Long time, no update
So I guess I can't really update everyone on the happenings of my past couple of months. It would be too long and too over dramatic, and pretty exhausting (both as the writer and as you the readers). But I guess the best I can do is update the events most fresh in my mind.
A series of firsts happened last week:
- Pulled my first all-nighter at work
- Ate Halah(sp?) for the first time
- Got a real insight into the mind of a Muslim woman
- Slept for almost an entire day straight.
So I was asked to help out this other associate who was behind on her work because I was more fluent in some of the technology she was going to need to use in order to complete her deliverable. This team is super behind and almost to the point of panicing. At this point there isn't much for me to do because they are still working the really basic ideas out (completely technology unrelated) so I wait for them until I can help out. So we order dinner and I start offering suggestions: Mexican, Italian, Chinese. At this point I learn that the woman I am working with is Muslim and in turn, she needs to make the selection for dinner as to meet her religious dietary restrictions.
She explains to me what Halah is (which is the process of killing the animal, letting all the blood drain out before slaughter, and saying a specific prayer). What was even more fascinating was the story she told me about how once she attempted to not observe Halah and actually felt sick to her stomach and actually threw up the food in order to rid it from her body.
Next, she explains to me that she was married when she was 18 to a man she had never met and quickly later had moved to the United states with her husband and had a son. She was explaining to me how much it broke her heart that she and her mother made her sister go through the same process (of the arranged marriage), at this point she is practically in tears. She turns to me completely unprovoked and says "I wish this wasn't how it has to be, I wish my husband wasn't so much older than me, I wish I would have had a choice. But if I have to make the decision for someone else, I will make it again for my son." At this point I am floored! Not because I have any opinion on her situation, it being so far from my own upbringing I feel it quite inappropriate for me to get opinionated about the subject, but because I could tell she looked like she was dying to talk to someone about how much it hurt her to see her younger sister so upset having to be married off.
The whole situation just reminded me how serious and how strong an effect religion holds on others lives. It acts as a part of your life in some way or another. Either directly through going to bible studies or Orthodox Jewish schooling, or indirectly through the way your parents have raised you and what morals are reinforced and which ones are not. And then all of a sudden, on your 18th birthday, you are married off to man you have never met or spoken to because "that is how it is done". I guess I feel relieved for living in a Western nation where this does not happen as much (or rarely depending on what area of the country you live in). It makes me feel thankful that I have the right to choose who I will love, marry, who I will have children with because these are such basic rights that often get forgotten about until you meet someone who has never had them. Like I said, it was a really moving experience.
So at 10:30am on Saturday, after working all night with this team, I was able to go home. We completed our work, with minor revisions, and all went home to our respective apartments. The night had its ups and downs, minor freakouts occurred, many cigarettes were smoked, and as I rode home in the cab from Midtown I actually was so exhausted I lost feeling in my feet as I was riding in the back of the cab. I fell into my bed at 11:00 am and slept until 6:30am on Sunday.
Let me tell you, what a wild weekend of 1sts!
A series of firsts happened last week:
- Pulled my first all-nighter at work
- Ate Halah(sp?) for the first time
- Got a real insight into the mind of a Muslim woman
- Slept for almost an entire day straight.
So I was asked to help out this other associate who was behind on her work because I was more fluent in some of the technology she was going to need to use in order to complete her deliverable. This team is super behind and almost to the point of panicing. At this point there isn't much for me to do because they are still working the really basic ideas out (completely technology unrelated) so I wait for them until I can help out. So we order dinner and I start offering suggestions: Mexican, Italian, Chinese. At this point I learn that the woman I am working with is Muslim and in turn, she needs to make the selection for dinner as to meet her religious dietary restrictions.
She explains to me what Halah is (which is the process of killing the animal, letting all the blood drain out before slaughter, and saying a specific prayer). What was even more fascinating was the story she told me about how once she attempted to not observe Halah and actually felt sick to her stomach and actually threw up the food in order to rid it from her body.
Next, she explains to me that she was married when she was 18 to a man she had never met and quickly later had moved to the United states with her husband and had a son. She was explaining to me how much it broke her heart that she and her mother made her sister go through the same process (of the arranged marriage), at this point she is practically in tears. She turns to me completely unprovoked and says "I wish this wasn't how it has to be, I wish my husband wasn't so much older than me, I wish I would have had a choice. But if I have to make the decision for someone else, I will make it again for my son." At this point I am floored! Not because I have any opinion on her situation, it being so far from my own upbringing I feel it quite inappropriate for me to get opinionated about the subject, but because I could tell she looked like she was dying to talk to someone about how much it hurt her to see her younger sister so upset having to be married off.
The whole situation just reminded me how serious and how strong an effect religion holds on others lives. It acts as a part of your life in some way or another. Either directly through going to bible studies or Orthodox Jewish schooling, or indirectly through the way your parents have raised you and what morals are reinforced and which ones are not. And then all of a sudden, on your 18th birthday, you are married off to man you have never met or spoken to because "that is how it is done". I guess I feel relieved for living in a Western nation where this does not happen as much (or rarely depending on what area of the country you live in). It makes me feel thankful that I have the right to choose who I will love, marry, who I will have children with because these are such basic rights that often get forgotten about until you meet someone who has never had them. Like I said, it was a really moving experience.
So at 10:30am on Saturday, after working all night with this team, I was able to go home. We completed our work, with minor revisions, and all went home to our respective apartments. The night had its ups and downs, minor freakouts occurred, many cigarettes were smoked, and as I rode home in the cab from Midtown I actually was so exhausted I lost feeling in my feet as I was riding in the back of the cab. I fell into my bed at 11:00 am and slept until 6:30am on Sunday.
Let me tell you, what a wild weekend of 1sts!