It should be said that being at the bottom of the world completely cut off from that part of the world, I completely forgot that today marks the beginning of Ramadan. The month of fasting and the holiest month for those of the Islamic faith. Of course, why does that matter? After all, don't forget that I don't buy into all that religious stuff. In this case however, it matters. Because despite all that I choose not to believe it. I still do fast from sunrise to sunset on this Islamic month.

Give yourself a breather, I'll wait till the shock subsides.

Given the amount of times people have asked me why I still do it, I'm going to just explain it here and now, just so that I make it perfectly clear.

Fasting is a discipline. It's not just because some book tells me to do so. It is a lesson. One that involves patience and a crapload of willpower. The best way to visualise the act of fasting would be to abstain yourself from everything that tempts you. Whether it might be food, drinks, sex or World of Warcraft, as long as we are slaves to it, fasting from it, abstaining yourself from it for one full day frees us from its grasp. At the end of it, we are no longer slaves to what tempts us. We become masters of our own desires and not the other way around.

In retrospect, that's a whole lot better than simply saying because the Quran told us to do so. Arguments that always end with a religious reasoning never do go well with common sense or logic.

Of course, people always say it's hard to fast one whole day without food or water from sunrise to sunset. Having done it since I was 12, I can honestly say that it's no different from being so busy that you forgot to eat or drink the whole day. Seeing that many of us actually go through that regularly, maybe the thought of this kind of fasting isn't so hard after all. It's always a state of mind.

That being said, I did forget to fast today. Being out here, you don't really pay attention to these things when you're juggling 2 jobs on spring break. Still, there are 29 more days left to fast and I intend to follow every day through. It's not that hard to begin with. You try fasting when your friends are there with you trying to tempt you with good food and drinks. After 8 years of that…everything else is a walk in a park.

And you wonder why my willpower seems limitless.