The football fast

Ramadan mubarak...

Here we started fasting Saturday... which was kind of hard and interesting for me, so I'm going to blog it. I had tried to find someone to cover the two shifts I'd signed up to work at the football game. (My sorority's fundraiser is to sell merchandise for the bookstore at the games.) Sadly, nobody took either. So my day went something like this:

I got up for suhor and then prayed fajr. I had had plenty of water to drink the night before and had some in the morning as well, knowing that I would be doing a lot of "physical" activity in the heat so I tried to prepare. After fajr I went back to bed and slept pretty late--expecting the evening to really drain me anyway. I didn't do too much of anything, mostly just cleaned up a little around the apartment, and prayed dhuhr, before going to the game. With me I took a bottle of water and two sealed bags of dried fruit for when I broke fast. I got there ontime/early at 3:55. At that point I waited outside with the other girls for over half an hour until the girl with the passes got there--she had been delayed, but we couldn't get in until she got there. She brought some food and drinks with her, and then we went in to set up the booth. We had to roll up the tent flaps, carry the tables over, unpack boxes, inventory, then display everything. It was about 85 F, but not humid and fairly breezy. I had set my alarm to go off at the time for 'asr so I could pray it as soon as possible. So I left the booth at that point and tried to find a secluded place to pray. This was still a while before the gates opened so there weren't too many people around.

After that I went back to help. You know, if I weren't fasting now I probably would have some things to say that weren't nice about the girls I was working with and their work ethic. Hm. But we finished with plenty of time, and the gates opened around 6:30. Sunset was at 7:12 and the game started at 8 (so from 6:30 on we would be getting busy until 8 when it would die off.) But I'd explained to everyone what was going on, and at that time I took my water and fruit and broke my fast. I didn't pray maghrib though because people were everywhere, so I went back to the booth and helped for another hour or so, when I took another break, prayed maghrib, bought a chicken sandwich, and rested for a few minutes. Once the game had started the crowds had mostly cleared.

I can't say I really liked praying in the stadium... it was outside, I didn't have a rug or anything so I was setting down on concrete, and even when it wasn't "crowded" I'm sure plenty of people still walked by and saw me. But I did get both the prayers in, something I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do.

The second shift started at the start of the game, and we had some new people come in to replace some, though a few of us were working both. We intermittently took breaks through the game, pausing to sit for a while or watch the game, and after it was over (we actually won...) we started packing up. I was in kind of a hurry so started right away counting what we had left and packing it up. After the boxes were packed we had to carry the tables back and clean up the rest. And then wait for the truck. We had finished packing up around 11:30 or 12, I think, but waiting for the truck... whoa. There are some new people working for the bookstore this semester, who haven't been trained yet, and who make honest mistakes, I guess. We left at 12:52, at which point we got to walk across the parking lot, down the road a ways, and through another lot to where we'd parked.

By that point, I had an excrutiating headache, my feet ached tremendously, and I don't know where the energy was coming from. I think because of the headache I started feeling sick to my stomach, but that could have been related to the fast. I started to feel like throwing up but thankfully never did. I got to take care of myself a little bit when I got home, and really just wanted a shower, but it ws then 1am, my roommate was asleep and I thought the shower would wake her, so I just opted to make wudhu and pray 'isha... and that was all I could do. I tried sitting at my computer, but that wasn't to be done, so I went to bed... I can barely remember laying down, so shortly after it was I asleep.

And now it's Sunday... and I'm at work. But I think when I get home I'm going to go back to bed. I never heard back about those classes so I'm not going to worry for now. Oh boy. I want to sleep.