January 26
I got up later than I meant to, because I was up too late playing Durak. I had to kind of rush my morning routine, and I didn't get to trot as far as I wanted to and I didn't get to fly at all. I can't quite put a hoof on when it happened, but it feels like my schedule is shifting to match the human's schedule, which is go to bed late and get up late.
Maybe human universities are better suited to thestrals.
It doesn't help that I sometimes have to wait to use the shower in the morning. It would be so much more practical to be able to share. Especially since some girls (and I'm not naming names) feel the need to groom themselves in there before coming out, which takes even more time.
Speaking of grooming, I probably ought to have a manecut soon, and maybe get my tail trimmed a little bit too. It's a touch long for all the walking I'm doing lately. I wonder where you go to get that done here? I don't remember seeing any spas. There certainly weren't any on campus, 'cause I'd been just about everywhere.
I have made the most important discovery in the dining hall. There is an electric waffle iron! It's kind of out of the way, which is why I didn't see it before. I thought that all the food was mostly prepared, besides stuff like toast, which you have to make yourself in an electric machine that takes the bread on a little conveyor and it goes into the machine and comes out toasted.
I asked Christine if the waffle iron was out all the time, and she said it usually was, but it was away from all the other food, and not so easy to find unless you were looking for it.
Then I asked her if it had been there since the beginning of the year, and she said it hadn't. She thought it was probably broken; she said that sometimes people put stupid things in it and it breaks. She also said that the same thing happens to the microwaves in dorms like mine.
Since I didn't know how one works, she told me she'd show me the next time I came by her dorm room. I asked her why she needed it, when there was the dining hall and you could use the telephone to get pizza as well, and she said that it was really convenient for all sorts of things like popcorn and hot chocolate.
She asked me if I was thinking of doing any extracurricular activities, and I told her I hadn't really decided yet. We knew it was an option, but a lot of times it got really complicated, and most ponies didn't bother. There was enough stress with trying to fit in and learn about new stuff. She said that was probably true, but I might meet a new friend, and maybe I'd discover something else that I liked to do. She also said that with a lot of stuff, there wasn't a really big commitment; I could do it if I wanted to, and then quit if I didn't like it.
I told her I had considered the track and field team: I'm a decent runner, but not as good as an Earth pony. I'd probably do all right in sprints and hurdles, even if I wasn't allowed to actually fly.
She said she wasn't really thinking of organized sports, although that was a good idea as well, then she asked me how I felt about role playing.
Well, I'd tried that a couple of times, but it was always a bit weird. Some stallions have really odd tastes, and it was hard to get in the mood when he kept calling me 'Momma.'
She said that she was into LARPing; from her description it sounded like a lot of fun, so I told her that I'd be willing to give it a try next time she was going to do it.
Then in poetry class, we moved on to a new poet, who was called e e cummings.
I was baffled by the first poem. When I looked at it, it was like he didn't really know how words are formed, or sentences are made.
I think if I had just read the poems in my book by myself, I would have passed them by after the first or maybe the second if I was feeling generous. In the bathroom, there is a message on the stall that says “I know the brownie batter blizzard secret,” and that made more sense to me than the first of his poems that I read before class started.
But then Professor Hillberry read it, and that made all the difference.
We have never imagined poems like this.
This was like a
This was like when you've got the sky all properly covered and suddenly a fallstreak opens up. I realized that there was more to words than just the rules, that you could make every single letter and punctuation mark be important on its own. I'd been confused (and a little annoyed as well) and I suddenly understood that he was doing more with less.
The professor had a student read another poem, and then he asked us what we thought about it. I raised my hoof, and he called on me right away.
I told him that I thought that poems weren't like novels; that a poem doesn't try to paint an exact picture, but rather lets you feel in yourself what the poet felt when shehe was looking at something or feeling something, and that it was okay for a poem to change its meaning depending on the circumstance. I told him I thought he'd been trying to show us that poems were sometimes held back by rhythm or meter, but that they didn't have to be; they could be whatever they wanted to be.
He said that I was right, and then he told me that I ought to look through e e cummings poems and see if there was one that particularly spoke to me, and read it for class on Thursday.
Then he gave a lecture on how all sorts of art styles were changing when e e cummings was alive, and how the people of the time rejected a lot of the old styles in favor of new and different styles.
Sometimes change is good. It's too easy to get caught up in a rut and keep doing things the way you've always been doing them, because it's easy.
But sometimes it's better to move beyond what you know and do something else. If I stuck with what was easy, I'd still be back in Equestria. Maybe I'd be reading stories in newspapers about how strange humans are and I'd be shaking my head and pushing clouds and not thinking too much about it. I think a lot of ponies would be.
It's not all good, though. Sometimes the old way was better and the new way is dumb. So it's not practical to just gallop off after every new thing.
That got me to wondering if I had made the right choice. I was far away from all my old friends, and I'd just recently discovered that not only were there dangers like cars that would run you over or airplanes that might sneak up on you in the clouds, or even like Miss Cherilyn said boys who would put roofies in your drink, but there were also angry men who might be upset at you just for being yourself, and it was easier to just go back to the familiar herd and not risk those dangers.
From that perspective, I'd made a stupid choice. I ought to have stayed in Equestria.
But then I thought about all the new stuff I'd learned, and we weren't even five weeks into the school year. I thought of the places I'd been so far, and the things I'd seen, and the people I'd met, and I realized I wouldn't want to trade it for anything. So what if some asshole in a suit spit at me and Peggy? He didn't matter. He was gone, and good riddance. He'd probably sulked back to his home; maybe he thought he was a big stallion, but he wasn't at all because I was still here, and he couldn't change that.
I spent the whole rest of the afternoon reading e e cummings, and after dinner as well.
Humanity i love you.
That is interesting, where could she go to get her main cut and her tail trimmed? Cause I do not think our spas do that type of thing. I wonder what she will think of the upcoming love holiday.
7055565 I tended to have mine with the same teacher
I enjoyed being an existentialist gadfly, in the proud tradition of my old hero, Kierkegaard.
Oh my god
Cummings' Latinate insanity is so wonderful
Just take the spoon out of the hot chocolate before you turn the microwave on...
It's nice to see some positive words on the internet about humanity.
PS just put together that silver gold is a mare. I'm leaning more and more every day.
...htzig.
Zerk.
Horf.
[TheRogueWolf.exe has encountered an error and must restart.]
Oh my.
Neat chapter. Not really a fan of E. E. Cummings, but if Silver can find a connection in poetry, then good for her. And it's nice to see she's reaffirming her decision to come to Earth.
I remember when I first moved to Japan back in 2004, I was sitting outside a local yakitori place drinking a beer when some guy came up, tapped me on the shoulder and said in heavily accented English "Hey! Japanese only!" And then I told him off in Japanese (I'd studied before I went, but I got much better after three years there), which caught him off guard, but then the waitress came over, chewed him out, and chased him off. It bugged me a little and I wondered if that would happen often while I was there.
But the truth is that, honestly, that was the only overtly racist thing that ever happened to me personally while I was over there. I wouldn't have traded it for anything.
Hah, American LARPS, let me adjust my monocle, take my baguette under the arm, pick up my espresso and then point and laugh (awkwardly because I'm kind of busy with not dropping stuff but you get the gist).
Sub-cultural framed jokes aside, I'm looking forward to this for a lot of low-stake, entertaining drama
7055625 Eh, like I said, 90%. The trick is always to remove the offending part of the sentence that confuses you.
I saw a human house the other day up in... Winnetka or some shithole like that, that seriously looked like it would belong in Ponyville. After some searching (and a lot of cursing at google maps for not being able to find it by retracing my route) I found it. 1487 Tower Rd. Aside from having cedar(?) shakes instead of thatch, tell me that doesn't look like it belongs in Ponyville.
So, um, there's this thing where names are supposed to have capital letters...
And where initials have periods...
And you've written E.E. Cummings as e e cummings every single time that the name appears in this chapter.
7056100
Artistic license due to attempted replication of a pony writing a journal in english.
7056114 ...
This is the first time in this entire journal that something like this has gone on. Everyone else's name has not only been capitalized, but spelled correctly. Even Meijer, which sounds like a mangled pronunciation, is 100% accurate.
So, no. No, that is not a valid excuse.
Oooh! Pony in LARP, that should be interesting. I wonder what the local group does, sword and sorcery style or something like Masquerade (I find the idea of a vampire pony very funny).
7056128
That seems to be a stylistic choice of e e cummings, like "Humanity i love you" or that when Silver read his poetry, "it was like he didn't really know how words are formed, or sentences are made."
I have to admit, after reading "Humanity i love you", I kind of agree with Silver's first assessment...
7055610
Point taken and respected.
I swear, this wasn't my college, but it certainly could have been.
7056128
e e cummings wrote poems that lacked punctuation or capitalization (or used them in strange ways), so his name is often written that way as well.
An example of his poetry.
7056100 Apparently this is how you spell Edward Estlin Cummings's diminutive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings
So Ponies have role playing "in bed" but not outside of it? How... strange?
I mean, a pony into make beleive would also do it the "innocent" way too, no?
Oh well! Still a good laugh!
I really liked the chapter's thematic and I really liked her poem choice, very fitting.
Im not sure if she fully understood it, but I can understand why it appeled to her.
I didn't realize Silver Glow had dated Johnny Bravo
I'm surprised they haven't gotten into TS Eliot and John Donne. Maybe they're more College sophomore-level.
Poe, Coleridge and Frost are my personal faves, but most kids cover them in highschool.
And Dr. Seuss, of course. My boot up the ass of anyone who belittles or looks down on him. I don't care if they're a lit Nobel Laureate or Shakespeare himself.
Like Alighieri, I'd follow the master into Hell.
k32.kn3.net/taringa/1/2/4/5/7/7/41/matahar93/233.jpg
http://whosoever.org/v8i2/seuss.shtml
Ah, the waffle iron, one of the most magical parts of college.
Oh. Well. That's certainly one way to remind us that despite her unfamiliarity with human culture, Silver isn't some wide-eyed innocent.
Ooh. Now I know what fallstreaks are. Very cool, as is e e cummings. I have to appreciate Silver expressing the love sincerely, inspired by an ode to its worst aspects. Ironic, yet uplifting.
Whatever batter they used for the waffles at my college was gross, I had one once and never touched them again.
I was getting ready to suggest D&D or something similar as a good extracurricular, but you beat me to it. Well played Biscuit.
7056100
That's how e e cummings often wrote it, and how his name is often written in poetry books and whatnot.
Glad Silver's finding her center again.
It seems like I'm the only one on the Internet who prefers savory waffles. People always react with shock and disbelief and disgust when I say I love buttermilk waffles with small cubes of ham in the batter, and smothered in garlic butter.
Whip cream and berries seems just as odd to me. And don't get me started on people who think it's okay to put banana on waffles. That's just bizarre.
And so FiMFiction community studied poetry along with Silver Glow.
7056643
Haven't checked Defoloce's page recently. Nice that he's still active.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/37858/the-six-deeds-of-harmony
7056324
I'm curious, why would they be considered harder? Those two were both on the school curriculum I had, while the e e cummings poetry Silver is studying here seems all but unreadably difficult to me!
7056753
Different strokes, I guess. For me, Medieval poetry is a lot different, though often every bit as obtuse and bewildering as modernist and avant-garde stuff like Ulysses and The Waste Land and Cumming's work. Old English epics are comparatively straight forward. But then, I've been a Tolkien Geek since 5th Grade
Of course, it's fun to play recordings of The Waste Land and The Wanderer while playing Fallout 4.
My Sister got her PhD critiquing and analyzing the Parlement of Foules and I had no idea WTF was going on. Even when she read it in modern dialect.
7056535 I'll have to try that next time I make a waffle or two.
7056535 All of the pre-made waffle batter I come across, even the 'buttermilk' ones have so much sugar included in them that adding garlic butter to them doesn't seem appealing at the moment. If I do make a batch of normal waffle batter myself though, that sounds interesting. Based on the ingredients alone I can't think of a reason not to.
7056207
7056220
7056223
7056422
Thank you, concerned citizens, for making absolutely clearly, and beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I understood the honest error I made. Thank you for disregarding the fact that several other people had already told me I was wrong before you showed up, and for everyone who isn't Admiral Biscuit, thank you for taking it upon yourself to provide instruction to the pathetic idiot before the person who responds to almost every single comment on this story (and the person most qualified to defend a stylistic choice within their own work) could show up.I sincerely appreciate this massive outpouring of concerned knowledge-imparting, and sincerely hope that in the future, you will all once again participate in not-at-all synchronized education. However, might I instead recommend that you discover the handy-dandy feature where, in the tiny little information at the top of each comment (directly after the name of the chapter you are commenting on) you can see how many people have then replied to that comment, and can even mouse over their names to see exactly what they said.Again, thank you for your time.7057105
Nobody had answered before I replied. I'm sorry you feel piled-on, but I was just trying to answer your question.
7057187 You make a fair point. Your comment was mostly included as evidence for the others, and also it was a little hard to see with all the red in front of my eyes. I do sincerely apologize to you for that. Your answer was appreciated and genuinely helpful.
Thank you, and have a nice day.
7057105 You are most welcome my good sir! Did you know how hard it was for us to synchronize all our answer without communicating with each other or even being aware that the other were also going to answer you?
Let me tell you, it takes a lot of luck!
I am sure the other are just as deligthed as I am to see how much good sport you are and how well you react to being corrected after vehemently defending your point!
Your kind word are making our day brigther!
Before going, please take note that comment aren't updated live and that an aswer to your comment made after one started to read the chapter will not display when one wan't to reply.
Have a very nice day!
7056842
7057054
I also recommend adding olive or pimento bits. I've been meaning to try capers or chiffonaded wasabi arugula.
7057365 This is why I refresh pages before commenting, in case I'm about to say something someone's already said.
7057395 Good for you I guess?
In addition to being funny, that one line is surprisingly revealing of pony sexuality.
Excellent as always.
7054691
So, to address your points:
1) Ah, I think I see where you are coming from. My impression of Milo's provocateur personality, is someone who uses ironic hyperbole with other statements backed by specific facts, yes?. Am I correct in assuming that you aspire to have some of his better traits?
I can't say that I agree with some of his statements, such as, "Everywhere that doesn't have a strong Christian heritage is a fucked up place with bad morals," [1][8] but I can agree with some of his statements [2]. For example, his statement about women's earnings [3] is partially backed by some studies [4], but at the same time, it has also been recorded that some form of - I think it's misogyny - still exists [5].
Anyways, this calls into doubt the validity of the technical aspects of your source, but if I'm reading the sentiments right, you and Milo abhor some of the worst kind of leftist (which is extremely likely to exist). However, since being a leftist is self-identified, I cannot fully agree with these statements, as I am rather sure that some "casual" leftist in fact do not fall under your categorization. I would go so far as to guess that a significant portion of leftists (over 9,000,000) are "casual."
This is just a long way of saying that some of the leftists (and indeed, both sides) are giving the rest of us a bad name because they too, do not bother to cite their sources, among other things.
2) Just because it is easy to do doesn't imply that the person actually did it. Suspect it, yes, but not proven. And while data points are used to extrapolate graphs and sometimes vice versa [citation needed], in this case I believe we are debating whether a single person (data point) is or is not part of said trend (burying heads in sand). [6]
3) Ah, thank you Thadius, for bringing this to my attention. [6] I was not aware of this, as I would not know how to look for this sort of news. [citation needed] I am ashamed of how the Black Lives Matter cause acted, as are others [7]. As for the other bit, the point is, that it is objectively difficult to say broad, sweeping statements, compliments or insults, about any organization or movement. [8] And while I disagree with some of your sentiments (supporting Trump), I, as a personal rule, always respect self-consistent people. (As a corollary, this means I tend to dislike politicians.)
Points end here, and my baseless opinions begin here.
While politicians tend to lie, even if Trump is telling the truth, it still scares me, attitude is more important that what you can get done. He may get things done, even if makes the country look bad now. That's fine. What's not okay is the precedent that it sets. That if you can temporarily ban Muslims, then it looks okay to do it again, even if it isn't. So no. Ideally to me, Sanders would be president - if he could get all the stuff he promised done.
In short, from the Devil's Dictionary: CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
ALSO: I am rather curious as to what are your sources of hard left and hard right news are. You see, I do not read much political news, much less watch it. I tend to read trends in science you see, and would like to be aware of this. Please refer me to other well-read opinionists, both left and right (besides Milo, I know of him now).
Note: My allegiance belongs to whoever has better science, logic and evidence-based hypotheses. This means that I tend to side with the liberals. Of the two evils, freeloaders and one-time/extremely infrequent overcorrectionist racism [7] are better than the racism from the past, to me at least.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhD_JmYNqoY
[2] A totally illogical statement cannot be understood. It then follows, that if you can partially understand someone's argument, then it is partially logical. (Partially refers from 0 < x% <= 100 of said statement.)
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiESisEL43c
[4] I believe the Factual Feminist has something here to back me up on this.
[5] http://bjk5.com/post/43249906199/meritocracy-and-discrimination-in-tech\
[6] As a side note, I have the baseless belief that some, not all, people are ignorant of other viewpoints involuntarily. And when they do have the chance to see other viewpoints - well, having no sugar (i.e. sarcasm and hostile threats to "read up" on things) doesn't help the medicine go down. [9]
[7] http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/activists-enforce-segregation-black-only-healing-space/
[8] If person X cannot prove/disprove the statement P, then by definition X cannot assert that P is true or P is false.
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLkp_Dx6VdI
7058817
Exactly.
yeah! let's play some D&D!
1pun.ch/img/spit.gif
7059338
Our poor, innocent, human minds.
It is indeed a dark day when that is the first thing a brain turns to when mentioning role playing.
7055563
I would assume that any reasonably competent barber or stylist could do it. Coat grooming might be more of a specialty field, though.
You'll find out soon enough, won't you? It's only a couple more weeks!
7055602
7055644
But the sparks are so pretty! What you mean to say is just don't touch the spoon after it's been microwaved, because it will be about a thousand degrees hot.
7055716
Sorry!
7055770
I think he's one of those poets who you either love or hate. I thought I hated him (because his style is so bloody odd), but then I really started understanding what he was doing, and it really worked for me.
I always worry a bit about that kind of thing when I go abroad. Figure I'll be singled out as the 'dumb American.' So far it hasn't happened, and indeed, most everyone I've ever encountered while overseas was cool. There was one kid in Scotland that was a total dk, but other than that it's been all good.
7056135
I haven't totally decided yet. The only LARP I ever played was Masquerade, and I knew some kids in college who played it, too.
I've also been loosely attached to the SCA for 20 years or so, and more recently in a stage combat troupe, so something like that's a good possibility as well.
7056225
In comics canon, they do have tabletop RPGs (Ogres and Oubliettes, IIRC). But that wasn't the first place her mind went when the subject came up.
She didn't quite get it. If you miss the last line, you miss the tone of the poem.
7056256
statici.behindthevoiceactors.com/behindthevoiceactors/_img/chars/char_1751.jpg
7056324
We didn't cover them in my college class. The only one I can remember that we did for sure was e e cummings, because the professor loved him above all others.
Then my senior seminar, we covered Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams, and I hated both of them and the professor as well. Actually, mostly I hated the professor, and by extension, everything that she liked.
That's a good list. I don't think we covered Coleridge in high school, but I know we did Poe and Frost. I very distinctly remember the essay I did on The Bells--there were fifty books cited in the bibliography (because the teacher had sarcastically said we needed fifty references [including a book called Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe]) and I managed to phrase a section in a way I got to use a double-imbedded quote, for the sole purpose of ending a paragraph thus: ."'"
There's a lot more depth to him than some people think.
7056341
The one we had was usually broken. Because people would put dumb stuff in it.
Nope, although she'll generally be viewed as such by others.
Fallstreak clouds are really cool. They're also called hole-punch clouds, but that's not very romantic.
She didn't quite get the tone of the poem, but does that really matter? Things like poems are more than what the author intended, they're what the reader feels.
7056643
That was my plan all along You're all reliving my college experience, if I was a female pegasus.
In all honestly, though, poetry is a good way to get to know other cultures.
7056389
Sometimes you've got to hit me with a 2x4 before I get it, other times I'm on top of the game.
7056512
Silver Glow is an eternal optimist. Most ponies are, I think.
7056535
You know what else is really good? I came across a recipe for spinach and cheese pancakes. I tried them, because it seemed like something ponies might enjoy, and I liked them. I ought to make them again.
7057105
No offense, but you're coming off as a bit there.
One of the things I like the most about this fandom--and this site in particular--is that most people are honestly trying to help. I've also learned that not all my readers are American, or Midwestern (and why would I assume that they were), so I've had to explain terms not in common useage here and there, and I've learned a lot of stuff. For example (topical!) I didn't know that capitalizing pronouns for God was mostly a modern American thing. I also learned thanks to a comment and a bit of study on my part that 'refuel' wasn't a word in the dictionary in 1957. I've found (usually when i mess something up) experts in practically every field, and especially in this story there have been some wonderful comments that are really mini-essays, and I have to read them two or three times to get the whole thing in my head--and that is presumably the simplified version.
7057672
Kinda is, isn't it? Well, at least one stallion. . . .
I wonder what Freud would think of that?
7057820
Thank you!
7061543
OR IS IT?
Okay, yes, it probably is.
7056207
7056220
7056223
7056422
Hey there. Me again.
I'm sorry. You all honestly were trying to help, and I do sincerely appreciate the effort that was made. It is my fault that the cumulative effect of four people saying the exact same thing caused me to react the way I did.
I would like to apologize for insulting the four of you for an honest mistake on your part. I ask only that we somehow manage to put this behind us.
7063792 Paper cut. Lemon juice.