Ramadan Mubarak

Ramadan Mubarak to everyone who will begin fasting today, tomorrow, or Monday. The yearly "which day should we start" Ramadan questions encounters us again. I just hope too much time is not spent arguing with each other about the starting day (the arguments repeat every year) and instead focus on the month ahead.

Interestingly, I wrote a post last Ramadan on my current state and not much has changed. You can read it here again.

Below is a summary:

I think most Muslims agree that they suffer from the y=-x^2 imaan problem. Let me illustrate this point with the following graph. If you recall your basic grade 12 Math, you should notice this graph is an upside down parabola. It describes my imaan problem.



The y-axis represents my imaan level, and the x-axis represents the months in the year starting from the month of Ramadan. The first point on this graph represents my faith level level right-before Ramadan. As I progress through Ramadan, my faith level increases quadratically, until it hits its maximum level at the center of the graph when Ramadan ends. After Ramadan, my imaan level drops back down until Ramadan occurs again in the following year.

Inshallah (God-willing), I will take advantage of this month, do the good stuff and keep it up for the rest of the year. Who knows maybe next year I will use a different graph to illustrate my imaan level.

UPDATE (9/23/2006): My imaan level graph remains unchanged this year.

Down under

Last week I had a unique opportunity to spend a week and a half on the other side of the world in Sydney, Australia. It was an exceptional experience in talking with local Aussies and seeing the sites of the city, especially the Sydney harbour, which is quite gorgeous.

There were quite a lot of touristy things I did and captured with my camera. You can check out my photos here. Also, instead of listing the places that I visited. You can check out my itinerary here.

The most interesting part of my trip is identifying the unique parts of Aussie life as compared to my life in Toronto, Canada. Below are my observations:

Aussie slang

• 'You have done well' is good job
• 'G Day mate' is hello
• 'No worries' is thank you
• The word bloke is used to refer to a guy and shelia is used for a girl

Restaraunt etiquette

• I tried ordering a medium coffee with cream and sugar and could not be understood. Aussies do not put cream in their coffee, instead they put milk and they call it a flat white.
• Restaurants are not pushy to have you leave once you are done eating. In-fact, most places you have to go to the cashier and pay.
• No need to tip servers, since they are generally paid well enough to make a decent living.

Misc

• The Australian currency system does not consist of pennies and listed prices already include the sales tax. The amount in cents is always a multiple of 5.
• The Matrix movie was filmed in Sydney.

Random

• David Suzuki was on my flight to Sydney. He is doing a book tour across Australia.
• I was surprised to hear that students from the Philippines and India in Australia had heard of the University of Waterloo and their strong reputation for Computer Science and Engineering.