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" On December 24, 2012, my heart was filled with joy, my mind still replaying the Christmas carols from the choir recital that I had just left with my parents and siblings. It was my last recital with the choir that I had been basically living with for eight years. And though I didn&amp;#039;t know it yet, it would also be the last Christmas with Dad, at home in Syria. As we carefully drove back to our apartment in one of Damascus&amp;#039;s most crowded and lively suburbs, I got a phone call from Michael, my best friend since second grade. He said he just wanted to wish me a Merry Christmas Eve and check if we got home safely. He could have heard about a clash near the church or read something on the news. But I did not ask, simply because &amp;quot;Did you make it home safe?&amp;quot; has become the second question you ask a person who lives in Damascus after &amp;quot;Hello, how are you?&amp;quot;  By the time we got home, the awkward phone call ended and my parents were discussing the plan for our Christmas lunch at my grandparents&amp;#039; home the next day. Two hours later, I was praying in bed \u2014 wishing for nothing but peace and whatever my parents decided to put under our tree from Santa this year. I quickly fell asleep to the smell of red wine and chocolate coming from our living room. Around 7 a.m. the next morning, I ran in to open the presents. We never had a Christmas without presents. And none of us kids were ever too old for the excitement. That was my last Christmas at home.  New Year&amp;#039;s Eve came and so did 2013, the year my life completely changed. Signs of Turmoil Protests had begun in 2011. My parents rented two of our apartments to Iraqi refugees, never thinking that one day these rentals would pay for our home as Syrian refugees in the United States. We lived too safe of a life to even imagine what could come.  Soon enough, we adjusted. Everyone did. Everyone was forced to.  I continued to attend \u00C9cole Lourdes, the Catholic school where I had my first successes and failures in life. It was where I learned proper Arabic, French, and English. It was where I met Michael, my lifelong friend. It was where I learned Christianity. It was where I learned that Israel is an Imperialist enemy. It was also where I did not learn about the Holocaust, communism, or any historical event that was not related to either the growth of Islam or Syria as an independent state. Our curriculum was difficult but our lives were easy, at least mine was. I was never bored of school, not even with the same 30 students that I had been with since I learned the alphabet. We shared everything, including our hate for the strict dress code that our sisters, the nuns running the school, enforced. My life seemed perfect, but that did not last too long. Shortly after I watched the first protest on the news in March 2011, I was praying for my parents to come back from work safely. Soon after, I lost a friend from choir in a terrorist attack. A few months later, another friend died from a falling mortar shell. Two weeks later, a car bomb shook our entire apartment building and the books off my desk, killing tens of innocent lives about four buildings away. Yes, four buildings away.  Yet with all of this, my parents still had faith. Not until the day when my sister called, screaming &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re shooting at me,&amp;quot; did my parents seriously consider fleeing.   That morning, we woke up to no power, which had become a norm that we adapted to during the war, along with the frequent loss of water. Our driver took us to school, and as we were driving, we could see the massive fire from the highway. Maria and I tried to play a game and guess where the fire was coming from, but that was hard. We felt it was close to our destination but hated to admit so. The closer we got, the bigger it seemed, until our car was stopped by police vehicles closing the road. Our driver managed to get us to my school building, but Maria had to walk about two blocks to hers. This is when she witnessed what she later recalled as militia chasing some man with a beard, while fire fighters and ambulance cars spread the place. She was in shock and had no idea what to do. She froze in her place and called Mom screaming, &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re shooting at me.&amp;quot;  No one was shooting at her specifically, but guns were actively firing in the area. I never wanted to ask her why she thought she was the one targeted. She doesn&amp;#039;t like to talk about it, and I would rather stay away from having her remember what still brings her nightmares until this very day. Somehow, a teacher found her and brought her to my school building, where I was waiting with the driver, whom I called to come back and pick us up because the school was shutting down for the day. We reached home safely. By the time it took us to be back, I assume my parents prayed to every saint and god known to humankind for our safety.   Leaving for Good About a month later, Maria and I left the American embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, with our visas. That was a miracle. Few Syrians were being granted a visa to come to the United States. We were among the few.  Since the incident near the school, the number of our absences kept growing. I never imagined that my parents would ever force me to skip school, but the war was expanding beyond anyone&amp;#039;s imagination. Then, four days after my last final exam, I was in Beirut&amp;#039;s airport hugging Dad goodbye along with my sister. I had never seen him cry in my entire life until the moment he kissed me goodbye. I felt a deep sadness, unlike anything I&amp;#039;d ever experienced. Baba (dad in the Syrian dialect) did not have a U.S. visa, so I was deeply concerned about our long separation to come. We&amp;#039;ve always been close. I was always on his side during the family&amp;#039;s arguments. I always will be. (Baba, if you&amp;#039;re reading this, I love you.)  From Beirut to Frankfurt to Dallas, I tried to imagine the future but had no colors, no information to build on. I was clueless of what was to come. My life was unexpectedly transforming. All I knew was that I had to make sure Maria and I didn&amp;#039;t miss a flight or go to the wrong gate. Armed with common sense and our language abilities, we arrived at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport on June 4, 2013. My uncle, who has lived and worked in the United States for longer than I have breathed, was there to meet us. We stayed with his loving family for the summer until mom and Mario, my little brother, joined. Starting Over After meeting with the school counselor, we decided that Maria and I were to participate in the International Baccalaureate program instead of the English as a Second Language (ESL) program. (After all, my obsession with Disney Channel&amp;#039;s Hannah Montana had allowed me to master the American accent.) My goal in high school was to receive the International Baccalaureate diploma and two years later, I did.  The first day of school was nerve-racking; it was something I have never experienced before. I wondered how to introduce myself, how to reflect on my country, how to study, and how to make new friends, which was something that I never needed to learn back home. Although I was jokingly called a terrorist, when I&amp;#039;d literally left my father and home because of terrorists, and although I was constantly forced to erase the stereotypes about my religion and life in Syria, I was able to adjust.  Okay, that was inaccurate. I was not able to adjust \u2014 I forced myself to adjust. Skimming through the names of martyrs and injured, which my old neighborhood&amp;#039;s Facebook page posts after attacks, to check if I recognized any names was difficult. But it was the only way to ensure the safety of my loved ones. As much as I hated the negative stigma that the Syrian news brought me, I tried to stay in touch and not lose contact. Skyping with Dad only hurt more, reminding me of how much I miss him every time I saw his face, and a phone call with Michael was no different. Such feelings were impossible to share: I didn&amp;#039;t want to add to my mom&amp;#039;s already-hurting heart, and I couldn&amp;#039;t open up to friends whose main concerns were their homecoming dates. At least my experience in an American high school was not too much of the Mean Girls nightmare that I had prepared myself to deal with. Everyone was nice, though some were scared of me. But I was definitely more scared. By the first month, I had made many acquaintances but only one really good friend. Hannah was the nicest person I have ever met. She always wore a big smile, walked me to classes, introduced me to people, and ate lunch with me. She was my hero \u2014 until one lunch when a friend mentioned something about her being Jewish. I was shocked but tried to hide it. I asked, &amp;quot;Are you really Jewish?&amp;quot; She answered &amp;quot;yes&amp;quot; with her friendly smile. She didn&amp;#039;t fit with anything I&amp;#039;d learned about Jews. That night at home, I vented to my mom, &amp;quot;How could such a nice person as Hannah be Jewish?&amp;quot; Mom, who was obviously much wiser, gave me a speech about how different politics and religion are and how I should be accepting of everyone and how people are people.  Hannah and I quickly became closer. We soon enough realized our similarities clearly outnumbered our differences. While I was figuring out how to live in a household with a single parent, she was figuring out how to deal with her dad&amp;#039;s cancer and eventual death. We learned so much from each other and wrote our college essays about our experience. We both applied to Emory, but she chose Brandeis. Our mothers, too, have formed a unique bond and now frequently send us their pictures sharing a meal.  Hannah taught me the meaning of tolerance, peace, and integration, but America had other lessons. My first American crush came out as being gay, and that, too, truly showed me how acceptance on this planet is the key for a happy life. Although I grew up in an extremely conservative Christian community, I was able to hold onto my faith while respecting his decisions and preserving our friendship. My high school friends enriched my experience, just as much as the different American high school curriculum did.   Blazing a New Trail Somehow, after filling out 26 college applications, Emory University was the one. Since I applied to such a huge number of schools, I honestly knew nothing about Emory besides that it had a good reputation and Hannah was applying.  But once I arrived, I realized how magical of a place it is. Somehow, I was named an Emory Liberal Arts Scholar in my admissions letter, which I had to Google (after I Googled where Emory was located when my mom asked). In just five months, I feel I&amp;#039;ve learned as much as in the last four years \u2014 which is saying a lot.  My interest in creating peace between the Arab and Israeli cultures led me into a Hebrew language classroom. There, I have developed a great admiration for the language that is extremely close to my own. Although I was the only Arab in the class and had an Israeli teacher, I never felt more comfortable and confident in a classroom before. My teacher further affirmed what Hannah had showed me about tolerance and acceptance. Everybody naturally has biases in defense of the beliefs we were raised with. But I now strongly believe that if I could overcome mine, anyone else can. If people did that, I could go visit my homeland \u2014 because peace would actually become a reality.   As a freshman, I am often asked where home is. At the beginning of the year, my answer was Syria/Texas. However, I now consider Emory home. Emory is where an international student from Paris held my candle while I spoke about my experience during a candlelight vigil that was held for world peace, a week after a Syrian terrorist was blamed for the Paris attacks. It&amp;#039;s where I have already formed lifelong friends. It is where I accompanied a classmate to a Shabbat service and attended a Buddhist mediation after I finished my usual Catholic mass in the chapel. It is where I was given an opportunity to research about refugees in Atlanta, Georgia. It is where I am not afraid of my identity as a Syrian refugee \u2014 in a state that is trying to keep people like me out. It is where I brought the photos from the one out of nearly 50 photo albums that I was allowed to pack when I left Syria. It is where I keep my favorite memories and where my new ones are to be made.  For 15 years in Syria, my life was perfect. Then I started over in Texas. And now, I&amp;#039;m building a new future \u2014 however perfectly imperfect \u2014 in the United States.  A version of this essay originally appeared on The Tab. It has been edited for length and clarity. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/a37058/syrian-refugee-story/>