January 13
When I got up this morning, I was super-excited! I could fly now as part of my morning routine, which is much better exercise than just trotting around the neighborhood (although it's good to work your legs, too—some pegasuses that mostly do cloud duty don't do much on their hooves).
I decided that I would fly first. Sometimes humans flip a coin when they want to make a choice, but that doesn't work so well for ponies. Most pegasi close their eyes and look out to see what the first kind of bird they spot is. I always chose between singing birds and raptors, even though a lot of pegasuses that live near the seashore pick between 'ducky' birds that float on the water or ones that don't. (Some foals call the three main kinds of birds 'hawky' birds, 'ducky' birds, and 'tweety' birds.)
Since I wanted to fly, though, I didn't pick a bird. I just put on my vest and my blinky light that runs on batteries, and I put my altimeter on my foreleg and made sure to set the pressure on it.
One thing that I don't like about living in a dorm is that it's all enclosed and has its own heat, which is really a bit hotter than I'd like. Peggy doesn't like for the window to be open, because that lets the heat outside and is wasteful, and besides she gets too cold if it's open.
But I can't really get a sense for the air inside the room, so it was a surprise when I went outside and I could tell by the feel of the air that a storm was coming. I couldn't tell what, yet, since I was still on the ground, and conditions on the ground can be very different than conditions up in the air.
The whole sky is like a layer cake. Things have their own level, and there are changes from level to level. That's why it's important to know where all the clouds belong. Too high or too low, and they won't do what you want them to do. They might dissipate, or blow away, or make the wrong kind of weather if they're put in the wrong place. (There are more factors than that.)
My radio has a strap that attaches it to my foreleg, too, opposite my altimeter, and I can hold it up to talk to it. So I got my flight clearance from the airplane directors and took off into the morning sky.
One fun thing about morning flights is that the sky gets lighter the higher you get, 'cause planets are round. If the weather's right, you can watch Celestia raise the sun above the horizon, and then dive down to a lower altitude and watch it again, or if you dive at just the right speed, it looks like it's stationary on the horizon. It was too cloudy to do that, though. Off to the west there were big banks of clouds, which is the storm that's moving in.
It felt to me like it was either going to be sleet or ice, depending on how high the clouds were. It was cold on the ground, but as I flew up a bit higher, it got above freezing.
I was looking forward to it: I hadn't seen any good weather since I got here. It had been mostly clear or overcast with high clouds. Everything on the ground was looking kind of dingy, and could use some freshening up. Nopony likes dirty snow, which is why we usually try to put down a few centimeters every week through the winter.
The Climate Science professor mentioned that there was a winter storm warning. Then he asked the class if they knew what climate conditions caused ice storms, and I raised my hoof right away, but he didn't call on me at first.
It was only after the third student mangled the explanation that he finally called on me, and I told him all about ice storms and he seemed kind of surprised I'd know about it at all, since we ponies don't have doppler radar or radiosonde balloons.
I told him that for humans it was all observational, and that we've been flying in clouds for thousands of years, so we know all about them, how they work, and how to make them work for us. According to the class book, humans haven't worked directly inside clouds for more than a hundred years or so, so of course they don't know very much about them.
Then he thought he was being tricky and mentioned that there's a great lake off to the west (which I know about because I saw the map of Michigan, and it's got big lakes all around it).
Bodies of water have a big effect on the weather. They cool down and warm up more slowly than the land, and cause weather inland of them that can be difficult to control. I told him that storms need two things to work, energy and moisture (it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's just the basics); lakes and oceans are a good source of both. That's why hurricanes don't form over land, and slow down when they make landfall.
I asked him how much ice coverage there was on the lake, and I think that was the moment that he started to take me seriously.
He said he wanted to talk to me during his office hours tomorrow, which is a great honor. He's been granted a doctorate, which is the highest achievement a human student can get, and I don't have any scholastic achievements at all.
In philosophy, we discussed more of Plato's forms and things, and the system of government which Plato felt was best. In a lot of ways, it sounded like Equestrian society, so it's pretty obvious that we have a very smart system, and this is just the very foundation of the class. I can't wait to see how some of the other philosophers like Karl Marx or Jean Paul Sartre have refined Plato's system to reach the perfect system.
Since we had been talking about my job in climate class, I thought it would be a good idea to continue that in Equestrian class.
I learned a lot about human jobs! One of the things that's important to know about language is that words have meanings beyond themselves, which is why actual conversations are more important than just speaking words out of a book (although that's very useful for beginners). So, as a result, I had to ask lots of questions about some jobs to figure out what they might be called in Equestria. One student worked at a park that's called a 'golf course,' where people pay to hit a small ball into a small hole which is very far away.
We'd all sort of worked out a schedule for dinner, and everyone started to arrive at about the same time, even though we had never talked about what time to eat. And I liked that, because that meant that we could have interesting conversations and tell each other how our days had been. But it had also been nice when someone had arrived first because they could tell you if there was any food that was really good or not as tasty as it looked.
I think she's about to get bumped to a higher level course. Test out of it, you can do it!
How Greco-Roman
A perfected system? Marx and Sartre?
Oh my sweet summer child
That seemed like an odd note to end on.
Climate science is cool once you get a holistic view that includes ocean currents and geography. The chaos all makes sense!
Hmm. There was no cut before
So I initially thought she was referencing an earlier event, and got rather confused. This was probably also at least partially due to wishful thinking on my part for the 'grab a bit of the cloud and haul it to class' scene.
I favor Cicero's De Re Publica and De Legibus.
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/repub.shtml
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/leg.shtml
But Sarte was a reasonable enough bloke. Like Marx he makes good points, though probably unworkable on the whole.
7016005 That and probably be offered to be a teacher's aid. She can literally fly up to the sky and bring down examples for the students to examine. That would make any meteorologists' dream. That and give the weathermen watching the radar conniptions when said clouds stay in place What will really blow their minds is when she busts up the clouds or waters the lawn.
While that is totally true, I get the impression you had something else in mind there.
Another great chapter. Now I'm getting a whole new impression of her climate science Professor. I had assumed he'd know Pegesi were weather experts but I'm guessing he just had a bit of a wake up call maybe. Will teach me to assume anything.
7016099 Thanks a lot for posting those links. Man that takes me back. I remember reading some of Cirero's oratory back in high school Latin.... man that was way to long ago now that I think about it.
7016105 Yeah that's pretty much what I was thinking when the prof said he wanted to talk to her. Reminds me of when one of my photography Profs asked me to TA for him. Came so out of the blue I did a full on 'what WHAT!'
Today, I brought a cumulus cloud to class. I learned several new words, which I'm not supposed to repeat.
Im kinda waiting for her to try to move one of the clouds, and pass right through it.
And what was with that temperature inversion?
7016105 Forecaster hate her. 1 simple trick and have whatever weather you want!
...now you've gone and made me want to break out my clubs again.
Mock it however you like, ye nonbelievers, but there is great satisfaction in a good golf stroke.
I slapped my forehead multiple times in the paragraph about the philosophy course. Both out of annoyance that she'd compare Equestria to that horrible Republic, and because I know she's gonna get real confused when she gets to those other philosophers.
7016249 Teacher be like, "Clouds are just gas noob."
Ah.
Remember that 'vertical spike' I was talking about?
...There it is...
Huh. She must have been interrupted when writing the journal, it ends rather a abruptly...
Keep going! ;)
7016352 *Mocks you with a fierceness even greater than Diamond Tiara* Everybody knows that Golf is the least interesting Sportsball sport!
hmm...can Pegasi still manipulate clouds directly Like they were solid objects?
if so, with the right manipulation, would they be able to walk on air? strap clouds to their limbs and walk?
OH BOY HERE WE GO!
I want her to see how large differences between human philosophy and behavior and that of equestria. I want her to go through clouds , pass through them and be shocked that we humans learned so much about clouds. That it's not that we just started to manipulate weather like Pegasi or that as she said "it's like children trying to mimic what their parents are doing without understanding bigger picture". I want her to see that our weather CANT be controlled in this easy magic way and we actually know our stuff.
I want to see large clashes of culture, disbelief, denial, thinking it through and then acceptance...
Although I fully just expect Silver Glow, on future philosophy classes, to go "But they were stupid and didn't refine the system into perfect EQUESTRIAN system."
I live in a university-run apartment, and I pretty much need to keep the air conditioning going at full blast during the winter to prevent the room from becoming an oven.
Well, sure, it sounds silly when you say it like that.
I think her weather professor is going to be annoyed with her.
Allow me to join the crowd of sadistic bastards eagerly awaiting the death of Silver Glow's innocence at the hands of Marx.
Oof. That awkward moment when the professor realizes that the freshman understands climatology better and more intuitively than he ever will. There may be some concepts that don't apply between the worlds, but they both have moist nitrogen-oxygen gas envelopes. The basics are going to be the same.
And boy is Silver going to be confused later in the philosophy course. "But you had it right! Why didn't you keep going?" Sadly, humans aren't ponies, and what works for one won't necessarily work for the other.
7016961 The awkward moment when you find out how many people have died because of the words of one man and how many people think it will still work out if we just try it a few dozen more times.
7017022 That awkward moment when people make comments on subjects they haven't studied.
January 14
We're doing Marx in philosophy this week.
January 15
This dialectics thing is so obvious! I can't believe it took all that time for humans to come up with it, and then a bunch more time for one of them to make it scientific. I guess they must have been too busy.
January 16
i can't hold all these linen coats
...
...
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January 26
打倒资本主义,帝国主义!
声援全球南方的人民!
7016249 the fact she can fly shows that she has access to her magic so cloud manipulation should not be a problem.
I would love to see her bring a cloud down and watch the reaction from the class and the teacher i would guess the teacher would jokingly throw up his hands in frustration "I'm DONE!"
7016867 I like your nitpick! It's actually super cool and informative!
"Silver Glow, it's come to my attention that you're basically a third-year college student playing in the sand with toddlers when it comes to Climate Science."
What about a granted Professorship? That's higher than a Doctorate.
Corrected version: "To each according to his ability, from each according to his need." (Karl Marx got it backwards.)
7017404
Has it been referenced that they need magic to fly in this universe? Its not canon... or is it?
7016598 Yeah. The best ball sport is Grifball. No questions asked.
7017770 well canon ....maybe? other stories and my own head canon except the fact that pegasus wing to body mass ratio is unrealistic for flight based on "normal" physics. thus magic provides extra lift or thrust that allows them to perform supersonic flight as well as the amazing hyper G maneuvers , like sudden direction changes and stops in mid flight it also protects them during crashes and ability to heal very quickly
7017779
Calvin ball FTW
7017770 Well, with such little wings and large bodies, it sure ain't physics keeping flappy ponies airborne. (Rainbow Dash might explain it as pure awesomeness, but it looks like some kind of magic to me.)
7017858
Yeah, but we are talking about Unicorns, Pegasi, and a land of other shit. If it hasnt been explained, then its up to the author to decide.
Entertaining as always.
Has she tried cloud walking?
7016891
I expect that as class ended, the conversation between Silver Glow and and the golf course worker might have continued thusly:
Silver Glow: So let's see if I have this right. A 'golf course' is where people pay to hit a small ball into a small hole which is very far away.
Carl: Well, it's really more like they pay to swear a lot, lie about numbers so they can brag about how their number is smallest, and fling iron sticks into the water. But in theory, yes, they should be hitting a small ball into a small hole that is far away.
7016816 1-2k for me is too short to get emotionally involved in for a serial publication. The books I read run at least 4k a chapter and my sweet spot for this site is 5-7k.
This story is good not for the story, which is decent, but for the imagining the situations that come up and the discussions from them.
Also Tabs in the browser
lel
7016816
I like to read constantly. 1000 words is the norm for most stories here, but I don't read the norm stories. I go for stories with huge archs, that have so much to explain in one chapter that they exceed 1000 words. I don't read one shots too often, for that exact reason.
I also want to add that I made that comment when there weren't that many chapters going past 1000.
7017213 That awkward moment when you realize every communist country eventually became a dictatorship at one point, most quite quickly. (Alondro lets results speak for themselves)
7017611 What about 'Alondro-level', which is akin to godhood?
7018698
Yes! This is my main goal with the story. Prompt discussion, and hopefully inspire other PoE stories. I love that we've got all these discussions going about philosophy and poetry and the FAA and so forth.
7016017
There was going to be more, but the author reached the point where he almost collapsed at the keyboard. The last two days of work have not been kind.
7016012
That's right, they did think of birds as portents, didn't they?
7019410 yes! The Auspex
7016050
Being a native of Michigan, I at least have passing familiarity with how large bodies of water affect the weather. Also I can tell you all about lake-effect snow.