Five. Goooold. Rings.
Sep. 11th, 2010 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12Day 17 – Your favorite memory
I skipped a day due to epic angst, and I'm sorry about that. I really will try to be better about staying on schedule.
As you may recall, I remember quite a lot, which means choosing one memory from many is very difficult. My favourite memory from this year is definitely the Pendulum/Tiësto concert in Victoria Park, and everything surrounding it. Some of my other favourite memories include graduating from my MPhil at Cambridge, being accepted to do a PhD here, this year's CCASNC (where I gave my first-ever conference paper) and the party afterwards, the feeling of intense pride I got when I graduated from Sydney Uni, the Yay! Exams Are Over Parté where I realised that the Usydgroupians were MY PEOPLE, and several overseas trips I made with my mother and sister, and the day in Bali, when I was six, when I suddenly realised that my (then two-year-old) sister was my best friend.
But, to be honest, my favourite memory is Christmas. Not one specific Christmas, but all of them. I am someone who has always needed rituals and ceremonies, but yet completely lacks any religious belief. The closest thing I get to religious rituals, then, is stuff like Christmas, where we do everything exactly the same every year. We go to my (maternal) grandparents' house in suburban Sydney. My grandmother makes the same food (although over the years her four daughters have gradually taken over more and more of the cooking and last year she didn't do any of it herself). My branch of the family is responsible for making the Christmas pudding, which the three of us always do together. I made it into a tradition that a Middleton (ie someone related to my dad, which these days means only my sister and me) must be the one to carry the pudding to the table when it's been covered with brandy that is then set alight. I eat an oyster every year in memory of my paternal grandfather, who loved them.
When we were younger, my sister, my cousin who is my age and I would spend the whole time we weren't eating playing elaborate, over-the-top games with our dolls, any new toys we'd got and whatever we could find in the house and garden. These games were always incredibly melodramatic. They'd usually involve at least these three plotlines: My sister would have an imaginary menagerie of pets, my cousin would be required to die in some poetic manner (usually of illness) and I would be required to be married off for political reasons. As you do.
We would also always make up plays and act them out to our relatives. We would always try to rope in my younger cousin (the sister of the cousin who is my age), and she would always promise to act, then get extremely shy and back out at the last minute, so the 10 minutes before the play was due to begin would always involve us having whispered arguments with my cousin trying to convince her to act in the play.
And every year, we sing 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', following the lyrics which are displayed on a teatowel that my grandmother owns. This tradition started the year that I was nine, and was originally started by my grandmother with me and some of the other grandchildren as a way to keep us occupied. The next year, everyone was singing it around the table, and we have done so now every year. It must seem incredibly bizarre to outsiders.
All these traditions sound really silly, but they're very important to me. They're like constant reinforcement of my identity as a Phillips woman, and of my family's love for one another. I couldn't live without them.
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – Your morning routine
Day 21 – Your job and/or schooling
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – Your sleeping habits
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your favorite foods/drinks
Day 30 – Your aspirations
I skipped a day due to epic angst, and I'm sorry about that. I really will try to be better about staying on schedule.
As you may recall, I remember quite a lot, which means choosing one memory from many is very difficult. My favourite memory from this year is definitely the Pendulum/Tiësto concert in Victoria Park, and everything surrounding it. Some of my other favourite memories include graduating from my MPhil at Cambridge, being accepted to do a PhD here, this year's CCASNC (where I gave my first-ever conference paper) and the party afterwards, the feeling of intense pride I got when I graduated from Sydney Uni, the Yay! Exams Are Over Parté where I realised that the Usydgroupians were MY PEOPLE, and several overseas trips I made with my mother and sister, and the day in Bali, when I was six, when I suddenly realised that my (then two-year-old) sister was my best friend.
But, to be honest, my favourite memory is Christmas. Not one specific Christmas, but all of them. I am someone who has always needed rituals and ceremonies, but yet completely lacks any religious belief. The closest thing I get to religious rituals, then, is stuff like Christmas, where we do everything exactly the same every year. We go to my (maternal) grandparents' house in suburban Sydney. My grandmother makes the same food (although over the years her four daughters have gradually taken over more and more of the cooking and last year she didn't do any of it herself). My branch of the family is responsible for making the Christmas pudding, which the three of us always do together. I made it into a tradition that a Middleton (ie someone related to my dad, which these days means only my sister and me) must be the one to carry the pudding to the table when it's been covered with brandy that is then set alight. I eat an oyster every year in memory of my paternal grandfather, who loved them.
When we were younger, my sister, my cousin who is my age and I would spend the whole time we weren't eating playing elaborate, over-the-top games with our dolls, any new toys we'd got and whatever we could find in the house and garden. These games were always incredibly melodramatic. They'd usually involve at least these three plotlines: My sister would have an imaginary menagerie of pets, my cousin would be required to die in some poetic manner (usually of illness) and I would be required to be married off for political reasons. As you do.
We would also always make up plays and act them out to our relatives. We would always try to rope in my younger cousin (the sister of the cousin who is my age), and she would always promise to act, then get extremely shy and back out at the last minute, so the 10 minutes before the play was due to begin would always involve us having whispered arguments with my cousin trying to convince her to act in the play.
And every year, we sing 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', following the lyrics which are displayed on a teatowel that my grandmother owns. This tradition started the year that I was nine, and was originally started by my grandmother with me and some of the other grandchildren as a way to keep us occupied. The next year, everyone was singing it around the table, and we have done so now every year. It must seem incredibly bizarre to outsiders.
All these traditions sound really silly, but they're very important to me. They're like constant reinforcement of my identity as a Phillips woman, and of my family's love for one another. I couldn't live without them.
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – Your morning routine
Day 21 – Your job and/or schooling
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – Your sleeping habits
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your favorite foods/drinks
Day 30 – Your aspirations
