Ramadan It! - Day 2

While yesterday was a total failure by strict Islamic standards, it was a success by the standards I set up for myself. I managed to go nearly twelve hours with no food and very little water (probably about five ounces total).

So, have I learned anything yet? Well, I don't want to make too big a deal of it, but I did notice something interesting. Last night, Kirsti and I went with some friends to a Mexican restaurant. Like what you'd expect, we got some chips and salsa as a starter. I dug right in, of course, as I was happy to finally be putting something down my gullet. What I didn't notice is that the waiter was taking a long time to finally come and take our orders. My friend started to get really annoyed by this while I was still quite content to be chowing down on some chips.

What's funny about this is that I'm usually the first one to get annoyed when the waiter takes too long. Yet even after it was brought to my attention how long it was taking, I still didn't feel bothered by it. I would have guessed that my "angry hungry" would have turned into "murderous rage hungry" by this point, but fasting all day actually had the opposite effect. Go figure - maybe I'm learning a bit of patience. Still, it's only been one day, so things might change.

I'm altering things a bit for today. Instead of paying attention to sunrise and sunset, I went ahead and ate when I got up this morning - which was about 7. I finished at 7:30, and now I'm going to wait 12 hours until I have dinner. Sure, I'm not going as long as Muslims who live at the same latitude as me, but I'm going longer than I would have if this experiment was taking place in December. (What do Muslims in Alaska do? I figure that they probably bend the rules a bit on that one.) I might also let myself have a bit more water, as I'm feeling really thirsty right now (must have been the margaritas last night).

What do I have to look forward to tonight? Swedish meatballs from IKEA. Nice. Good thing it's not Kosher month, or I wouldn't be able to have the cream sauce with them.