إن شاء الل ...(Insha'Allah)

Insha'Allah is an extremely common Arabic phrase. It translate to "Allah willing" or more commonly known as "God willing (hopefully)." It can be said multiple times within a sentence and is always suppose to be said when talking about the future. Its something my classmates and I say constantly in class and outside of it for that matter. My professors as well. My professors will even speak in English and then add "Insha'Allah" at some point.

For example, my professor will say, "today we're gonna learn about case endings Insha'Allah and then we'll talk about the root word Insha'Allah, but before that we'll go over what will be on the test....which will be on Thursday Insha'Allah. Its now just something that I have gotten used to hearing all the time and find myself saying it often as well. My roommate will help me with my homework and ask if I understand it. I'll find myself responding, "yeah, I think I do Insha'allah." Its just one of those cultural things you pick up because its all around you all the time. Like how I still find myself responding, "is it?" when they say something. Thats a Southern Africa thing that drove me nuts forever when I was there....but I still find myself saying it often.

Today I spent the day walking around Rainbow Street with Colette and Catrina. We had amazing pizza for lunch at nice restaurant, walked around touristy shops, window shopped the stores that in no way will we ever be able to afford and ended up at Nestle Cafe to get delicious treats.

It was a nice day after the craziness that was midterms. My exam was yesterday and I think I did pretty well. Fingers crossed still, but we went over the answers quickly after the exam and from the answers I remember marking, I did well. I have a week off from school now due to Eid al-Adha, which is a three day holiday in the Muslim world this coming week.

Eid-al-Adha is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to honor the willingness of the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his young first-born son Ismail (Ishmael) as an act of submission to God's command and his son's acceptance to being sacrificed, before God intervened to provide Abraham with a Lamb to sacrifice instead.

I have all next week off from work and Arabic class. Still gonna have to study and start working on my Master's Thesis, but it'll be nice to sleep in a bit more and not have to stress throughout this next week about getting homework done every 5 seconds. It'll be a great break for the craziness....Insha'Allah!