That month of the year.

Praise be to Allah, bulan itu datang lagi. And as much as I have sinned over the year, I was given the chance to have yet another Ramadhan. Ramadhan al Mubarak :)

I can barely remember my first ramadhan ever. I think I started trying a full-day fasting during standard 1, when I was a 7-year-old kid. Well, it was a challenge as we have quite a multiracial community in my primary school. The non-Muslims were obviously eating nuggets and keropok leko during recess, and to make it worse, some of my Malay friends even brought packed food from home AND offered them to me. Ceitt. Not my fault that my fasting days were always only until recess =.="

Many say Ramadhan is a training academy. A month full of blessings, the stinky devils are all chained up and no one can stop you from having a blessed Ramadhan apart from yourself.

I've been a lousy servant lately, and also, it's quite a disappointment not having to contribute and commit as much as I did last year to my fellow sisters. Though this might be the best summer so far, I daresay it's pretty hard to feed yourself spiritually when you're on your own. Things have changed so much that I figured this Ramadhan may help to prepare me for the better :)

Starting to miss Ramadhan in boarding school and in college. Back in school, for girls, I remembered that if we're not on period, tarawih is compulsory for us, no escaping, unless you're smart enough to get through the prefects. Anddddd if you're on period, or as we'd call it "mamnu' " (yes mamnu' is arabic for 'forbidden', cecehh mentang2 la skolah agama :p) , you'll have to flash the mamnu' card to the prefects. Yes we need to have a card whenever we can't pray and fast, so that no students were able to escape tarawih. Cool system eh?

But of course, the thing I missed the most, is the race to gain as much as we could during Ramadhan. Everybody wakes up wayyy before subuh for qiyam and sahur, leisure time are spent reading the Quran, and dhuha was performed in class, that you'd feel ashamed if you didn't do it. I wonder what actually made all of us very competitive during Ramadhan back then. Probably because we're all innocent 17-year-olds and there're no other influences preventing us from reaching Allah :)

But life's life. Nothing ever remains the same. That spirit during Ramadhan changed too. I wish I'm a 17-year-old still living in that environment :')

Probably efforts are needed the most. Now that we're not living in a boarding school no more, we have to be the ones struggling for ourselves. And at that, I always failed miserably :(

somewhere in 2006. my classmates(minus the boys) with our lovely ustazah. spot me? ahaks

Ok though I'm not a good enough person to give out advises on how to face Ramadhan, I wish you guys the most blessed Ramadhan ever with your loved ones. Make the best out of this Holy month :)

Marhaban ya Ramadhan! Nex monday woohooooooo! :D