Q.| I am a college student, and my college tuition is paid for on account of a bursary agreement, i.e. my employer pays for my study. Every week I travel to the university Friday afternoons or Saturday mornings and return home Wednesday afternoons. How do these weekly travels affect my canonic prayers and my fasting?

A.| As you are considered occupationally employed by the institution providing the bursary upon the commencement of your studies, your travels are occupational and as such you must perform the four-segment canonic prayers in full, whether en route or while at the university, and your fasting is valid, unless your travels are interrupted by a ten-day hiatus during which time you refrain from traveling, in which case your first travel after the hiatus curtails your four-segment prayers and vitiates fasting, but as of the second travel thereafter your four-segment prayers are restored to their full length and the validity of fasting is reinstated, provided that the travel is occupational.