Ramadan Kareem :)

The title, by the way, means "Holy Ramadan." Since I really have no idea who reads this, I'm guessing I should give a little rundown of what I've been doing the past week or so.

Ramadan is one of two major Islamic holy periods. Note: "holy period" not "holiday." This particular holy time is a month long and held at the start of the appropriate new moon (ala the lunar calendar). During the month muslims around the world abstain from food and drink (yes, even water) from sunrise to sunset. In addition, there are numerous things that many try to do or not to do. The most common are usually to do charity, good deeds, and read the qur'aan and not to swear, do bad deeds (hard with the traffic in L.A.), lie, or commit any major sins.

Some more important, though lesser known notes about this:

-yes, there are religious reasons why a person is unable to do this fast. If you're a woman and are getting your period or are dealing with pregnancy, if you're sick, traveling, need medical attention, etc.

-it's a common tradition to wake up just before dawn and eat and drink water until the latest possible time. This meal is called "suhoor."

-the end of Ramadan (the last 10 days) is commonly considered to be the most holy time of the month (yes, that's right, doubly holy), and there is a tricky situation: Ending your fast too soon is religiously bad - likewise, ending too late is also. Fasting during Eid (the celebration/holiday period after Ramadan) is discouraged/taboo. Many muslims now run by common, scientifically calculated and agreed upon dates for the beginning and end of Ramadan - but among some it is still a hotly contested issue for this reason (and back in the day this made Eid that much more of a celebration - you never knew for sure when the new moon would be visible, so you waited each night for word).





Anyway, all that being said, I've been fasting for about a week now. Some things that used to be hard are easy, other things that were easy are unexpectedly hard. The challenges seem to change by the year - although that might just be because my life changes by the year.

Thus far this year I've been staying awake after dawn and doing work until about noon, then taking a mandatory nap. It works for a few days - and then I'm exhausted because I've also been staying up too late.

Finding a nutritional balance is always hard - but this year I've taken the additional challenge of continuing to train capoeira 3-4 times a week. Thus I find myself stuffing myself a little bit in fear of fatigue - and just today I was weak because I didn't do that (seemingly). Anyway, I'm always amazed to find out how much I can do while fasting. I guess professional athletes do the same - but they're professionals, so I'd assume they're better at it.

It turns out, if you want to worry about my physical well being while fasting, sleep is the hardest thing, not food.

So that's basically it - and probably enough information for now. Besides, I should really should try to get better at that sleep thing.

Travel!

Travel Briefing:

I have bought plane tickets to fly in and out of the Philadelphia airport for the following dates:

Monday, October 8 @ 9:30 am
Saturday, October 20 @ 1:30 pm

My plans are like this:

Arrive in Philly and find a way to take a Chinatown bus to NYC.

Attend the Brooklyn Capoeira batizado from October 8th to the 13th.

Possibly stay in NYC an extra day or two.

Take the Chinatown bus back to State College to visit my mom and whoever else (and clean out my room some more and work).

Have my mom drive me back to Philadelphia for my plane back to LA.





Let me know if you want to meet up.

"Summer" recap

Go figure, you say "I'll update every week" and the whole summer goes by and you've written 5 times. That being the case, I'm going to see if I can sum things up:

1.) Came to California, set up an office in my room, started working with Warren on this internship directory project. After a while it becomes apparent that it's a pretty daunting project. But I manage to get out every once in a while.

2.) I'm in the house a lot, then the van gets stolen and there's all kinds of car drama and I'm stuck in the house even more - except for capoeira, thank god.

3.) Over the course of the summer, Alec graduates, many a weekend party happens at the house, Warren and Nick go to Costa Rica, the family goes camping, the van returns, The LA capoeira batizado happens (Heather and Alec get belted up), I get addicted to the Sopranos, I move rooms twice, and Liz is basically busy as usual.


And now I'm sleeping in a very nice air-conditioned room in a friends house across the street because Warren managed to rent out rooms in the house to 3 USC med students and 2 French med interns. It's the 2nd time I've been moved and it was a little annoying at first, but given the ridiculous heat wave the past 5 days or so I've been quite happy about it. Of course, I still spend the strong majority of my time over here at the house, which means that when everybody is home, there are at least 11 people sharing the same space.


So there's not too much to say. When the heat gets this intense you can't really walk or bike anywhere without dying (hence why we all have been basically stuck in the house the last few days - the whole car thing is still stcky), so my transportation exploration has definitely been put on hold. But the house isn't really air conditioned and I don't always feel like stripping down in front of strangers so I haven't been using the pool as much either. Thus I have spent the heat wave reading Harry Potter, watching the Sopranos and otherwise imitating a limp noodle. Everything else seems so hard - I haven't even called anyone besides my mother. Somehow it just seems like too much effort.

I did have a few thoughts though. School, for everyone except Alec and Moses, has started here. I've never stayed here past August. I'm also told that the weather doesn't really get cold until maybe February, that people go to the beach until about November. I'm thinking this should/will hopeully break things up a little.

That and a trip to NY of course.