1999

This Ramadan (1999) is my first and it has been an interesting experience. At the moment I am 
living with my parents in Iceland and therefore I´ve pretty much been going through Ramadan on my own. Before Ramadan started I was worried about two things: first of all the timings of starting and breaking the fast and the actual fasting since I am quite fond of eating and drinking:-) Regarding the times of fasting, I was not sure whether I should follow the movements of the sun or if I should follow some other times, since it is not possible to follow the sun all year round in Iceland (e.g. there is no dawn in the summertime, and this also makes prayer times complicated here) I finally decided to follow the sun´s movement since it seemed to be what the majority of muslims I have met in Iceland were going to do. So, the fast for me has actually been quite easy since it is only between 8 or 9 hours.
Concerning other things besides fasting, I tried to set some goals for me to do in 
Ramadan. Unfortunately it seems like I will not be able to complete them all, mainly 
because of being busy with work and school, but also because I´ve been fighting 
depression for the past few months and because of that I have had a hard time focusing and getting things done. However, some of this goals have been or should be 
completed by the end of the month, so it is not all bad. I will just have to try to do 
better next year:-) The goals I set for myself were for example to do some extra prayers, memorize more short surahs from the Quran as well as read more from both the Quran and other books on Islam.

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