May 13
I got right up with the sun again, ‘cause today was going to be a pretty busy day. I nuzzled Meghan until she woke up, too, and then we took a shower together which was nice. My wings were a little bit sore from flying in the weather and she gave me a pretty good back massage.
We ate breakfast together and then I went to Professor Sir Doctor Banerjee’s class, where he started the class by giving back our tests (I got a 93% which is pretty good) and then continued to teach us about fractals.
He told us about the Julia Set, the Fatou Set, and the Mandlebrot Set, which are the most famous kind of fractals, and showed us pictures of how they looked. They were really elegant—I’d never thought of math being pretty before, but it was. And then he showed us the equations and how little changes would alter the characteristics of the set, and class just flew by. Then he told us that Google had programs that would draw sets for us if we put in the equations, and I thought that would be a fun thing to play with when I didn’t have anything else to do.
At lunch, Peggy started telling everyone about how I’d been skywatching, and so pretty soon I had to tell them all about it. Humans don’t get to work with clouds but they do a lot of stuff which is pretty amazing, but I guess that it’s so common for them that they don’t even think about it.
Christine mentioned that today was Friday the Thirteenth, which was considered an unlucky day. But I thought that it had been a pretty good day so far, and I told her that I was going to make it a lucky day ‘cause I was going to take my radio test in the afternoon and then I would be able to carry a better radio and even stormwatch on my own sometimes.
Professor Amy congratulated us on doing well on our tests but I hadn’t done as well as I had on the math test. I wasn’t surprised, but I was a little disappointed in myself. I’d studied so hard, so maybe there was just something about me; maybe I wasn’t all that smart about anthropology.
But she didn’t seem disappointed when she gave mine back.
We spent most of the class talking about what we were going to do for our final exams. Instead of taking them in class, we were to write a research paper, and she gave us a whole list of topics that we could choose from. Some of it was stuff that we hadn’t even covered in class yet, and when Rachel asked about that she said we would have to go to the library and get some books, and everyone in the class groaned at that.
She told us that we could also pick a different topic if we wanted to; the list was just a suggestion. But if we did, we would have to tell her what our topic was on Monday, and give her a little bit of an outline of what we intended to do with the paper, and that sounded like a lot more work than just picking something off the list.
I thought it would be smart to go to the library and see what I could find first, rather than choose a topic and later on find out that I couldn’t make any sense of it, which meant I was going to be spending a lot of time in the library over the weekend.
As soon as class was finished I rushed out of the building and flew over to the parking lot behind my dorm. I came over the top of Trowbridge ‘cause it was faster, and saw Sienna sitting there, waiting by the door, so I landed right in front and I don’t think that Mister Salvatore was expecting that.
Miss Cherilyn opened the door for me and then we drove off along Westnedge like we were going to Meijer, and then we went a little bit further until we were right by the 94 Highway. There was a road that took us to a fancy brick and glass building which had a twin building right next to it and he said that that was their temporary office and where I would be taking the test.
There was a room called a conference room and it had a long table with a lot of chairs, more than we needed. Mel was there, and he shook my hoof when I came in and wished me luck, then Mister Salvatore gave me the test.
It didn’t take all that long, except for the questions about electricity. I was glad I’d taken all the practice tests and known that I needed to study for it more, otherwise I think I would have been lost. Even with the practice, I was still kind of uncertain, so I made sure I read the questions carefully and then double-checked my answers when I was done.
He went away to grade it, and Miss Cherilyn and Mel and I just chatted for a little bit until he came back and told me that I had passed the test. I asked him if I’d gotten all the questions right, and he shook his head, but he said it didn’t matter: I’d done well enough. Then he brought out a box that had a new radio in it, and it looked a lot like the other one, but it worked on different frequencies.
Mel congratulated me and I would have liked to stay around and talk some more but it was getting late and I knew that I had to go see the play, so we left and stopped at Taco Bell for dinner and then they dropped me off back at my dorm. I galloped upstairs so I could give the CB radio back, ‘cause I had the new one now.
Peggy was in the room, so when I got back, I told her the good news and I also sent a quick computer letter to Doctor Thomas Thompson telling him and I would have sent one to Ryan, too, but I couldn’t remember his computer-mail address.
I probably could have just met Aric at the theatre, but I flew over to his house instead so that we could ride to the theatre together.
He said that we could sit up in the light booth if we wanted to, or else we could take normal seats. I thought it would be a lot more fun to be up in the light booth, because I liked watching how serious everyone was, so we went up there and when we passed the little room with Chad he glared at me and I stuck my tongue out at him.
There were a couple of hard blue chairs and we sat on them kind of out of the way, and watched the show. A red-haired girl named Beth was using the light board, and Lisa was handling the spotlight again.
The play was called The Learned Ladies, and it was about Henriette who wants to marry Clitandre, but her mother wants her to marry a poet named Trissotin. And they spent the whole play trying to find a way that Henriette could marry the one she loves and not the poet (who wasn’t a very good poet anyway), and finally in the end they trick Trissotin into admitting that he only wanted to marry Henriette for the family’s money.
After it was over we got in Winston and as Aric was driving home I asked him if I could drive. He said that he had been thinking about that and it would be complicated for me because the truck was a stick shift, which meant that there were more pedals to push and a lever that had to be moved into the right place.
But when he turned onto his street, he went right past the house and then went west all the way out to the Maple Hill Mall, and we drove around to the back of it and he said how would I like to steer while he used the pedals and the shifter.
That was a pretty good start, so I sat on his lap and it was a little bit awkward for him to get his hands where he needed to and me to grip on the steering wheel, and he liked it a little too much when I was shifting my rump around on his lap to get into a good position.
When we were all settled he reminded me to start off by only making small corrections on the steering wheel because the truck didn’t drive like a go-kart. And then we went across the parking lot, back and forth, until I finally got the hang of steering and pretty soon I could go around the light poles and put it between the white lines that mark parking spots.
I asked him if that meant I could do the pedals, too, and he said not this time but maybe next time, and so I got back in my seat and he drove us back home, and then he stopped in a little parking lot at the end of his street and said I could steer the rest of the way home. I didn’t bump into anything.
Just before I fell asleep, I thought back to how Christine had said that Friday the Thirteenth was supposed to be an unlucky day, and I thought maybe I should tell her it had been a really good day. Maybe it's only unlucky for humans.
Too sore to fly today?
It's a mystery - anthropology!
Never trust a human who is capable of glaring at a pony; they probably kick puppies too.
7385732
I would never kick a puppy; they don't fly near far enough. You get more distance out of kittens. (I regret everythingnothing.)
. . . I wonder how far a pegasus would go. . .
Silver Glow: Cultural ambassador, Ornithopter, Weather technician, Anthropologist, Licensed radio operator.
She's going to end up with the mother of all resumes by the end of the year.
7385785 She's going to have a lot to talk about when she goes to see her friends in Equestria.
It all depends on the person. When I think of that number I just turn that belief around and think of it as lucky. It actually helps.
redwoodspeedway.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/chas-and-joan-steffel-race-car1.jpg
Slowly but surely Silver will soon be in full control of Winston.
I'm sure he would
Silver sets very high standards for herself. It doesn't matter if she's never encountered the subject before, she expects perfection. It's a good ideal, but not a very realistic goal.
Also, I'm really not sure how to feel about her driving Winston. That seems like it could go horribly wrong at some juncture.
I just love euphemisms!
Agreed, and you don't even need to love math or to understand what you are doing to find these fun to play with; fractals are beautifully weird!
Back in the late 1970s & early 1980s I was a Dungeon Master & researched superstitions for ideas. 13 being unlucky dates back to there being 13 at the Last Supper. In Japan 4 unlucky because the symbol for 4 is similar to the symbol for death. The lucky number is 5.
He did warn her that driving a stick was more complicated.
7385732
*Shipping senses tingling*
I bet Chad's just jealous that Silver got to Aric first!
Ponies.......Beware Tuesday the 31st!
OOOOoooooOOOOOooooo!
7385732
Ever since Silver started taking that anthropology class, I was wondering when someone was going to make the reference.
nothing is better than catching up in a hot tub.
i wonder if silver is going to make a driver licence too (for automatic cars of course?)
7385781
Like a boomerang, a pegasus flies out for a distance, then turns around, comes back and hits you in the face.
7386441
I'd been restraining myself every time the class was mentioned, until now...
7386811 My opinion is wrong?
Welp, I'll give you credit. When you are wrong you are most spectacularly wrong. Let's talk about just how wrong you are.
First up. It's my opinion. I liked it. Heck, I own a copy. Sucks that Harrison Ford's character died.
Second bit of wrong.
Rey. You assume incorrectly her parentage. It's unknown who her parents even are. That she uses the force naturally doesn't surprise me. At all. She's adept, probably been using it in some small way all her life. It was only when things got hectic did she actively begin to use it. I'll summarize. We are born with legs and feet. We learn to crawl then walk and finally run.
The map. Clearly taken from the Jedi archive.
Fin. Murders his friends that he trained with? Really? Like YOU'D want to known as a friend of murderers.
Overall your opinion is yours. I disagree wholeheartedly.
7386294 pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw3349-1330717409005.gif
7386850
Depends on the pegasus, though.
Fluttershy would probably let Rainbow do the reverse course.
7387078
I hate to have to be the grognard here, but your objections are factually incorrect.
Firstly, we see that Anakin can use force powers untrained when he's pod racing. While it's never confirmed, Leia also using passive powers untrained would explain much of the original trilogy. (Such as why she didn't bone her brother.) It probably runs in the family.
The mapping has no scale marking or indicator of level of detail. They are literally incomparable.
The size of the universe/empire/republic in cannon is purposely vague, but much, much less than the EU. This is established with the galactic senate shots in the prequels.
Hans can exit hyperspace wherever he wants because he's Hans. He's been suicidal since '77. He's not only plausibly informed, but he's the only one both crazy enough to try twice and tough enough to survive. We've seen throughout the series that every type of shield has some sort of quirk. The generators on the outside, being able to walk through them, and so on.
The resistance is a 5th column force inside the territory of the First Order.
And honestly, I see no problem with the lightsaber combat. One is a trained soldier who theoretically was familiar with melee weapons. He got his ass kicked for a while. The other is strong in the force. She got her ass kicked for a while. When did they stop getting beat down? When Kylo Ren put himself in a position to lose. Kylo knew he was tempted by the call of the light side, but he still fought when he was divided within himself. He was in emotional turmoil that had weakened him with both sides of the force. He was distraught over the death of his father, unable to harness his full passions to call on the dark side effectively. He was also cut off from the light side after embracing dark side corruption with the murder of his father. Then, during the battle he taunted his opponents passions and purity putting them in the best possible position to call on the force. Kylo wanted to lose. On some level, he wanted to die for murdering his father.
Interesting that SG is putting so much work into jumping through the hoops for flying safely, but doesn't (AFAICT) have a learner's permit for driving yet :-)
7385732
From flying in the storm yesterday.
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Exactly.
7385781
I've lobbed a feral kitten about ten feet into my front yard, to make sure he got the message he wasn't welcome (and that I was pissed that he had clawed me). He took off full-tilt when he hit the ground and I haven't seen him since.
7385785
She is! Although I don't know if Ornithopter technically counts on a resume (on the other hand, anybody who read that would probably be too embarrassed to ask what an Ornithopter was).
7385835
That she will. And odds are good that there's going to be stuff that they won't believe.
To some people, it's a very special day.
lovethispic.com/uploaded_images/161336-Jason-Gets-A-Balloon.jpg
I've personally never thought it was unlucky.
I think it was in one of totallynotabrony's stories where AJ tries to drive the human's truck . . . and crashes it into a tree.
7385918
Well, she is the first pegasus to do the program, so she ought to set a good example for her fellow pegasi, right?
Aric thinks so, too, which is why he's in control of the accelerator and brake.
7385959
They really are.
7385972
I think it's Chinese where 8 is a lucky number . . . there's a Chinese-American journalist with the name Jennifer 8 Lee.
7386031
...sure, that's it.[/sarcasm]
Nah, Chad's just a dk. He needs a hug.
7386294
lol, Tuesdays. The worst days to be in Ponyville.
7390389
The openning ceremony for the Pekin olympic game was the 08/08/08 because of that.
7386441
Me, too. Incidentally, now would be a good time to point to your avatar.
7386521
Agreed.
That'd actually be a tougher hurdle than her pilot's license, but there's a chance she could at least get a learner's permit.
Fun fact: my brother got a pilot's license before he got a driver's license.
7386850
Alicorns, of course, fly straight and true.
img14.deviantart.net/e666/i/2012/332/9/e/cadence_makes_a_good_javelin_by_chloenart-d5mf873.jpg
7388200
Probably.
7388835
She's acclimatizing to America, where laws are made to be broken!
7390431
Yeah, but I cycle through a collection of about 50 avatars on a weekly basis, so by this time next week, my avatar will no longer match quite as well.
Just good timing that I was on the Lyra part of the cycle, I guess.
My anthropology class did the same thing, only instead of a list of topics we had to compare and contrast any two cultures. I ended up writing a 12-page paper comparing the Maori, the traditional warrior culture of New Zealand that believed that by eating their fallen enemies they would gain their and their ancestors' power, with a small tribe within the Amazon that believes in witchcraft, and if someone is accused of being a witch, they eat them. I'm not very big into anthropology, but it was definitely interesting seeing how utterly different their views on cannibalism was from each other. The Amazon tribespeople don't even consider themselves cannibals because they don't believe that "witches" are humans.
Or they're MtG nerds and actually know what that is. They might even realize that it's a legal fiction invented to let a pegasus fly around.
11005033
True on both counts.
Although to be fair, the word has been used at least as far back as 1908, and does mean an aircraft which flies by means of flapping its wings, so that’s a reasonable classification for Silver Glow as far as the FAA is concerned.
11005418
11005033
Dune fans: "Am I a joke to you?"
Didn't know MtG had Ornithopters in it, always neat to see mention of them.
11327468
For all I know, it was a Dune reference.
Yeah, it was a great card. A 0/2 flier with a casting cost of 0 . . . you need a good, quick aerial defense, that's your card.