Acquaintances or Friends?

I have this issue with categorizing people as either friends or acquaintances. There are people in your life who clearly fit into either one of the two categories, though, there's more often than not that group of people where you're just not quite sure, are they your friends or your acquaintances? How do you distinguish between the two?

I have this incessant need to categorize the people I know into these two groups. I would love my acquaintances to become my friends, but how do you know if you're acquaintances are just as keen in becoming friends? And how do you know when you're acquaintance has become your friend? Is there some type of threshold they would have to pass?

I'm most likely overthinking this. From experience, I've figured that an acquaintance usually transitions into the friend stage at the point when a)you exchange phone numbers; then b) suggests to hang out sometime; and c)actually hang out. The tricky part though is remaining in contact. If both sides of the friendship do not make an effort to remain in contact then that friendship dissolves and soon you become mere acquaintances. Which is such a shame when you think about it, because you lost a potentially good friendship because you were too lazy to maintain contact.

About two years ago I worked full time for the summer months, and during those short 4 months me and four other girls at work really bonded. We spent our lunches together, our breaks, partook in work gossip, and basically had a good laugh everyday. Two years on and I'm glad to say that I'm still in contact with 2 of these girls and we have a bi-annual reunion with four of us. Though there's that one girl who is now simply an acquaintance, she never responded to the reunion invitation, and after that we simply stopped inviting her. It's unfortunate because from all the girls, me and her spent the most time together at work, and now I wouldn't even think about messaging her, as I fear potential awkwardness. Potential awkwardness, that is a good topic for my next post.

MISTified!

I <3 MIST.  That is all.

DST vs. Body Clock???

A custodian checks Kansas's Clay County courthouse clock after daylight savings ended last year.

Photograph by Charlie Riedel, AP

Something's messed up around this time of the year.
Ever since Sunday, I've been feeling out of it. Sunday is coincidentally the same day that we all "sprang forward". So, can I attribute this to Daily Light Saving Time (DST) changes?

The National Geographic*  recently reported on some interesting findings.

Daylight Saving Time 2011: Why and When Does It Begin?
Brian Handwerkfor National Geographic NewsUpdated March 13, 2011

Daylight Saving Time: Healthy or Harmful?

For decades advocates of daylight savings have argued that, energy savings or no, daylight saving time boosts health by encouraging active lifestyles—a claim Wolff and colleagues are currently putting to the test.

"In a nationwide American time-use study, we're clearly seeing that, at the time of daylight saving time extension in the spring, television watching is substantially reduced and outdoor behaviors like jogging, walking, or going to the park are substantially increased," Wolff said. "That's remarkable, because of course the total amount of daylight in a given day is the same."

But others warn of ill effects.

Till Roenneberg, a chronobiologist at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, said his studies show that our circadian body clocks—set by light and darkness—never adjust to gaining an "extra" hour of sunlight to the end of the day during daylight saving time.

"The consequence of that is that the majority of the population has drastically decreased productivity, decreased quality of life, increasing susceptibility to illness, and is just plain tired," Roenneberg said.

One reason so many people in the developed world are chronically overtired, he said, is that they suffer from "social jet lag." In other words, their optimal circadian sleep periods are out of whack with their actual sleep schedules.

Shifting daylight from morning to evening only increases this lag, he said.

"Light doesn't do the same things to the body in the morning and the evening. More light in the morning would advance the body clock, and that would be good. But more light in the evening would even further delay the body clock."

Other research hints at even more serious health risks.

A 2008 study in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that, at least in Sweden, heart attack risks go up in the days just after the spring time change. "The most likely explanation to our findings are disturbed sleep and disruption of biological rhythms," lead author Imre Janszky, of the Karolinska Institute's Department of Public Health Sciences in Stockholm, told National Geographic News via email.

Read the full article here

So what do you make of all this? Do you believe that DST is actually bad for your health?




*Sarky's employer when she becomes a world-renowned photo-journalist, inshaAllah! :)

Qirrat Competition

Assalamulaykum people. hows everything going.

well i just wanted you to know that the qirrat competition is coming up and my brother is praying in it. Hifz juz 1-5.

Make duaa for him. (and everyone as well :D)

A trust

Today, the lab I had to do for one of my courses was probably one of the most dangerous ones I (insha'Allah!) will have to encounter... It used pretty dangerous, toxic and corrosive reactants and the reactions themselves were pretty intense. Not to mention, 2 explosions already occured with other people doing this...

That being said, I was beyond terrfied... Alhamdulillah it all went well, no major incidents to report!, but thinking about it, it really made me question how well we take care of our bodies...

The idea that we are given this body as a trust by Allah swt, and yet we sometimes don't consider the effects of our choices...

I remember going into the lab wondering if I would come out in the same way (I know it sounds ilke an exaggeration, but it's really true!) and yet I still intentionally went through 4 hours of a potentially dangerous setting... Of course everyone took the necessary precautions, but there's always the risk.

Maybe, that's justifiable because it's for school purposes and everyone was taking the right precautions anyway? Maybe. But what about other parts of our lives, such as our diet?

Does being a Muslim also mean that we should eat healthier and live a healthier lifestyle?

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Prophet Muhammad SAW has said "Ask Allah SWT for forgiveness and health, for after being granted certainty, one is given nothing better than health" Related in Tirmidhi.

In the Qur'an, we are also told to "Eat and drink, but avoid excess" (20:81)

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A lot of people will want to lose weight to feel better about themselves based on what the norms of the society are. But what if losing weight could be the result of adapting to a healthier lifestyle where you are pleasing Allah SWT and helping to return this wonderful trust given to you, your body? Seems better than a win-win situation!

As the countdown to the end of university starts soon, and there's loads of 'stress-relieving' foods or maybe better known as 'comfort foods' out there, it might just be wise to re-check some habits!

May Allah SWT help us to refine our habits where necessary so that we can become better Muslims and a better representation of our deen.