting and organized sporting events last year. We have even won first place in football and basketball, second place in chess and third place in volleyball. But the most important achievement for me was taking the university away from the political and religious interactions and effects.

Q 3: What are the problems faced currently by the university in its colleges and what are the solutions proposed to fix them?
- Our problems are not much different from the problems of the rest of the universities, and in next April a conference will be held in which the university will assess and criticize itself. We do suffer from a lack of spaces, an increase in the number of students and old laboratories. In addition to the university's lack of scientific techniques. We are in the process of addressing these problems to solve them.

Q4: How do you deal with students’ hostels and the successful ways to develop them?
- Now that is a big problem! Unfortunately, many of the students residing in these hostels do not take care of the public propertis and do not maintain them in any way, they act irresponsibly and this is a waste of funds. In addition, there are a lot of students and there is no place for them to go. So, we try to expand horizontally and vertically, and provide the best services to our dear students and all we ask for in return is for them to maintain the properties that we are providing for them.

Q5: What do you think of last year’ success rates? Is it on the level required? What are your approaches in this concern?
- Success rates varied last year according to colleges, but they were not as good as we wish for, because the premises were weak, so it is natural that the results will be weak as well. There are a lot of students, and we seek that each one of them gets what he truly deserves. Still, this does not mean that every student that graduates from preparatory school must be enrolled in college.

Q6: What are your future plans for the development of postgraduate studies at the university?
- We seek to get rid of a lot of unwanted burden in terms of students, faculty and staff so that we can get to the level that we require, and in our abovementioned April conference we will reconsider the question of the admission to graduate studies in terms of number and type, and we will provide the necessary facilities. There are also regulations concerning study leaves. The conditions of applying for graduate studies are to obtain the TOEFL and IC3 along with the average.

Q 7: Students suffer from high prices of food and drinks in the Students’ Club, what would you say about that?
- We will form a committee to monitor the prices and hygiene of the students’ club.

Q 8: Do you have any intention in expanding the university as far as buildings and departments are concerned?
- Yes, there are facilities under development (for example, the medical campuses in Al-Baya’a and in Sab’ Abkar.) New departments will be established like the Dpartment of Mass Media and the the Department of Turkish Language, and there is also a plan to further activate the Department of French Language.

Q9: What is your opinion in TRANSMAG: The Translation Students Magazine? What are your suggestions to develop it?
- Currently, I have no comment because I need to read it and get to know its activities better before I can give it a just assessment.

Q 10: Is there anything you would like to add?
- First, I hope my colleagues of the teaching staff will keep taking their responsibility to the fullest and doing their best in raising the level of education as they always did. Secondly, I hope our dear students will know their duty and make the efforts required of them. One day, we will all be gone and they will take the responsibility and carry the burden on their shoulders. So, they must seize the opportunity. We will do our part by providing ways for them to develop themselves.

I am glad to meet you.

Interveiwed by:
Dia Sulaibi,
Ibrahim T. Al-Bayati,
Hussien Faisal,
& Eve Dhiab

ISSUE NO 6: Short Story: Dinosaur

Dinosaur

By Bruce Holland Rogers

When he was very young, he waved his arms, gnashed the teeth of his massive jaws, and tromped around the house so that the dishes trembled in the china cabinet. “Oh, for goodness sake,” his mother said. “You are not a dinosaur! You are a human being!” Since he was not a dinosaur, he thought for a time that he might be a pirate. “Seriously,” his father said at some point, “what do you want to be?” A fireman, then. Or a policeman. Or a soldier. Some kind of hero. But in high school they gave him tests and told him he was very good with numbers. Perhaps he would like to be a math teacher? That was respectable. Or a tax accountant? He could make a lot of money doing that. It seemed a good idea to make money, what with falling in love and thinking about raising a family. So he was a tax accountant, even though he sometimes regretted that it made him, well, small. And he felt even smaller when he was no longer a tax accountant, but a retired tax accountant. Still worse, a retired tax accountant who forgot things. He forgot to take the garbage to the curb, forgot to take his pill, forgot to turn his hearing aid back on. Every day it seemed he had forgotten more things, important things, like which of his children lived in San Francisco and which of his children were married or divorced.

Then one day when he was out for a walk by the lake, he forgot what his mother had told him. He forgot that he was not a dinosaur. He stood blinking his dinosaur eyes in the bright sunlight, feeling the familiar warmth on his dinosaur skin, watching dragonflies flitting among the horsetails at the water’s edge.

ISSUE NO 6: SPORT

Ammo Baba

Ammo Baba is one of the greatest figures of Iraqi football first started in Iraq in the 1950s. He is also one of the golden characters of the Football World particularly in the Arab World. He was even granted the title of “Iraqi Coaches Master” due to his experiences and accomplishments in the field of training in Iraqi football, and he established the Football Ammo Baba School in order to brush up the talents.
Ammo Baba was born in Baghdad in1934, when he was 17 years old he joined the Iraqi School Team. His first rise in the national team was in the Arab Games in Beirut in 1957 and he also participated in the first Olympic team for football in Rome Olympic Games qualifiers, after that he retired from the game in 1967.

He moved on to the training field in 1972 when he was assistant coach of the Iraqi national team and led that team in the Military World Cup in Baghdad. He also occupied that job in the Arab Gulf championship in Doha in 1976. Afterwards, he led the national team of Iraq as a coach in the Asian games in 1978, Merdeka championship in 1981, the Asian games in 1982, the Olympic games in Los Angeles and Seoul qualifiers in 1984 and 1988; the Arab cup in 1988, the World cup qualifiers in 1990 and 1994; the Asian cup qualifiers in 1996 and the Asian cup for junior youth in 2000.

But he emerged in the championships of Arab Gulf more prominent ally, when he led the Iraqi team to win 3 titles of that championship. The first one was held in Baghdad in 1979, the second championship took place in Masqat in 1984. And it was in KSA in 1988 when the Iraqi team gained the third title.

Finally, Ammo Baba made his last appearance in the Gulf championship in Masqat in 2009 when he was a member of the Iraqi delegation. Then he passed away on 27th May, 2009. It is to be mentioned that he led the Iraqi National Team in its various categories in 158 international matches.

Prepared by
Mushriq A. Jaber

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Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal was born in 1986, Spanish tennis player noted for his outstanding game on clay courts. Nadal uses his speed, agility, and stamina to great advantage on clay, the slowest surface in tennis, as he sprints and lunges across the court to return shots. A relentless opponent, he fights for every point and adapts his game to the other player’s weaknesses. His signature outfit on court —a sleeveless shirt and calf-length pant — reveals his muscular power. 

Rafael Nadal Parera, known as Rafa to his friends and fans, was born on June 3, 1986, in Manacor on the island of Mallorca off the coast of Spain. He began playing tennis at the age of four, coached by his uncle Toni Nadal. Although naturally right-handed, the young Nadal learned to play tennis left-handed at his uncle’s suggestion in order to add power to his two-handed backhand. In 2004 Nadal helped Spain win the Davis Cup by defeating Andy Roddick of the United States. In 2006, at the French Open, Nadal won his 54th straight victory on clay, breaking the record for consecutive wins on clay set by Guillermo Vilas of Argentina in 1977.

Nadal’s first grand slam championship came in 2005 at the French Open, where he defeated Mariano Puerto of Argentina in the men’s singles final. Nadal had already beaten top-ranked Roger Federer of Switzerland in the semifinal match. In July 2005 Nadal gained the number-two ranking in men’s professional tennis.

The rivalry between the top two tennis players heated up in 2006. In June Nadal defended his French Open title and beat Federer in a much-anticipated championship match. The next month Nadal demonstrated that he posed a threat on grass courts as well. To the surprise of everyone, including himself, Nadal quickly adjusted to the faster (and quirkier) bounce on the grass courts of Wimbledon and reached the singles final. So did Federer, who was playing on his favorite surface. 

Federer demonstrated that he was still the number-one player, at least on grass, by defeating Nadal in four sets. Nadal, however, remained the only player to have beaten Federer in 2006. In 2007 Nadal again deprived Federer of a French Open title by winning the championship for a third consecutive year; at Wimbledon he lost to Federer in the title match. 

Prepared by
Safa Abdulsahib