8 Weeks to Ramadan - Checklist!

I'm back on the block and here's shortly what I've done since the last post:

• I went to Germany to visit my family and came back to Finland, there it's summer - here it's... well, let's talk about less frustrating topics!
• I went to Paris with my fellow first-year-students and since it was an Artstudents Arthistorytrip (with big A's), we visited a lot of Museums. Actually we did not visit them in the traditional sense, but actually spend all opening hours there scrutinizing everything starting with ancient Egyptian vases in the Louvre and finishing with "The Lost Human Genetic Archive" by Hiroshi Sugimoto in the Museum for Contemporary Art, the Palais de Tokyo.
• I got sick (the constant rain may've had some impact on that) and after I returned home I was unable to do anything else than staying in bed. This didn't prevent me from watching a highly interesting documentary about Jerusalem, called 24h Jerusalem - because its' actual duration is 24 hours for God's sake! Now don't get me wrong: I didn't watch it continuously for 24 hours, no, even I thought that it wouldn't be so wise; but I watched it. Split into 12 clips, each 2 hours long. I don't think I can recommend it, but whoever is interested, please, go for it!

But now to the more interesting topic :)

 My 8 Weeks to Ramadan- Checklist

• Performing Salat (prayer)  Yes, I am praying, subhanallah and inshallah will.
• Making Du'a (personal act of worship, prayer, call upon God) Doing so while and after every prayer. But I could improve and be doing so more often and more spontaneously.
• Making Dhikr Yes, I bought a new tasbih in Paris and using it very frequently!
• Trying to be kind and nice to people (try smiling once in a while!) Kinda failed. I'm definitely not smiling enough and definitely not being friendly enough to people. Big improvement needed!
• Making 1 charitable act a day (trying to figure out more creative ways to help than to donate money - especially if you do not have any!) Trying, but as an very self-centered person I should definitely target this more seriously.
• Reading Qur'an Not so much. At least during the last 2 weeks. But will start tonight with my new favourite Surah "Ar-Room"!
• Studying/working Studying but not working, I should really make some more effort!
• Making personal Jihad Yes, working hard on a couple of bad habits (such as cursing!) and personal issues!
• Attending Mosque Not in Helsinki, I should start going to the Mosque again, inshallah. But went to the Grand Mosquee de Paris!

Ok, as you can see my list is still very dominated by red and orange. I'm very happy now that I initiated the 10 Weeks to Ramadan Challenge, otherwise I would notice this, as usual, a week before Ramadan. Now I've still got 8 weeks to improve until I can concentrate fully on the holy month of Ramadan, in which it will be easier for us, inshallah.

 I hope you guys are doing better than this!! All the best and many Salams :)