No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service

So I went to the beach again, yay! After isha on the 17th I drove once again down to Shallotte, a NC beach town where my brother lives. I stayed there until Tuesday and came back.

I went swimming... spent days doing nothing at all. Except checking for comments on my blog, and I got quite a few over the weekend (thanks everyone, I'm still trying to reply to some of them!)

Now I'm back in Raleigh, back at school, which started Wednesday morning. Unfortunately. Full engineering load, still in shock over how much time it's going to mean I'll be doing homework for the next few months. I can't just fake it either. But since I won't be working in the middle of the night I should actually be able to pull it off... inshaaAllah.

Sincere apologies if I can't keep my blog up like I did over the summer. Naeem, I saw your tag, I'll get to it soon I hope inshaaAllah, and get on with stuff.

Like the picture? At the Wal-mart they had this sign; my brother's store had one too. I guess people at the beach think they can walk around barefooted and scantily clad. What was nice though, was how much cooler it was there. For example, on Monday it was 102F in Raleigh, but only 84F in Shallotte. Breezy, not nearly as humid. The water was nice. Not quite so calm as sometimes I remembered it being. The first day I went swimming was Saturday, which was calmer than the second day I went, Monday. I don't know if it was actually "swimming." More like, going out into shoulder-deep water and jumping waves. So Monday was just rough enough to be annoying since the waves were breaking sooner, and water getting into my eyes more.

I could explain how I pulled it off anyway... the beaches are public, but really the beaches are on islands covered with condos, and they are too far for most people to go, except those who live nearby. On the other hand, the Wilmington beaches are much shorter a drive for people coming from out of town to go to the beach. Driving all the way into Brunswick County, a whole extra 45 minutes or so, it's a little different. No big port city life down in Shallotte, just a little beach town.

Relaxing! And with limited access to the net I didn't do too much. All that was very nice. Not so happy to be home honestly, but it's my first real vacation in a very long time. Will I be going to ISNA next month? That's the next big question!

Anyway... stuff upcoming. Unless someone asks, I probably won't say how I pulled off the swimming.

Undercover Converts

We have a problem...

Americans are embracing Islam. African Americans, Latino Americans, White Americans--they are researching the faith and embracing the deen, integrating into the Muslim community by marriage and activism. They add a unique voice and contribute to the diverse community present in the country.

Okay so that's not the problem... the problem is that many of these converts are young people, forced to hide their Islam from family, from friends, for fear of a very negative reaction. A lot of times it will keep them from joining the community - and Shaytaan will attack the lone Muslim like a wolf attacks the sheep away from the flock. The fear they face is real.

I was a Muslim for 6 months before I so much as started to pray. And I was practicing Islam for a good 4 months before telling my parents. My relationship with them got progressively worse. I am not allowed to visit my niece and nephew, scarce can see my sister, and my brother-in-law is simply not talking to me. My parents kicked me out of the house. I'm not saying this for any kind of sympathy, but simply to illustrate that it does happen, and it's not so rare as we might like to believe.

Converts are sometimes counselled to just tell their family, that they will accept it. They aren't given such counsel by other converts, I think, but by born Muslims who fail to comprehend the magnitude of such an announcement. The widespread hatred of Islam only grows in America, conditioning the general population to adopt an increasingly intolerant opinion of Islam, and Muslims. That's what converts face, but for their families, the imaginary "over there" fear is brought close to home when a son, daughter, sister, wife, brother, or husband makes a choice against the family upbringing, and embraces what might seem at first to be a fanatical foreign faith. Brainwashed! is probably the immediate thought.

And while I'm sure many converts encounter families who can easily accept this decision, others face a family that may want to lash out, and attempt to punish the person for this decision by kicking them out, threatening divorce, or in other ways excluding them from the family sphere (excommunicating?) So the "undercover converts" have a legitimate fear. Trusting in Allah is easier said than done sometimes for someone who said shahadah a month ago, who has to that point relied entirely on parental support.

With a predominantly immigrant Muslim community, that "new shahadah" might not know to whom he or she can turn when their family fails them. In 2007, anyway, it's not exceptional for new Muslims to look to the internet for support - from other converts, and also knowledgeable and compassionate mentors who can sympathize with their situation and offer advice. I

I've seen some new converts on YouTube, and was troubled enough to consider this post. For one thing, YouTube is a pretty nasty place, and viewers who leave comments say despicable things I think they haven't got the courage to say to a wall much less a real person. But hiding behind their computers they are suddenly 'ulema, priests, apostles, rightly guided holier-than-thou know-it-alls. I've been a Muslimah who was afraid to tell her parents she was Muslim. I've prayed in a closet. I've hid my Islamic websites on the computer, my Qur'an, my rug. I became an expert at putting on hijab in the car... and taking it off while driving, before arriving so nobody would notice. And I came out on the other side, alhamdulillah, and I wish I could tell you my family accepts it... but they don't. I couldn't tell a new Muslim, "Oh, don't worry, they'll understand..." and "It'll be okay..." because the truth is it might really suck, and people are tested in different ways.

A sad thing on YouTube is to see a new muslim sister, young, who has hardly any Muslim friends to advise her, hiding Islam from her parents and too afraid to cover in public... it's sad to see how she is criticized. Called a hypocrite for not covering her hair in a video, called a disbeliever for limiting her practice of Islam to what she can do without being discovered. To watch someone who so badly needs support receive only criticism really hurts. Yeah, yeah, I know what it feels like, I've been in those shoes and I hated it.

And let me tell you this, when you are looking to Muslims for help and it's Muslims who think you're not good enough, Muslims who belittle you and your baby steps in faith... how can anyone expect you to trust Muslims? And many a convert have left Islam for that reason alone. Our brothers and sisters. Would you let someone treat your baby brother or baby sister this way?

I would hope that anyone who is about to offer "advice" to a new Muslim, especially "advice" that involves behavior that the convert might especially fear (i.e., "you must tell your family," or "you aren't Muslim unless you wear hijab,") remember the following two ahadith:

1) Ruined are those who insist on hardship in matters of the Faith. [Muslim]
2) The religion (of Islam) is easy, and whoever makes the religion a rigour, it will overpower him. So, follow a middle course (in worship); if you can't do this, do something near to it and give glad tidings and seek help (of Allah) at morn and at dusk and some part of night. [al-Bukhari]

How's the saying go, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions?" I see how some people behave and I think they would rather see the revert leave Islam entirely if they refuse to immediately conform to the rigid manners they exhibit themselves. Astaghfirullah. Our brothers and sisters deserve a better reception than this.

So I feel for the undercover convert--I've walked that path and came out on the other side, alhamdulillah. The peculiar difficulties of a new and young convert often find little sympathy from the born Muslim community; support can be scarce so is ever more precious. For us all, the goal should be to grow in taqwa, to increase iman, so that we all but especially the undercover converts can face their fears, pass their tests, and find peace (that is, salaam) in Islam which they lacked in any other walk of life.

In Pictures

Okay, I'm editing this post to explain it just a little bit... it won't make sense, but perhaps will be less confusing than it is at present.

Crying is depressing. Depression causes crying. So is it the crying which depresses or depression which caused the crying? Even the lion, fearsome though he may be, succumbed to sadness. And seeing greatness fall to tears is a far more terrifying image than seeing weakness. You see, we'd console someone weaker than us, but what if someone stronger than us is crying? How are the mighty fallen?

$800. I lost my best friend, my closest companion for 9 years, for a mere $800. I was willing to negotiate, even, but the buyer knew how close this friend was and was too shy to ask for even a penny less, I think. Would you sell your best friend? How could I... oh tears, please stop.

I need a hero.

Once upon a time, this was considered a marvelous feat of engineering... launching people into space, bringing them home. It was the climax of an aerospace engineering dream, the peak of aspiration for college students poring over differential equations and heat flow tables and astronomy charts.

But now, aerospace engineering is a military, rather than scientific industry. What was a path to discovery now leads to destruction. I remember this boy who I met at a Society of Women Engineers meeting (why was he there?) as a freshman in college; I said I wanted to work at NASA, he said forget it - the only real aerospace innovation is for the military. So if I was interested in anything "fun" I should look in to the air force. All the engineering brains are going in to war planes, not space planes, and that's a crying shame.

A crying shame... you see, these "astronauts" are little more than construction crew, piecing together the International Space Station (ISS) that was antiquated 5 years ago, before completion. It's still not finished, the stupid thing, and the shuttle isn't helping, all decrepit and broken down as the fleet has become.

By decrepit, I mean the above "foam" has the potential to utterly destroy the shuttle. It's insulation, really, but not the Pink Panther you have in the attic. It's foam, but not what I think of when I think of "foam."

I think of cappuccino, when I think of foam.

Or I think of sea foam, the bubbles on the surface of salty crests of beach waves.

But this here, this is the kind of insolating foam we're talking about. Polyisocyanurate (a word I can pronounce quickly albeit apparently not without infusing a little hillbilly into it) insulating foam is covering the external tank (ET). If you don't know what the ET is, go back to the picture of the launch above. It's the big orange thing. Fuel tank for the shuttle's engines. Not for the rockets on the side, no, it takes that thing full of fuel just to run the shuttle's engines (which only account for like 30% of the thrust required to get that tile-covered tin can off the ground.) Anyway, there are two kinds of fuel in that monstrosity, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Oxygen and hydrogen don't naturally occur as liquids in Florida, btw, where it's probably 90F on a typical launch day in the middle of summer. (Not like here, where it's 100+F and humid to boot.) So you have to keep them really really cold so they can fit in the tank. So you have to insulate it. So now you have a very cold tank on the Florida coast, so the humid air condenses on the tank and freezes cuz it's.. cold.. and then when it tries to launch you now have ice on the tank, and the ice and foam all falling off the darn thing as it shudders on the launch pad trying... and you know what happens?

This happens. You get scrapes and scratches and gouges on the tile surface of the "orbiter" (which is the part with wings, the almost-looks-like-an-airplane thing that will--we hope--be able to land.) So that white thing on the left is a hole, about the size of a large cell phone, maybe a blackberry. But a little deeper than that. Deep enough to reach the skin which means that... well, it means that a small portion of the skin is exposed. Columbia blew up on reentry several years ago because of a scratch like that (albeit larger, and on the wing.) The crew now has the capability to repair it "just to make sure," but instead, they're going to let the ground crew run simulations and tests and decide "Eh, we'll probably be okay if we don't fix it." Could they be any more lazy?? Fix it already!


So I'm a little bit angry. Not because of the shuttle really. But hey, did it make more sense when there were just pictures?

Three stories

I might have blogged about this before a little, but I'd like to elaborate on it if I have, or introduce it if I haven't.

Several months ago, my roommate, a friend of hers, and I all went to a local high school MSA meeting after school on Friday. It was a chance for them to listen to Muslims from the community, instead of their regular meetings (which I can only imagine were pretty boring...). I wasn't sure what sort of format would be appropriate, I didn't feel like giving a speech or anything since the environment was pretty relaxed, and I went first so...

I took a seat in the middle of the front of the room, and talked about myself for just a few minutes, then asked questions. Following my lead, the sisters after me did the same thing. All three of us were converts, I should add. We all got similar questions from the group, but one I think was interesting because of the diversity in our answers. They wanted to know when we started to wear hijab, if we started right away or not.

For me, the answer was no. I said shahadah then spent several months questioning my belief. (Don't most people do that before they technically convert? So I was out of order, happens sometimes.) I didn't pray, I didn't fast that Ramadan, I didn't even try to meet Muslims nearby. Not for several months. But I did eventually start to pray, start making friends, and start to wear hijab--in that order. For me, I had to gain a lot of confidence about being Muslim in public before I could wear it on my head. I had to have enough confidence in the religion (which I sadly did not have to start with) to reconstruct my life around it, and hijab was part of that for me. So it took several months (about eight) before I adopted the headscarf on a regular basis. I put it on as a challenge, to see if I was too afraid to keep it on--even then, I was not convinced that wearing hijab was an absolute necessity--and I kept it on, alhamdulillah. I was scared, I felt judged all the time, and it was difficult, no lies, to keep it on and continue life as normal knowing that people were questioning me, questioning the scarf, and were very confused. It took me time to develop that confidence, to feel proud wearing it.

The next sister to speak had spent several years (compared to my couple of months) studying Islam before actually converting. She worked with some Muslims, and little by little started to learn pieces of the religion. It was a long time before she read the Qur'an, but shortly after that she did embrace Islam. When did she start covering? Right away. How did it make her feel? She said it made her proud, right away. She was proud to be a Muslim, and more than happy to show it. And 10 years later she is still happy to wear it.

The last sister had been Muslim for about 5 years, and embracing Islam was a shock to her hard-core Christian upbringing. However, the rights and rulings of Islam she easily accepted. When did she start to wear hijab? Before she was Muslim. She was so convinced of the value of wearing hijab, not even being Muslim, that she started to wear it of her own choice (not religious obligation). It was only later that she realized she was confident that following Islam was a path of truth, that she embraced the rest of the religion whole-heartedly.

I have a lot of respect for both of these sisters, how they waited, though, and considered their choices before making them. I feel foolish in comparison sometimes--I jump in first, then try to get out as soon as the shock hits me, and then realize it's not so bad after all. They knew what they were getting in to, and so were ready to handle it. So I think when people choose to embrace Islam, they should as soon as they are ready... I can't determine whether or not I was ready. But I've seen people who weren't... and then they keep trying to get out. Every little step is a challenge because they didn't see it coming, they're blindsided by it, and let me tell you, when you feel that way, it's hard to trust the path you've taken, since clearly (it feels clear anyway) you were deceived of some of the consequences.

Say it like THIS

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English 25% Dixie 10% Upper Midwestern 5% Yankee 0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

If you take the test, a lot of it is how you pronounce certain words, or what word you use for a particular object. I'm not sure how I got 5% Yankee..., but the rest kinda makes sense. My dad grew up in Minnesota, that explains the Upper Midwestern, I live in NC so that's the 25% dixie... at any rate, I'm 75% not dixie. I reckon (haha) 25% is just enough to be charming once in a while, but not smothering or annoying. Some people have Southern accents that just irritate me to death... like the president (Bush) to start with, but even more so, the NC Governor (Mike Easley) and more than that... presidential hopeful and ex-senator from NC, John Edwards--his is the absolute worst. I grew up in the south and yet I have the worst opinion (of anyone I know) of southern accents. A little bit is fine, but these guys just overdo it... and they sound so dumb. Come on, how can you listen to Edwards (and he gets airtime because he's running for president and all) and not think "Ugh, what an uneducated backwards moron." Americans, I think, judge people a lot by how they speak. I'm guilty of it. I know most of the NC Legislature talks like that, coming from backwoods towns all over the state... it's embarrassing to listen to them, sadly.

But other accents I think are actually neat to listen to. Russian accents, for instance, I think are fascinating. (Not Borat... more like Boris & Natasha). Some British accents are interesting, I think, but others really put me off though I can't explain why. New Zealand is funny. Among Muslims, you get the Southeast Asian kind of English from Urdu or Punjabi (aka "Indian") which is kind of abrupt. Arab accents really vary. Moroccans for example sound more like French accents than Arabic ones (which you'd expect, almost). Egyptians are funny though. My favorite...

Some months ago I was riding in the car with a friend of mine whose dad is from Palestine. Out of nowhere... "You can bark anywhere you want" she says, "But you can't park here!"

I just remembered... and laughed... lalala.

Closed on Sundays

I've been eating at Chick-fil-a more frequently lately... I work way outside of town and there's a very large shopping center nearby. But only two quick-service places are there that I know of, and I'm not interested in sitting down for a long lunch most days, I'd rather just come back to work. But since the two options are Mcdonald's and Chick-fil-a... I pick Chick-fil-a. And so would I probably no matter how many options there were--I do like the food. But I detest McDonald's (even the smell makes me sick!)

But the funny thing about Chick-fil-a for me is that I worked there. So did both my older sisters. When my first sister started, they asked her in the interview which church she went to! In case you didn't know, it's a pretty good "Christian" establishment. As far as fast-food places go, it has a very low turnover rate. It's a little more expensive (after all... they sell chicken only, no beef, and chicken can be more expensive than burgers--especially chicken breasts, not patties or anything like that.) It's also closed on Sundays. Usually located in shopping malls and centers that do their best business on weekends, it's bold. But as an employee, it was nice. When my sisters worked there, they'd always have off to go to church. I didn't go to church much while I worked there, which was once I started college. But still, having off on Sundays was nice. At least one day to relax, catch up. Study. Later on my sorority meetings were Sundays. Then again, if you wanted to work it could hurt.

Anyway, I like the food. I worked there for two and a half years by the way, I know how they prepare the food. (They don't fry the bacon in the same fryer as the fries or chicken, to start with.) Actually the chicken has a fryer, and the fries have a fryer. Everything is fried in peanut oil now (which was not always the case, they used to fry the fries in animal shortening... even sounds gross...). Bacon doesn't go in a fryer. Sometimes I wonder if places like Chick-fil-a qualify as food from "Christians." I never really understood what the rulings were about "meat from Christians and Jews" since Christians (to my knowledge) never really slaughtered meat any particular way at all.

When I worked there, I got free food on breaks. (If you worked more than 4 hours you got a break.) Breaks weren't paid but the food was free. So I ate Chick-fil-A a lot. You'd think I'd get sick of it. You'd think everyone who worked there would get sick of it. Nope. Addicted to it? Maybe the cheesecake... but mostly? No. But when it comes to fast food Chick-fil-A always stands out to me. And for more than just the "chicken sandwich."

I think McDonald's (ew again) tried or is trying a "southern style" chicken sandwich, basically frying a chicken breast and putting it on a bun with pickles--exactly how it's done at Chick-fil-a. I detest McDonald's (yes I know I'm repeating myself) so I'd never bother to try it. But maybe other people would, who knows. Anyway... my sisters and I still eat at Chick-fil-A sometimes... even though we all worked there... as far as fast-food goes, I think they're a "cut above" the rest.

Big Brother is listening...

CNN calls it "eavesdropping." Is it eavesdropping or is it spying? The American government has checks and balances. Three branches, judicial, legislative, and executive. One is out of control, guess which? The executive branch is taking over, that's what we call it when lawmakers merely argue and discuss non-binding propositions instead of passing legislation, and begin to shift judicial power back to the executive branch too.

We don't hear a lot about the judicial branch, from a government perspective. We hear about the president, we hear about congress... and sometimes we hear about judges but it always seems so minor. When it comes to surveillance of citizenry, however, I think it's a law enforcement issue which should, naturally, fall under the judicial branch. Which makes it very unfortunate to see Congress taking power from the courts and checks and balance system, and bestowing it on the over-pompous president and his "administration."

In principle, it's wrong. Civil rights are slipping through our fingers...

Fear of Poverty

More from Purification of the Heart...

It's probably kind of ironic that I start these posts with a humorous image, and follow with a serious post. It's a snare, trying to catch your interest. I said today, "don't fear poverty." Turns out that Fear of Poverty is a chapter in the book so I feel compelled to post on it, just as a gentle reminder.

First of all, fear of poverty is described as a disease of the heart because nurturing it implies a bad opinion about Allah. And He has revealed, Satan threatens you with poverty and he commands you to immorality. But God promises you His forgiveness and bounty. (2:268). See that? Allah promises both forgiveness and bounty. I feel like this ayat is very pertinent to a current situation (which I am not in alone) and that being the case, I am amazed once more at the relevance of the Qur'an. Fear of poverty--that is when Shaytaan incessantly bothers us with pondering the importance of our wealth in our lives, when the whispering makes us depend on the wealth instead of Allah and cling to it--causes us to neglect the needy and ultimately deprive ourselves of giving for the sake of God, which is actually virtuous. (By the way, we can recall here that envy is allowed in two cases, one of which is to envy a man who has wealth from Allah that he spends in the way of Allah, wishing that we could also spend in Allah's way and earn reward through that.)

Anyway, the preoccupation with wealth leaves a person open to transgression to gain or at least maintain wealth. The text here actually says "vulnerable to transgress laws and indulge in lewdness." And then comes my favorite line in the whole chapter...

God is the Provider and source of all wealth and comfort.

I love to be reminded of this, when someone tells me for example that he is indebted to Allah first, and grateful to Allah first, and that such-and-such provision is for Allah. The actual poem says that the cure of fear of poverty

is in having a good opinion (of God)

and knowing that what God possesses is never diminished in the least and that what has been apportioned to you will reach you inevitably.

So if we have fear, we should fear Allah. Definitely. Allah has revealed And whoever fears God, He will make foor him a way out. And He will provide for him in a way he never expected. And whoever trusts in God, He is sufficient for him. (65:2-3). More beautiful ayaat... I mean, I can't even read the Arabic but still this moves me. Perhaps more moving is that I have seen it, experienced it, experienced having to trust in Allah, and finding a way out... an unexpected way out... subhanallah.

There is a stipulation in receiving this provision, namely, that one have true taqwaa (or awe of God) and is nurturing of the condition that permits him or her to walk the earth with dignity.

The cure then is to maintain a good opinion of our Provider, which will "deflect insidious whisperings" and "subtle provocations that create irrational fear." The good thoughts express themselves in contentment with status, and the Prophet Muhammad saws said "Contentment is a treasure that is never exhausted."

One should not worry, for what is determined for a person shall come to him or her.

And I would like to end on the following ayah, that on no soul does Allah place a burden greater than it can bear.

Detecting "Spin"

It really gets on my nerves to listen to talk radio... or tv news... sometimes read the newspaper... yet despite that, I turned on the conservative news radio station while driving around town this afternoon, and the voice was blabbering about providing free health care for children and why it's such a bad idea. He quoted something from CNN about how biased they are, wanting children to have access to health care when their parents can't afford health insurance, and then proceeded to explain why this is such a bad idea, and how dare a woman have a child who she can't pay for? As if, 8 years previously, she knew that she wasn't going to be able to provide health care? This from a man who hates abortion and frankly doesn't care for birth control that much either. So he made a lot of nasty assumptions about one woman just to make his case against this health care bill coming out of the house. A bill that wants kids to go to doctors.

But anyway... I was listening and I start noticing things, not just from him but things I hear that always strike me as odd things to hear in a newscast. For example "slippery slope." I'm sick of hearing this phrase, every time someone acts for change, they're on a "slippery slope" towards this or that evil... it's always a slippery slope. The alliteration sounded neat the first time but after that... I'm sick of hearing this phrase, and I hear it all the time. It's such a cliche now we shouldn't write it without quotes around it! Nonetheless, when it is used, it's fairly uncreative attempt to make people think that whatever it is will make things get worse in the future... and markedly so. It's a fear-mongering attempt. So now I start to question the validity of any news report where the announcer opted to use this incredibly annoying and overused phrase.

Another thing I can't stand is when the announcer starts insisting that he's been telling you this... forever. "I told you they were going to do this..." and "I've been saying all along.." Isn't it so nice to know, and now have proof that our talking heads are not only inanely clever, they're also clairvoyant? They knew the future, see? They kept telling you and you didn't listen... and now look what's happened? So listen up now, take everything he says as Gospel truth because hey, he's on your side and he has more information than you. This is time to pull out that British cutie, "Bollocks!" Anyway, it used to annoy me to listen to Rush Limbaugh when he'd begin ranting about how right he'd always been and how he was always telling you and always right. Fact is, he's not always right. Just makes a point of milking it when things go as he predicted. Some cheap kind of prophets these guys think they are. So beware... if he has to tell you that he's been right all along... that should really should raise suspicion on everything he says. Does an honest man need to keep asserting his integrity?

Another troubling thing to hear is, "Nobody else is going to tell you this." What I want to know is, why isn't anybody else going to tell me this? My first reaction is, because it's a lie!! But the announcer insisted that he has all the facts for his listeners, and nobody else is going to explain the truth of the matter. So they have to listen to him, and not question any of his information, while they should totally disregard everyone else. Is this legislation shrouded in secrecy, is that why nobody else will tell me how evil it is to provide health care for poor kids? And the answer is... no! It's just that it's hard to find people who hate Nancy Pelosi so much who can articulate themselves well enough to get on the air.

So nobody is going to tell you the truth, except for your announcer; but that's okay because he's always right. And he has to tell you because you must act in opposition to whatever (like health care for poor kids) or else we'll all be on a "slippery slope" towards some unimaginable evil like... health care for everyone.

When can people go back to reporting the news? Tell me what happened, who did what, what the possible outcomes are. That's what I want to hear. Not a self-validation by the announcer, not his prophecy success rate, not one person's opinion or irrational fear. (What is so scary about health care for poor kids??)

This really isn't about the legislation, for me, it's just that whether the issue is health care for poor kids (saying it that way should give away my opinion on this issue but there's more to it than that and I'll admit plainly I know next to nothing about the proposal), or if it's pulling troops out of Iraq or allowing Qur'ans in courtrooms, gay marriage, or ethanol fuel... I'm fed up with hearing the same cliches, the same lines, the same boring storybook format and learning absolutely nothing about the issue at hand. When can we get announcers who report the news instead of throwing it in a blender, adding a few healthy doses of Ego and Fear only to chuck the resulting garbage out at their listeners?

Nessun Dorma

Perhaps one of the most famous tenor arias is Nessun Dorma from Puccini's Turandot. You can find it all over youtube nowadays, most especially by Pavarotti. Of course, if you listen to Pavarotti I have to tell you it's far far better than anyone else you'll find singing it.

Such things occur to me at odd times, to seek out particular pieces of music, and I won't tell what exactly made me look for Puccini but I found a recording of Pavarotti at the Torino Olympics. (And if you watch this, check out how far his mouth opens... it's like anime characters almost, so wide.) Anyway, listening to him sing reminded me how impressed I had been watching him sing then, for the Opening Ceremonies. I never was much into opera, really. I didn't know the story of Turandot, nor the meaning of the lyrics to Nessun Dorma. I find it somewhat interesting then I was listening to it on a graveyard shift in the lab...

"Nessun dorma" actually means "none shall sleep" or something like that, in Italian. In the opera, the princess (who is named Turandot) has decreed that nobody will be allowed to sleep that night until the name of the prince, who has met her challenge and thus is able to marry her, is discovered. If she can learn his name, she will not have to marry him. It's a riddle the prince has given to her and this aria is sung on that night, since he has very nearly won. The last words of the aria even mean "I will win!" meaning he will get to marry her--it's more romantic than that, really, he's trying to get her to fall in love with him. The crescendo... it's beautiful. It's enchanting, not knowing the words, that's the beauty of opera anyway.

It was interesting to find the meaning though, "none shall sleep," while working graveyard. I've finished my last graveyard shift, though, I'm happy to say. Working at night has a disturbing effect, I think. The prayer times are designed around the sun, this keeps you in touch with reality, the motion of the sun. Keeps your body in a natural rhythm. Working up at night is an undesired state... and I feel bad for anyone who has to go through that regularly. For the last four weeks I've had this disturbing schedule, working Mondays midnight-4am, and Wednesdays 4am-8am, and Thursdays 8pm-midnight, in addition to normal daytime hours of school/work. So being up extraordinarily late Sunday night... having to get up extraordinarily early Wednesday morning... staying up again Thursday night... it's been hard to catch up, and I've paid for it in a number of ways, not the least of which is a regrettable effect on my salaat.

So I have decided to stop working graveyard hours like that, to stop working such late, early, or otherwise bizarre hours. Losing sleep is bad, the effect on my concentration is lamentable, but salaat is even more important than that, isn't it? Anyway, I'm looking forward to, after over a year of working strangely late hours which disrupt my overall performance at school and work, I'm going to stop. For a number of combined reasons I've decided (almost) also to only work one job in the fall semester. I'll pull as many hours there as I can inshaaAllah, but I think overall that will be much healthier (physically, not to mention spiritually) for me. Without having to worry about night hours in the lab, I can actually work more hours at DOT--being fresh in the morning to come in an hour earlier, no late night commitments so I can stay an hour later--and it adds up, will cover most of the difference for not working in the lab. I will have one night class, but other than that my schedule should be relatively normal, inshaaAllah. And I can hope that will make adusting to the fasting of Ramadan easier as well. I may change my mind and keep the second job on the stipulation I don't work graveyard, but I think I'll much prefer to leave it entirely (part of that has to do with new duties being assigned to the job that I'm not interested in, by the way.)

Anyway. You heard it here first. Yay! Alhamdulillah.