Guest Posted December 28, 2015 Posted December 28, 2015 ((USS Constitution-B, Dial's quarters))::After moving to the Constitution-B, Dial had noticed that she didn't have quarters for herself only anymore. On the huge Apollo, any officer had had the priviledge to have small but one-person apartment like quarters. On this ship things were a little different. For the duration of the first half year aboard this ship she had never seen the one she shared her quarters with awake. Whenever she woke up he was asleep. When she came home, was not there. And that made "living together" actually quite comfortable. Dial missed the ability to leave the doors open as she was used to from her home planet and the time at the Academy and on the Apollo. But she had come to adopt far more odd habits from Terrans and other species.::::All of this perfect room sharing agreement was about to end when Ensign Raomozji was to be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant JG. Not just did he leave get a higher rank, he also got quarters of his own. Therefore Dial would share her quarters from now on with someone else. She doubted that she'd be this lucky again and that the other person would have the night shift, too.::::For now Dial didn't care about it. She hadn't received any information on this matter and was only concerned about the party Milsap had announced to her already. She sat down at ther computer console searching information about traditional winter holidays on Earth. She learned that Chanukkah, a Jewish festival was celebrated one day before christmas this year (according to her research the date changed from year to year). On the decembre 23rd according to the Old Terran Calendar. Christmas was starting at the evening of the 24th each year. She also learned that both festivals lasted more than one day. There were also many other festivals rouhgly located in the winter time.::::Out of personal interest, she had read quite a lot about Chanukkah, especially since she had been taking part of this festival once without knowing about it back then. Then she had read a little bit about Christmas, since it seemed a little more popular. Afterwards she only skim-read about other festivals ranging from Kwanzaa, set for the week following the decembre 26th, to ʿĪd al-Fitr, a festival which occured on decembre 28th this year. There were far too many stories about the origins of these festivals, too many information in general. The only thing that most of these festivals had in common was that they were celebrated by having a feast. And, at least nowadays, most of them included the tradition of gift-giving.::::Only when she leaned back, thinking about her research's result, she recognized some funny coincidence. It was a huge coincidence that this year all of Earth's more or less traditional winter holidays took place roughly around the same time. She had read something about Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus and Buddhist celebrating some kind of religious thing in this period. It was a merry coincidence, she had read about many times, for this meant that many of these religious people could celebrate their festivals together.::::She somehow liked that thought and how the very same idea was present aboard the Constitution. Of course the situation was a little bit different here. Not even half of the crew was of Terran origin, so their feeling for the right time to be 'winter' might differ a lot. It even varied on Earth where the southern hemisphere was going through summer while the northern one had winter time. And even if people felt winter to be the right time of the year, that didn't mean that they had any festivals planned for this season.::::To Dial the concept of holidays had been totally foreign until she started studying on Earth. Paelians did sometimes celebrate birthdays, sometimes had small religious ceremonies, but all 3 Paelian worlds lacked the idea of a holiday season. Festivals of any sort were something very individual to be decided by the individual and sometimes celebrated by close families. It occured that very small settlings decided to have feasts together. In fact, in preindustrial times harvest festivals had been pretty common. Most people, if not unable or unwilling to do so, would help harvesting at those times and afterwards all would share the fruits of this work. But with traffic becoming faster and the supply of food being all but seasonal, traditions like these dropped away more and more.::::In the end, Dial was pretty happy to experience this combination of spiritual and material special days. The spiritual elements were rather personal, she had read, depending on whether or not people felt belonging to that religion, while the material celebration was something all of them did together. Gift giving in a society where wealth and poverty were chapters of history books - at least for the people living aboard a Starfleet Starship - was also not purely materialistic anymore. Of course most of the gifts were made from materials. But since anyone could replicate anything, gifts were more thoughtfully chosen than some ages ago. Dial would created things with her own hands but since the lack of time was pressing so hard on her, she considered a different approach. She thought that if she made presents of stuff people wouldn't think of but appreciate, it would be a nice idea, too.::::While thinking about the people she had got to know during her one and a half years of service, she also sometimes wondered about those she didn't stay in contact with. Her former CO, the ominous Rear Admiral Jaxx, whom she had met a few times only. Or what had happened to the many people who got transferred. But then she thought about Alex who had first moved away and who was back now. She shamefully realized how much she had avoided him. Hopefully he would be present at the party. She'd like to reapproach him. Perhaps, she'd create certain something-something for him. Some sort of more personal present maybe.::no TAGs--------------------OOC:http://wiki.starbase118.net/wiki/index.php?title=Dial/Personal_Glossary-------------------Ens. DialNurseUSS Constitution-BA239103D10
Guest Posted December 28, 2015 Posted December 28, 2015 Just snuck into Round 4 - the sim was originally posted on 27th December.
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