Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of me saying my shahadah alhumdulilah! I had wanted to do something special in order to celebrate that and I chose to start wearing hijab to work. I had asked my boss a couple weeks before if I would be allowed to wear a religious headscarf and he had said yes so when I went to talk to him again I figured that it would be OK. HOwever, I was so WRONG! Before, I had asked him without a hijab on so he thought that by "religious headscarf" I meant some sort of bandana-like think similar to what orthodox Jewish women wear. Once he saw what I was talking about yesterday, he said that I cannot wear it to work because it is too much scarf for the restaurant. It wasn't even a big one, it was an Amira style hijab that could have easily been tucked into my uniform shirt. I feel that I have been discriminated against because before he knew what I was talking about he was OK with it but then once he found out that it was an Islamic style scarf, he wasn't OK with it anymore. Definitly not cool. My plan is to let him know about the anti-discrimination laws in this country and the laws that say an employer has to accomidate for religious artciles of clothing and if he still doesn't want to let me wear my hijab then I will contact CAIR (the council for American-Islamic relations) and ask them to help me. My hijab has become so important to me both as a symbol of modesty and a symbol of my faith. Everyone at work says it won't work cause I'll be "out of uniform" so it's pointless to do anything but it's a religious garment that I MUST wear. It will work! If I try, it will work inshallah.
In other news, I have 10 days till graduation!! I have 2 words for you- Oh ****!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10 days! OMG! 10! I"m super excited though. I recieved my graduation present from my mother and grandparents yesterday. It's a GORGEOUS 1 carat saphire ring with a 14 carat white gold band. I'll try to upload a photo inshallah.
I"m really looking forward to this summer. I can't wait to be DONE with high school. I'll be working 2 jobs this summer so that I can afford to go to Cairo in December inshallah. I'm super excited about that. I really hope that I can go. I want to go so that I can meet Mohamed and his family and get to know them better before we get married. Slightly off topic but Mohamed's brother Ragab has agreed to be my wali before the marriage. I also can't wait to go there to buy TONS of cheap abayas and hijabs and niqabs. It'll be so fun.
In addition to working a lot I'm also going to try to get better at cooking and sewing and other things like that. Of course I'll try to during the school year too, but it'll be more convinient during the summer so that I don't have to worry about homework or anything like that. It'll be fun. :)