Random Thoughts on a Friday

The furnace is broken... it has been since last night and the house is freezing. We're all sleeping in the family room around the fireplace. Hopefully the mechanical part that's been ordered arrives early tomorrow and it can be repaired.

There's pretty much just two months of school left, and it seems to be going fairly well, Alhumdullilah. It does make me a bit nervous and excited at the same time... in about two months or so, I'll have graduated and inshaAllah be working full-time. There are also talks and ideas floating around that I'll be tying the knot in the summer of 2008... which has got me thinking about how to plan the wedding (feel free to share ideas), costs, logistics and immigration. A bit early, I know, but whatever... I have plenty of time to think it all out.

I'm getting more and more upset everyday that my one of my dad's luggage is still lost somewhere around the world. We received one bag, but the other contains more valuable things like gifts from my in-laws-to-be. I'd like to see some sort electronic tracking device introduced to the airports. For a certain fee, you could attach it to your luggage and it would transmit a signal allowing you to locate it anywhere incase it got misplaced.

Can someone provide me with an answer to this issue that's been bugging me for the longest time? Every week when I go for Juma, there are always two ladies that stand outside the Mosque doors, asking for change (they've been doing this for several months now, and since then a guy has also started doing the same). What do I do? It saddens me to see them like this everytime and I want to help them in whatever way I can. At the same time, I also remember being told that begging is "unIslamic" and to give them money is only to encourage it. I mean, there are so many forms of social assistance they could take, aren't there? What would you do in this situation?