Personal Rituals

I think that people in the entire world have a specific ritual to do when they develop a certain activity. For example my father usually comb his hairwitha black comb before sleeping and neither him nor I know the reason why he do that (pretty funny don´t you think because he is going to bed and anyone is going to watch how is he combed). Another example about a ritual is that my family is used to pray before eating breakfast, lunch and dinner; also almost all my family members are used to pray to bless someone at his or her birthday. All these activities are rituals that people do because they get used to, also because they have learned that help them in certain ways or simply because they feel good by doing them.

For this entry I am going to describe you one of my own rituals. I want to tell you the way I study for tests because I develop this activity in a specific ritual; if not I feel I don’t catch the information as well as if I follow all these steps. First of all, when I come home the day before tests I try to eat breakfast like a turtle and also I force myself as if I put chains on me to not watch TV while eating because if not I spend a lot of time watching it as if I were Hypnotized. Second of all, I take out my notebooks  and books of every subject and put them in blocks on the dining room table because I prefer that place to do any type of homework. My notebooks are different colors depending on the subject. For example I use the red ones (the red is so intense as a cherry or something like that) for physics and math, also I have black and blue ones and they are for the other subjects.  For you to have a picture of my dining room (and know the reason why I prefer that place) I want to describe it briefly. It is a room of approximately 3.30 meters width and 3.90 meters large with cream white color walls and a floor of almost the same color; at the bottom it has a medium sliding window with white frame and at the left side it has a door of the same characteristics and both have transparent white curtains. In the left corner is placed a wooden table that has a very thick glass on the top (it seems as unbreakable but trust me, it can be broken as a glass if you don´t take care of it)  and also there is a set of four chairs made with a kind of leather which is very soft andcomfortable, and wooden legs. The chairs are very comfortable and because the room has the door and the window it is one of the most enlightened rooms of my house so you can spend hours in there without turning on a light, so that are the reasons I like to do everything related to school in there. The third thing I do is to choose the easiest subject to start and I set the timer from my mother´s cellphone which has the Huggies ringtone programed to sound when the timer stops, and set it for an hour. When the whistle at the beginning of the song starts to sound I am ready to get out of my house to play with a ball, run, watch TV or any other entertaining activity, but I have to do any of these activities for only half and hour. Next, I went to the kitchen and slice a fruit (I usually pick a delicious, red and juicy apple or a green sweet and juicy pear) or bread (I prefer a crisp crust baguette) or carry a little bit of junk food (the classical fatty and yellowish potato chips with ketchup) and a glass of cold water or any type of sweet and colored with a bright color juice, to the dining room table and start to study the second easiest subject. While I am studying, and trying to not take off my eyes of the book or notebook, I took a piece or a little bit of whatever food I have in front with my hand and I can feel those textures going directly to my mouth, and eat it trying to prolong the incredible taste Ihave in my mouth; for the liquid if I want to take a drink I stop, I take the glass with my hand and feel  how cold it is and wetting my hand with the kind of breeze it has on its surface because of the low temperature caused by the ice, and then I continue studying. When the acute whistle sounds again I repeat the process of doing any relaxing activity, taking food and a drink and set the timer and studying again until the next break. But If for any reason I don’t finish studying one ofthe subjects in the hour I set on the cellphone´s timer I use another hour or half an hour to finish it. When I am studying the third subject I come to my room which is like the dining room (in space and colors), lie in my bed with two pillows soft as clouds to support my back and listen classical Mozart music (I have four CD´s of this music so I can choose different songs every time I study), while studying the last subject because it help me to concentrate better and also because I like a lot those high notes going up and down in every song. And that entertaining routine is my studying ritual.