My name is Zara. It’s finally time for my last blog of this class; I have improved a lot in all this time. In these 13 weeks, I have learned about blogging, analyzing, and much more about Syria and Pakistan. Pakistan is a country I lived in for 10 years, and I thought I knew a lot about it, however, that wasn’t the case. I am now confident to say that I know these countries. I learned how democracy isn’t simply a type of government; it is a whole category. The only government types I was aware of were democratic and authoritarian, I knew nothing beyond this. This class taught me the diversity of regimes and their impacts and how one single type of government can’t be suitable for all countries.

When I chose to write about Syria I didn’t know much about it, and to be honest, I was going to choose Lebanon, but before I could, someone sitting behind me said “Lebanon” and next was my turn to choose. And I had searched Lebanon when I was looking for countries, and by chance, I saw Syria, so I went with it. But as I started it felt easier to do it after every blog. I learned something new while researching about Syria. I didn’t know that Syria had an authoritarian rule or an ongoing conflict. But thanks to that I know that Bashar al-Assad has stepped down after years 24 years of ruling as a dictator, he was finally overthrown on December 8. And that’s big news for me.

When I started blogging, I was unsure of many things and found blogging hard. I even got stuck at some point and couldn’t blog for three weeks. I submitted many of my pending blogs in one week because I didn’t do those on time. But I think have done a pretty good job of blogging, as the saying goes “Better late than never”(by Titus Livius).

I did three assignments other than the blogs. I think that I deserve an A.