Little Luke "Skywalker"

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

How Ramadan Changes Me...

As most of you already know (duh!), almost the whole of October is Ramadan month. To the Muslims, eating, drinking and sexual intercourse are prohibited between dawn and sunset. During Ramadan, Muslims are also expected to put more effort into following the teachings of Islam by refraining from violence, anger, envy, greed, lust, backbiting, and are meant to try to get along with each other better than normal. To me, it is a whole different story...

You may recall my daily routine that I wrote not long ago, I run my life as boring as possible so that I do not need to pause and make decisions on petty stuff like what to wear, what to eat, where to eat etc. However fine tuned my routine is, it still suffered major impact due to the month of Ramadan.

Due to the super traffic in the evening, J need to drive my mother's car to work. This is good for me, as I do not need to fetch her to and back from her office. Hence, I can pick whatever route which I think would be less jam, less pot holes and crazy drivers doing their stunts on the road.

Then it comes to lunch time, my usual lunch venue is operated by Malay Muslims. It is closed throughout the entire month of Ramadan, probably because most of their customers are Muslims as well. Hence, I had to change my lunch place to alternative food stalls, and trust me, it's a tough decision. As for now, my gang and I are doing alternative between two Chinese stalls, which the food is not as delicious. Imagine I have to settle for chicken rice instead of fried stuff :P

Catering for special occasion in office is also off the menu for obvious reason. To me, it means no free food for a whole month. Our office organizes many meetings and jamuan every month (for birthdays or farewells) and I get to enjoy the food although I didn't attend most of them. So extra budget for my lunch this month :(

Driving back from office has been a nightmare during Ramadan. The traffic (OMG!) is many times worse than normal condition. Although I leave on the dot, I still get caught in the traffic for at least 45 minutes to 1 hour (worse if it rains cats and dogs) before I arrive. I am thinking that the early release of students from school that is causing the crazy jam every where in town. Otherwise, the jam will only starts at 6pm.

I nearly fell asleep a few times while trying to drive at 2 meters per 10 minutes. And this is happening even though I pick the fastest route (in terms of time) since J is driving. Imagine I had to take the Jalan Kuching (which is undergoing some stupid upgrade works that is causing a massive jam already before) to J's office before heading home. Someone please sue Samy Vellu and Chan Kong Choy for me!!

A silver lining that comes out of everything is that J and I can choose from more variety of food during the weekends. Many instant stalls are opening up near our house by Muslims as part of their buka puasa feast. Otherwise, I might have to bang my head against my steering wheel everyday so that an ambulance or police car can take me home through the jam!

Anyway... "Selamat Berpuasa" to all my Muslim friends and readers!

Jotted down by Egghead :: at around 10/19/2005 12:35:00 PM :: and invited 13 Blah(s):