Digitizing Iraq

I am a visual person and love playing with color. I enjoy playing around with the layout options and deciding how best to present information through GIS. I elected to keep this map simple, not too many colors, not too much clutter. Digitizing has been one of my favorite parts of GIS thus far. I'm certain some would find it tedious, but I enjoyed the challenge.
The Iraq map was a nice project. Not only did it get me familiar with the digitizing process, but also how to label attributes. Once I digitized the boundary for Iraq I used the Cut Polygon Features option to outline each of the provinces. Identifying each of the cities helped me become familiar with some of the cities I have heard of for the past 8 years since we have been in Iraq, but never bothered to identify their location.
The most difficult part of digitizing this map in particular was dealing in and around Baghdad. It got a little messy in that area and defining the flow of the river was difficult even magnified at 600%. The only other problem I ran into was that the scale bar was obviously not true to the map. Jida informed me that I would have to do some finite projecting to correct this. I would like to learn this when I have the time. Jida also instructed me on how and when I could use the Auto-Complete and Modify Features options.
Though I am not fully proficient with the commands and at times struggle with basic computer language, I am glad I have been able to complete, as best I can, the labs. I have enjoyed learning how to use GIS. I really wish I had the luxury of having access to the program at home on my own computer, not just remotely or during school hours.