Project Islam: Day 2: "Terrorist"

I realized that in the rush to post day 1, I forgot to mention a few things. Also, don't be too alarmed about the title, I knew it was going to happen eventually, and it might happen again.
Anyway, I forgot to mention the abomination of idleness. According to Islam, it is a great sin to let oneself be idle; that is, to waste time. And see, I am a champion at being idle. I thrive on being idle. This includes watching movies, by the way, or television. It does not include reading, as long as the subject matter of what you're reading is good in Allah's eyes and does not promote sin. In order to watch movies or television, I have devised a plan: I must keep active while doing these things. So while at home, I exercise while my family watches Columbo. In my dorm, I sweep and clean while watching a movie on my laptop, or exercise. I work around this.
So anyway, day two. I will take my cleansing bath tonight and begin evening prayer at nine. I had dry white toast and fruit for breakfast again, and a salad with tomatoes, cucumber, carrot, and oil and vinegar for lunch. It's like a radical diet, but I'm doing better today with the no-caffeine, no-sugar thing. I suppose the four-hour nap helped tremendously with that. :) I'm assuming my father will bless the chicken we're having tonight, as he did last night. I will also have the mealtime prayers to add tomorrow, for both before and after each meal. That is a LOT of prayer. With three meals, I will pray 11 times in total each day, counting the five routine prayers throughout the day.
The first thing that happened today happened while I was walking to breakfast. There was a group of guys behind me, maybe 12 yards away or so, walking the same direction I was. I was almost to the dining hall when one of them yelled, "Hey look, a Muslim!" I can't describe the fear I felt. He was the first to acknowledge what I actually was, and he was within a group of six or seven other guys. I was automatically sure they were going to catch up to me and harass me, or worse. Maybe that's too paranoid, but you can't be sure. There's so much bias against Muslims here in America. My mother literally told me when I started this project never to walk alone. Nothing happened, but it got my radars up.
Then today at lunch, a woman who works at the dining hall and usually greets me with a smile and a "hello" sat a few chairs away from me, with a few other workers. I kid you not, when she sat down two chairs away, she positioned herself with her back to me. My mom says she barely recognizes me, so I understand this woman not knowing who I was, but still. It hurt. I'm growing surprisingly accustomed to keeping my voice down, and not meeting men's eyes, too. A guy from my English class just about ran into me when I was walking into one of the buildings, and I was the one who apologized. I also couldn't hold the door open for him, as I'm not permitted to do so for anyone. Strange. But whenever I do speak now, at least while dressed in the hiijab, I speak quietly and carefully.
The most eye-opening part of today, however, happened during my Ethnic Studies class. Ironically, this is the class through which I was assigned to conduct this project, and it was here I faced the biggest reaction to my appearance. First off, it was very hard to read the board to get the notes, without accidentally looking at my professor's face. It didn't help that he is very big on eye contact with each student. I managed to avoid his eyes, but did glance his face several times. But that wasn't the thing. We were discussing Native Americans, and the professor mentioned something about the way the indigenous people were pushed out of their lands by the colonists, and how they would retaliate by attacking and killing the white man. He called them "early terrorists, in a way". This was when a girl in the front row turned around and just stared at me. Maybe five seconds passed, and she turned around again. I couldn't believe it. I knew it was the word "terrorist" which caused her to do that. And that made me angry. Yes, those behind 9/11 were Muslim, but they were radical Muslims, with extreme hatred towards the U.S. and the westernization it and Europe had brought on their countries. This was an example of the bigotry and ignorance I'd been expecting. I was completely shocked by what this girl had done.
But there was also a fun part of the class. There were only a few people who were outwardly, obviously, not dressed like themselves. One of them was a man dressed as an Orthodox Jew. He was very convincing, with the long black coat, black pants, wide-brimmed black hat, and the curls he'd pinned to the sides of his head. He was even wearing a Star of David. I was impressed, and we chatted for a few minutes after class, and both of us thought it was kind of cool how the two of us were dressed as two groups who traditionally avoided each other (Not all Muslims are from Arab countries, but the Jews and the Arabs have historically hated one another). It was a cool thing.
So here we are at the end of day 2, and it's already been an adventure.
May blessings go with you and yours,
Sarah