April 6
Dreams are funny. I dreamed that I was flying across the ocean and it was a beautiful blue-green below me and then after a while I realized that there wasn't any end to it and there weren't any clouds to perch on either, but there was an albatross flying next to me and he said that he would show me the way to safety, and then I looked back down and instead of the ocean it was a grassland, and I landed and rolled in the grass, then I saw a giant serpent slithering towards me and I was all tangled up in grass stalks and couldn't get away.
When I woke up I was tangled in my covers, almost falling out of bed, and I was still a bit disoriented from my dream, so it took me a minute for everything to seem normal. It was comforting to see Peggy sleeping in her bed, lit up by the weird orangish light that humans like to use. It might have been easier for them to see in that light: I know some birds can see stuff that I can't. I've been told that there are little lines on flowers that are invisible to ponies which birds and butterflies and maybe even breezies can see.
I didn't really want to get out of bed because it was still the middle of the night, so I wriggled around on my bed (quietly so I wouldn't wake up Peggy) until I'd gotten myself free and then fluffed my pillow back into shape and kicked the covers back into position and then hooked my pillow between my forelegs and kind of hugged it while I lay my head on it. I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to get back to sleep right away, but I did.
The next time I woke up it was morning, and I headed out for a quick trot. I thought I'd go a different way than usual, so I went down past the Dow Science building and flew across the street because there were a lot of cars so it was safer to go over, then found myself flying over the iron fence surrounding the Mountain Home Cemetery, which is where dead people are buried. There are stones which say who is under them, and most important people have bigger ones. Some of them even had obelisks or statues, and they were probably very important.
It also has several roads that go around it, and those were fine roads for trotting on. It didn't seem like the kind of place that saw many cars driving around it, because it wasn't even wide enough for two cars to pass each other and there weren't any guide stripes on it and the curves were very sharp. But there was one car and it was at the other end driving around slowly so I thought that I would follow it.
It didn't take me too long to catch up to it, and when I got close I had to decide how I was going to get by it. I could have stayed behind, I suppose, but I wouldn't have gotten much exercise that way. I didn't want to be too close in front of it, though, in case it started to go faster and chased me. So I thought I might go back the way I'd came.
I had made much of another circuit of the cemetery when I heard a car behind me getting closer, so I politely got off the road and into the grass to give it room to get by, keeping one ear back on it so I knew where it was. As it got closer, I moved a little more to the side so that it wouldn't feel crowded or try to crowd me, and then it was right next to me and a man shouted out at me.
Well I jumped right up in the air because I didn't expect that, and pretty soon he was asking me what I was doing in here and why had I climbed the fence and was I up to no good. I said that I was getting exercise and I didn't know that the roads were special and you weren't supposed to be on them. Then he told me to get out of the cemetery because I was a nuisance and I wondered who he thought I was bothering besides himself, but I took off and flew straight back across Main Street and then I thought he might be following me, so I made a big turn over Grand Avenue and then flew towards the center of Kalamazoo, 'cause I could lose him there if he was after me.
I landed on top of a stack of parking lots next to the hotel and told myself I was being silly, he wasn't chasing me, and I should not have flown over the fence and should have read the signs that I had seen before near where the little cemetery road went onto Main Street.
Then I wondered if I wasn't supposed to have landed on the top parking lot, because I wasn't supposed to land on buildings unless I had permission first. So I left before anyone could see me and went back to campus, staying low because I didn't have my vest or my radio or my blinky light.
I went back around the south way, and up the slope by DeWaters, then crossed over the parking lot and neatly landed by the back door of Trowbridge, then made my way up the maze of steps to our dorm room.
In math, Professor Doctor Sir Banerjee talked about limit cycles and eigenvectors, stable and unstable manifolds, and different kinds of connections. He also said that sometimes they called the lines between the stable and unstable sections the separatrix, which I thought was a very nice name, but then he said that he preferred not to use the term, and he showed us an example of how as you changed mu, the system was an incoming spiral, or a circle, or an outgoing spiral. At first that was a bit confusing, then he put it all together and said how there was a stable oscillation between the incoming and outgoing spirals which was the limit cycle. Then he said that you could perturb it (which means poke it) and it would go to a different stable orbit.
That was the kind of thing I understood, because working weather was like that: we would perturb the system that was there until we got it to a different system, if we could. And he also explained how even our hearts worked like that, and other body functions as well, which was kind of neat. I'd never thought about that.
Professor Amy started off her class by showing us a disturbing movie about Balinese cockfighting, and then she explained what it represented: the cock was a symbol of manhood, and it was a way of relieving tension and aggression, and that it gave men a chance to strut around. I wanted to know why they didn't just hit each other with their dicks instead, because then there wouldn't be poor roosters having to fight so that their owner could feel proud of himself. A few girls laughed at that question, but I was being serious.
After that was over, she told us that she was going to show us a film of another sport that was very masculine, and that the men wore special uniforms that highlighted their masculine traits like broad shoulders. She said that the uniforms were supposed to be for protection, but that they were used as weapons, and then when she played the film it was a football game like the Super Bowl. So I was glad I was taking good notes, because Cedric and Leon both played football, and it was good to have a better understanding of the game.
There were some protests about how that wasn't the same thing, and then Rachel raised her hand and asked why the two quarterbacks didn't get on the field and hit each other with their dicks, and it was a few minutes before Professor Amy could bring the class back to order and I was sorry that I had opened my mouth because as an anthropologist we're supposed to observe and not judge.
Then she explained specialized jobs, and said that in a lot of cultures, the men wanted the more important jobs, while the women would take the boring jobs because they needed to be done, and I thought to myself that Equestria wasn't like that. Besides the Royal Guard, I couldn't think of any things that a mare couldn't or wouldn't do.
On my way to dinner I stopped by the mail hut and got my mail. There was a nice letter from Aquamarine, and since I had been bad about reading them right away, I sat down in one of the chairs in the main lounge and opened the letter and read it right there. Dinner could wait a few minutes.
She said that there was a draft horse show at the Pavilion this weekend and wondered if I might want to come see it, and she said that she was sorry she hadn't sent me a letter about it sooner and that it was okay if I sent her a computer letter back because it would probably take too long for the mail to arrive with my reply. And she said that Jenny said that I could stay with her if I wanted to.
I was just finishing reading when I noticed Christine and Sean sitting down across from me, and they were curious about the letter so I showed it to them. Of course they couldn't read it at all. Sean was really curious about the writing, so I explained to him how Equestrian worked, and he studied the letter and then had me read it out loud to both of them. I thought that was kind of weird, since they couldn't understand it at all, but they both were fascinated. Maybe I ought to talk in Equestrian more often.
Then at dinner, our conversation turned to different languages, and I found out that everyone at the table could speak at least a little bit of a foreign language. Peggy knew some German, Christine knew how to say a couple things in Creole, Joe was fluent in Japanese, and Sean could speak Klingon. That was kind of neat to hear all the different languages. Joe had a pen, so we wrote some stuff on napkins, too, and while the German and Creole used the same letters as English, the Japanese and Klingon had their own letters.
That inspired me for a topic for my Anthropology paper, ‘cause I hadn’t thought of anything else yet: I would ask Gusty why unicorns liked to use a different alphabet because maybe there was a better reason than they just didn’t want non-unicorns to be able to read what they write.
After dinner I wrote a letter back to Aquamarine and then had Peggy help me put it in the computer. I'd asked her if she wanted to come with me but she said that she already had plans for the weekend. Then she showed me how to buy train tickets on the computer. Figuring out the timetable was a bit difficult, but we found a train that left Friday night which would give me all day Saturday with Aquamarine. The only train we could find left early Sunday morning, so Peggy suggested the bus, which left in the evening. And it went the same place as the train, which was really convenient.
It would have been smarter to have figured out when I could go to Lansing first, to make sure that Aquamarine would be there to meet me, so I wrote her another quick letter with my schedule and Peggy put that in the computer too and sent it to her.
And I wrote a letter to Gusty, too, saying that I was looking forward to seeing her in the play and that I was still waiting for word back from Mister Salvatore when we would be arriving, and then at the very end I told her about my Anthropology assignment and then since I’d seen Peggy do it a couple of times, I put the letter in the computer all by myself.
Then I thanked her for all her help and nuzzled her on the cheek and said that I was going to Aric's and that I would be back in the morning.
Of course Sean would speak Klingon xD
So, how will Earth horses react around a pony in estrus? Will the scent be similar enough to cause a reaction?
7271112
well so no Top Gun for Silver Glow
not just him ! basicly everyone you see walking/working on the street!
---------------------
Silver Glow needs to work on her bullshiting skills, if she had told the cemetery ward that, that this was the way how ponies honored their deaths, then everything would have been fine. because freedom of religon and stuff ;-P
This is going to spiral so quick out of control and becoming viral.
if two (male) people on the campus have some sort of conflict, sooner or later someone is going to ask why thy dont hit each other with their dicks instead!!! and thus a new meme was born. (or an old one warmed up again)
yeah silver should, she should the other show some of Equestrians culture too, not just in class, but everywhere else too i guess (like the hugging thing) and language is a pretty big part of it.
You got "by" and "up" flipped.
I'm Australian, I'm barely capable of speaking English...
7271893
Correction made; thank you!
7271877 "PEEGGGYYYYY!!!!! HELP MEEEEEE! HE'S HUUUUUGE AND HE'S CHASING MEEEEE!!!!"
"You can fly, doofus."
"Oh. right."
7271883
Ah yes, the evolution of the pissing contest. Next someone's going to bring the inflatable dicks and they really WILL start hitting each-other with them
Well, for one thing, SIlver girl, hitting something with your dick hurts.
Also, it's likely that unicorns have their own writing for the same reason math has a bunch of Greek letters and medicine loves using Latin: Magic likely involves concepts that the more common language can't easily encapsulate.
7271877
Aw crud, man! You had to say something, didn't you?!? Now you've jinxed it.
7271912 filling them with some white liqued instead of air huh ....
>inb4 that happens in the next few chapters
7271910 Yes but how hard is it to fly with wingies like that?
Lol, go Sean!
this is going to be good Silver at a draft show.
I have both attended and showed at the world shire horse show several times here in pa I can say it is a real blast and some wear I have photos of a class a mini standing under a shire just to funny the ears just touched his chest.
I hope they whip up an honorary Best Equestrian In Show award and give it to Silver. (Sorry Aquamarine!)
Wait, would that be too insulting? Hmmmmm... They'd just have to be absolutely clear that it's meant in good fun, and probably that it's a way they're thanking the ponies for coming. Or something like that.
7271916
I know, right? It's like Silver doesn't understand that a contest of manliness shouldn't involve that kind of pain (hitting something with your dick), nor that kind of emasculation (getting slapped by a dick)!
Close enough, human eye can pick up contrast easier in yellow/orange teint. Hence why ski glasses are usually using that teint, or why street lamp are orange and so many other exemples.
One idea. Silver seems to fly at about race horse speed. An exhibition match, perhaps a steeple chase. (How high can they jump?)
It may be that each tribe had their own alphabet. It could be Unicorns developed writing first & a simplified alphabet was developed after unification & Unicorns just kept theirs -at least for magic. Sort of like the USA still doesn't use the metric system or Centigrade.
7271196 $8000? What chu talking' bout Willis?
7272084
Ehhhh
The street lights are orange because they're Sodium Vapor lamps, which are naturally orange. And they're sodium vapor because the bulb life is really long, and power consumption surprisingly low.
Ah, but Silver, does it apply the other way around? What would a stallion say if I asked him? (I'm noticing that, IIRC, all the exchange students on the train were mares...)
7271912
Ah, so just like 4chan then.
I think he thinks you're being a nuisance to the dead Silver. How much weight do ponies put on the dead bodies?
Hah! How long will it take for her to learn that it's a made up language?
7271063
I guess that if you're gonna have sex somewhere other than the bedroom, you'd want to do it where the nutritional values of the fluids wouldn't be wasted, like your garden in the backyard. A theme of fertility and seeds and stuff.
7271153
No particular reason. but it would be a great twist
Also, Luna hasn't been mentioned in the journal. At least as far as I can remember.
7272403 Klingon may be an invented language, but the Language Creation Society has recently alleged in court that it's evolved into a "real" language and should not be subject to a copyright claim that Paramount is making.
7272486 That would likely just confuse her more.
7272350 Does it mean mare shows their mare-liness by hitting each other with their tail?
Heh. It's nice to see Silver look at unicorns anthropologically. She's applying her lessons well, and using them in areas of her life most wouldn't think to. Good for her.
7271877
If there is a reaction, and it seems possible since horses can and do react to human women for the same reason, my fear is that Silver will be berated by the organisers for causing disruption. Though surely Aquamarine would foresee this?
7272151
Also, I suspect that the physical demands of mouth-writing as opposed to horn-writing would significantly shape the grammer and calligraphy of each.
Mouth-writing probably leads to a larger, more cursive script, and since it doubtless takes longer, may require a more efficient grammer.
Horn-writing however probably permits faster more delicate control, allowing more possibilities in both calligraphy and grammer, it probably tolerates many more historical artefacts of speech (much like english), whereas mouth-writing could not afford such inefficiencies.
7272658 Presumably, Aquamarine is also in heat.
7272658
Maybe it might depend if all mare's go into heat at the same time or not, it maybe that Silver is early compared to Aquamarine.
that math class sounds interesting, unfortunately I won't have the chance to take anything like it.
SIlver's suggestion regarding dicks is hilarious.
I'm seconding what 7271916 said. Unicorns have a seperate script for describing magic that is more accurate and concise than regular writing. I'm guessing that Silver misunderstanding this to mean that unicorns have a complete separate language for everything.
7272646 A recently-built Amtrack station with poor architecture and few services, as distinct from the old-style central downtown stations like Chicago's and New York's.
Oh Silver, don't go changing!
So far, this hasn't been commented on, but I feel like it's super interesting that she takes the time to point this out and explain the idea of a cemetery, as if it was a foreign idea to her.
I'm skeptical that this'll come up again, unless burial rites are brought up in anthropology, so what's the story here? How do ponies treat their dead?
7273047
Actually, it's already come up once:
"Earth ponies put their dead in the ground so that new life may spring forth, and unicorns build cairns and monuments, while pegasuses prefer to be set free in the sky. I hadn't really thought about it before, but maybe it's because earth ponies like to feel connected to the land, while we'd rather be free of such notions."
The idea of a large cemetery is foreign to her. Earth ponies would want to be buried on their land, to give themselves back to the soil where they came from. Unicorns in large cities probably have memorial gardens of some sort, but probably most of them would want to be on family land as well.
an
Also, YAY! She's starting to learn not to be irrationally prejudiced against unicorns!
Umm, Silver, you do know that that's not a real language, right?
True story: I had a professor in college who jokingly claimed to be part Klingon. At the start every exam, he'd shout "Qapla'!" at us in an effort to inspire us to do our best.
7273091
Opps, I actually do remember that now: Isn't a cemetery similar to what unicorns do? I suppose I'm a bit confused on this point because you could think of tombstones as memorials or carins in a sense.
7273186
Aren't you supposed to say that after you've won?
7273357
I think I've seen it used in the context of acknowledging a command and declaring one's intent to carry out said command to the best of one's abilities, but it's been a while since I've seen anything from the Star Trek franchise, so I could be mistaken.
I still would love to find out what Equestrian sounds like as a language. The linguist in me is dying over here.
Is it tonal, like Chinese? Is it Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) like English, or SOV like Japanese and Turkish? Is the writing system phonetically based? Argh, the speculation!
It occurs to me that Silver has not heard about the inclement weather Texas has been experiencing since at least mid March. Flooding, highways completely washed out, hailstorms with 'cyclonic activity' that knock old houses off their foundations and blow out windows and tear off rooftops...
Also i was wondering what she would think of some of the 9/11 footage that has started making the rounds again. One clip showed up in my Facebook feed just a week ago, which is what got me wondering. Maybe she'll get lucky and never see any of it.
7273091 I think that, at least in a mountain city like Canterlot, many unicorns would be buried in underground crypts, originally dug out in the search for quality gems. Also, mummification spells would probably be popular for the nobles to preserve their vanity into the ages, so that their bodies might match the luster of the riches buried along with them.
I remember reading an ethnography about Balinese cock fighting in at least two of my anthropology classes. It was presented as the ultimate example of proper ethnographic writing.
7273468 I believe it carries the sense of 'Good fortune' or 'Good luck'.
7271863
Of course he would.
7271877
Yes, it is.
7271883
nope . . . not yet, anyway.
And that's still a better storytelling device than mares going into senseless heat once a year and fing anyone at all. . . .
As well it should.
Of course, it's also rude to talk in a language no one understands.
7271895
What I learned about Australian is that you condense whole sentences down into a single word. So "Would you like to take a minute and have a refreshing beverage?" becomes "Cuppa?"
I assume that is the natural result to a country where you have to think fast to avoid the poisonous snakes, frogs, toads, drop bears, sharks, grass, quokkas, and whatever else you have that will kill you.
7271910
7271912
Oddly, that didn't ever come up in Anthropology class.
7271916
When I was . . . well, nevermind.
I'm not sure that I agree 100%. I think that math uses Greek letters because you won't confuse them with something else. They could just as easily have used new, made-up symbols, or written the whole thing out. Likewise, medicine could use plain English (or whatever the native language is), and in some cases that might be better. Especially since with medicines, the doctor writing the prescription is familiar with the Latin and abbreviations; the tech who administers the medicine might not be, so plain language reduces the number of mistakes.
That having been said, you're certainly on the right track with magic.
7271917
It's not jinxed
7274838
Higher level math uses Greek letters for constants so they won't be confused for English letters for variables. This goes out the window when Physics enters the picture, and uses upper and lower case letters for other constants, like c for lightspeed.
7271921
Now that's just starting to get a little bit weird.
7271938
I've never particularly liked that particular bit of fanon. I just can't figure out how or why that would be a thing. It would put a mare at a huge disadvantage if it was involuntary. Maybe if they just do it to show off when they see a stallion that they like, that's one thing, but to have it happen without their control. . . .
7271995
Possibly one of the few languages that's more useless than Latin when it comes to everyday conversations.
7272028
Especially since she doesn't yet appreciate just how big earth horses are compared to her, never mind draft horses. Those things are monsters!
7272059
If the ponies had some of their equipment, they could compete in some of the contests (all the ones I saw at the draft horse show weren't geared towards a single horse). Actually, it would be interesting to see ponies compete in some of the horse stuff. Barrel racing, for example, or if they have horse obstacle courses like they did for llamas at the llama show I went to. . . .
In a few more years, all the good trainers are going to have a pony on their payroll to get the most out of their horses. "Aquamarine, go explain to Socks how to get his hooves all the way up when he's high-stepping. He's just not figuring it out."
Maybe that's how stallions in Equestria settle their arguments
7272084
That's true (I found that out when I was researching another story), but that's not why sodium vapor lamps are that particular color. It's because they're cheap to operate.
7272151
She can probably fly at about race horse speed. She can also potentially 'jump' just as high as she wants to . . . with her wings. My best guess on how high a ground-bound pony can jump is maybe four feet (i.e., over a four-foot obstacle), possibly not even that high. Length-wise, no more than thirty feet, probably less.
You're right on the money there. All three tribes originally had their own; the earth ponies and pegasi unified theirs a long, long time ago, and the unicorns still keep theirs for magic, but use the simplified script in day-to-day life.
7272194
Brand new from the dealer. Reman was cheaper, at a mere $3200.
7272335
What really proves it, IMHO is that some cities are replacing their sodium vapor lamps (and the metal halide ones, too) with LED fixtures, which are a 'natural light' color, usually . . . if there was a visibility advantage with the orange color, that's what color the LED fixtures would be, as well.
7272350
Ah, but Silver, does it apply the other way around? What would a stallion say if I asked him?
Because of cutie marks, there's a pretty good chance that the stallion would say the same.
Yes, they were. So was the one other exchange student mentioned, and the pony who was at Kalamazoo College before Silver Glow.
7272403
In Silver's case, if she's standing still, about 25 pounds per hoof.
She might never know that.
7272476
Next time there's an opportunity, I will use this argument to justify it.
Luna's dreamwalking ability has come up, but that might have been in the comments.
7272486
That sounds like one of those things where the legal waters are very, very muddy.