May 9 [Math Test]
May 9
Of course, today would have lots of clouds to choose from. There hadn't been very many when I got up but by the time I was done with my morning flight, they'd rolled in and it was pretty obvious by noon they'd be covering the sky completely.
I got in the shower earlier than I'd planned 'cause when Peggy got out she said that Kat wasn't waiting for a turn. I hoped she wasn't sick—maybe she'd gone away for the weekend or something. But that was nice because it gave me a little more time before breakfast and I didn't feel as rushed as I sometimes did.
It was the seventh week now and people were starting to talk about their plans for the summer in more specifics. I didn't have any plans yet, just my bucket list. I guess I should have planned further ahead like all my friends had but that sort of wasn't a thing that pegasuses liked to do if we could help it. It was a lot better to just take things as they came.
Hearing Joe talk about how he was going to move to Japan really got me thinking about it. If there weren't any classes in the summer, did that mean that I was going to have to move to a different place during the summer? And where would that be? Would I have a roommate?
Peggy was going back to Colorado, I knew that. Aric had a house, so I could live with him. Or maybe Meghan. I would have to ask Mister Salvatore, he was smart about things like that. I didn't know how to get a house. In Equestria, I would have just had my friends help me build one.
We had the last test before the final exam in math class, and that took the whole class period. It was a pretty complicated test and it was a bit stressful to know that I couldn't ask any of my friends to help explain things if I needed it. I didn't, it turned out, but that thought kept on nagging at me, that there would be some symbol that I had completely forgotten and then I wouldn't be able to answer the question.
Then when I was done nobody else was and I thought that either I was a lot smarter than anyone else in the class, which I doubted, or else I had flown to conclusions I should not have, so I went back through and double-checked all my work and I'm glad I did because there was one question where I had made a really stupid mistake.
I still had some time after I turned in my test but there was no more class so I went back to my dorm room and read through more of the ham radio book. Mister Salvatore was right; there was a lot in there that I didn't really need to know. I wasn't building my own radio or antenna. But he said that they would be on the test so I had to understand them. And while it didn't give me exact details on how electricity worked, it did show how complicated it was to make sure that it went where you wanted it to.
I thought I'd change things up a bit and sit with Meghan and Lisa and Becky for lunch. They told me that they'd all had a fun time racing go-karts, and on the ropes course as well. And the three of them seemed pretty cheery and I asked them how their Equestrian class was going and they said that it wasn't the same without me.
So I suggested that maybe it would be fun to talk in Equestrian for the rest of lunch, and they all thought so too. It was kind of hard to switch back from English and I felt like I'd forgotten how to say a bunch of stuff, which was really weird.
I said that things were getting kind of busy for me because the end of the year was coming up but I should go visit their class again.
Then Meghan invited me to come over Tuesday night and see another Harry Potter movie, and I said couldn't watch a movie on Tuesday because I had an exam on Thursday but I would come over anyway. Lisa asked us which one we were on, and I said that we had watched The Order of Phoenix but that Meghan and I had wound up talking through most of it so I didn't remember what had happened and we decided that we ought to watch that one again.
When we were taking our trays away, Meghan asked me if I was free Saturday night because we could use the hot tub again if I was, and I told her that I would. Then I asked her what she was doing over the summer and she said that she had a short-term lease on an apartment in Kalamazoo, so she'd be around, which made me happy. I had been thinking how lonely it was going to get in a couple of weeks and at least there'd be one familiar person around.
Professor Amy reminded us that we'd be having a test on Wednesday (I think all the professors were trying to get in one more test before finals) and then she said that today we were going to talk about exchange.
She said that was one of the fundamental things that separated us from wild animals: in the wild, the only exchanges were typically between mother and child, or a pair of potential sexual partners. However in human society (and in pony society, too) exchanges went beyond that.
At first I thought she was only going to talk about buying things at market but it turned out to be more complicated than that. She explained how the idea of sharing probably started with hunting, because one person couldn't eat all the meat before it went bad and so he would share it with his friends and presumably when they'd caught something and he hadn't, they'd share it with him, and that was sort of the foundation of all society.
And as she went on I could see how we had also developed a similar system. From the very beginning when pegasus bands had begun to ally with earth pony tribes, exchanging weather for better food than we could forage, and as the two tribes grew closer exchanging protection, too. And then as time went by and cities grew ponies got more and more specialized so that now instead of one farmer trying to grow everything, she might only plant peaches and would supply all the peaches to her town and maybe the ones around, too, and when peaches weren't growing she would use the money that she had gotten to buy other food.
We would explore for new land and work with the earth ponies to make it fertile, and we'd also give them extra feathers to make into quills so that they could write and keep track of it all, and pretty soon everypony could do what they were best at and not have to do things that they weren't good at.
I suppose the unicorns were doing the same kinds of thing; they can't have all been raising the sun.
Dinner had fish which would have been good except that most of it had a bread coating like the bad fish sandwich I had had at the ski resort, and I didn't trust it. Usually when they had something that was fried that meant that it was bad and they were trying to cover up how bad it was.
But there were also salmon patties that looked like they might be okay and also some thin fillets of cod so I tried those.
Sean was surprised to see them on my plate and told me that they were meat and I said that they were fish, anybody could see that. Maybe that wasn't fair; the salmon patty could have been anything but it smelled like fish. They tasted all right, too. A little bit dry, but not too bad.
Peggy told him that he was lucky that he hadn't smelled any of my cans of anchovies and I said those were good for energy in the morning. Sean said that he had never heard of anybody actually eating anchovies before and Christine told him that there were anchovies in properly made Caesar salads, and surely he'd had one of those before.
He told her that he didn't believe in salads, unless it was a taco salad. She said that didn't count, and he insisted that it had lettuce therefore it was a salad.
I wanted to do more studying for my ham radio license after class, but I thought that I'd better review my Anthropology notes instead, because of the upcoming test. And then when I was done it was time to go to durach, and I walked there with everyone and rode back with Aric. I asked him if I could drive because I'd done so well with the go-kart and bumper car and he told me I couldn't but maybe one night soon we could find a big, empty parking lot and I could try there.
Stats
Page generated in 0.06 seconds
Total duration
1,065 users online
2,311,431 hits today, 2,571,732 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Learned how to drive in a cemetery. At least the backing up bit.
All this time and Silver hasn't thought to put those anchovies on a pizza?
getting close to the end of the school year.
wonder ware Silver will spend her summer?
7374341 Huh, the very first time I was behind the wheel I was ten years old, driving my dad's truck, in a cemetery.
And she hits the only lightpole in the parking lot.
7374382
It's Winston. Do you really think it'll make any difference?
7374382 It's odd that you would say that because I saw it happen several years ago. Well maybe not actually saw but had to let the person use the store phone.
(That tells you it happened in the previous century!)
I suppose just a moment's distraction with the thick base of the thin pole just below your eyeline causes it. At least in the parking lot you are at a relatively low speed.
Considering her particular situation compared with a regular exchange student, I would not be surprised if Silver is taken in charge by her helper for the summer. Pus they may be planning some additional travels.
And poper Nicoise.
I put anchovies on my pasta sometimes.
That phrasing seems… just a little bit awkward. It's fine if that's intentional, but I just wanted to bring it to your attention in case it's not.
Are cloud houses easier to build than ground houses, I wonder?
"I mean, I'm sure unicorns are useful for something. I just can't figure out exactly what." -Silver Glow.
Wait up a bit. Presumably earth ponies write with their mouths. How in Equestria do you hold a quill in your mouth? Without tickling the back of your throat and puking(*) all over the parchment, I mean.
(Side note: That is one the most adorable AJ pictures I've ever seen.)
(*) Let's not get into a discussion on whether ponies can vomit, now.
Please tell me she'll have some sort of revelation regarding this before the end of the school year.
Yes, Silver, you want to spend a whole summer hanging out with the furry (who's only furry in one patch)...
7374446
Low speed? I suppose comparatively it often is. Some people though...
I got to watch a towing crew figuring out the best way to get a pickup truck off a parking lot fire hydrant once. The driver had backed into one of those low concrete bumpers so hard that he'd bounced the back end of his truck onto the top of the hydrant. The only way I can figure it is that he had to have been doing 20-30 mph while backing out of his parking space.
Yeah, that whole "take things as they come" attitude doesn't work well when you need to arrange lodging in another country.
Also, at this point, I'm downright amused by Silver's complete inability to process where unicorns fit into society. Intellectual blind spots are strange and fascinating things.
As to Pegasus homes. It is my minor head canon that after graduation Pegasuses take a year or two off & wander around in groups of two or three. They do odd-jobs & see the sights like on the old Route 66 TV show. (Other ponies as well, but more Pegasus because sleeping on clouds is cheaper and safer).
They are also born smugglers, taking the attitude that borders are for ground pounders & custom inspections are things that happen to other ponies.
my favorite electricity bullshit is that AC voltages, currents, and resistances can have imaginary components.
I was lucky, I grew up in a rural area so I had an easier time learning to drive.
I love how she still thinks the car has a name. :-D
The story I heard, when I was a TV repairman studying for my amateur radio license, was that the US government bought into the idea because it might produce a lot of trained electronics technicians, who would be useful if the US military needed technicians in a hurry.
But now that we have plenty of electronics technicians, almost nobody actually repairs electronic stuff any more.
Anyway, that's one story explaining why the amateur radio license requires more than just how to operate a radio.
...You have to know that "reactance" is not a kind of insect that infests nuclear power plants.
<then what do you call them?)
7374341 Anchovies on pizza is hard to get right. You basically have to put the anchovies on like 5-10 minutes before the pizza is done or they all taste like little pillars of salt on a pizza, which is disgusting.
Why is she not thinking about building a cloud house?
7375363 earth clouds are of a lesser quality then the ones on Equis, due to there not being a quality control or weather factories dedicated to creating then. It would be a bit like trying to build a house out of nothing but sand. She might be able to do it but it would take so many clouds and so many hours of work that it's not worth it.
7375419
You have to keep in mind the gravitational and centrifugal forces the planet is exherting on itself.
If it were just a rock floating straight forward in space, sure, it'd take a near-astronomical amount of weaponry to blow it apart.
But thanks to the fact that it's more akin to a floating hollow glass marble filled with water than a floating rock and it's own rotation speed of ~1,600 kph, all it would take to cause that force to rip it in half would be a fraction of what it would take to do the same to a planet without an active outer core or rotation.
What's the point of putting exams to students only a few days before you're going to give them an exam in the subject? There's no way of getting feedback or extra help.
7375636 you never stated that and you didn't even acknowledge the fact that I had reasons for ignoring it. Jokes aren't my preferred worldbuilding method, they tend to be unreliable. And since there is only one data point, it's impossible to know if it is true or not. Because of this, i'm going to use my model that matches all the other observations. I could also point out that Flurry heart is an Alicorn, a phenotype renowned for magical strength so comparing her magical abilities as a foal to pumpkin and pound cake isn't an accurate comparison
It's odd to think about, but this chapter reminds me that English isn't her first language. Equestrian is (though I personally prefer 'Equish'). That means she probably speaks with an accent. If only we had some way to possibly hear what in the world (or theirs) the pony accent sounds like. Now that would be something.
Aric, don't deny her the opportunity now. You don't know the power of a sad faced pony.
7375646 I'd think it might give the students one last chance to cram on whatever parts of the earlier exam they botched the worst.
7374341
I got my first driving practice at the Temple Beth-El parking lot. Not counting the times I drove my grandpa's lawn tractor, that is.
7374357
That's a good question, and Silver doesn't have an answer yet.
7374381
Maybe there's a thing about learning to drive in cemeteries. Or temple parking lots, like I did--I wonder if it's lucky to have your first driving experience on hallowed ground?
I learned skid recovery in a church parking lot. That was fun.
7374382
Somewhere I have a picture of a Skyjacker that hit a light pole in the Menard's parking lot with enough force to tear off one of its front wheels. I have no idea how the driver accomplished that feat.
7374433
It would make none. My old truck--which Winston is inspired by--got backed into by a wrecker and I only knew about it because the driver of the wrecker told me two days later.
7374446
You'd think that, but when I drove wrecker I got called to an accident in the Meijer parking lot, right by the main doors, and one of the cars was on its side. Mind you, a car, not a high-center-of-gravity truck or SUV, but a low-slung modern sedan.
7374488
She basically gets to choose what she wants to do, and necessary arrangements will be made. Which is to say that they don't have any demands on her. She could also probably get summer housing on campus if she wanted; at least when I was a student there was a much-reduced Summer semester. I actually completed my senior project during the summer semester, because it was the only time I could schedule it.
7374495
It is a little awkward, but it's not unintentional.
7374548
I would think so. Pegasi can mold clouds with their hooves, so you'd just get a base building cloud and then pile and shape a bunch more stuff on top of it, and essentially have the cloud version of a mud hut. Now, a home like Rainbow's, that would take some expertise. But I don't think that's the kind of place most pegasi live.
Exactly.
iambrony.steeph.tp-radio.de/mlp/gif/edrgthztjuhrg_400.gif
I would assume by now that most ponies mouthwrite with pencils and pens, and the unicorns are the ones who mostly use quills. But historically, I don't see any reason why you couldn't strip most of the feather off and just use the quill to write with. Apparently, that's how it was usually done historically; the modern image of someone writing with a pen that's all feather is a Hollywood invention.
AJ's always adorable.
7374574
Oh, probably.
7374584
Maybe. . . .
We had one that had gone on an off-road excursion and landed on a rock, more or less dead center. Took two trucks to pull it loose, one lifting from the front and one dragging from behind. There's actually a lot of creativity that goes into winching wrecked cars.
7374614
Very true. I once spent a night on a bench in the York train station because of my lack of planning.
They are. She's kind of oversimplified her thinking into societies only having the most basic needs (food, water, shelter) and those needs can be met quite well with only earth ponies and pegasi. But just having food, water, and shelter does not a society make.
7374627
I do think that there are a large number of nomadic pegasi in Equestria. They'd be responsible for the major seasonal changes (working north, then back south), along with other odd jobs like bringing water to Cloudsdale, and they could probably always find some day labor as needed. Sleeping on clouds would be safe except for very large flying predators, and from their cloud-perch they could forage effectively over a large area. (I actually wrote a story on that theme once.)
Oh yeah, for sure. The ground concept of 'borders' wouldn't really mean the same to them. Although to be fair, ponies in general seem to have less concern over privacy and private property than humans generally do.
7374710
I think that's more in theory than in actuality, though, isn't it? Like the kind of graphing that Silver's experiencing in Professor Sir Doctor Banerjee's class. I can't see how in a measurable sense it can ever be imaginary.
So did I . . . except for a five-year period, which included the time I got my license. My first on-road driving experience was partially on an eight-lane road during rush hour.
7374720
Winston does have a name. All the other cars, not so much.
7375065
That could still potentially be useful, although perhaps not as much as back in the old days.
7375194
Tell me about it. I tried to make one without following any instructions, and that turned out to be a terrible (and salty) mistake.
7375363
Like 7375401 said, Earth clouds aren't good enough to make a lasting home. Even in Equestria, I think they use a different type of cloud (and more magic) to make cloud houses and cloud cities. She could probably nap on Earth clouds, and of course she can shape them, but making them keep that shape for a long enough time to make a home out of it isn't worth the effort, if it's even possible for her to do alone.
7375646
At K, depending on the class, we usually had two mid-terms in weeks 3 and 7, or one in week 5. That gave us a chance to make sure that we knew what was what before we fell too far behind, and also to give us a chance to change our classes for next semester if we had to (or even our major, like I did when I discovered I actually am not very good at math or chemistry).
7376302
Yes, she does speak accented English. If I were a cleverer writer and/or a linguist, I could put enough hints in the text so you'd know what she sounds like. Sadly, I'm not either. I like to think it's a bit of a Russian accent
7377024
After all, what could possibly go wrong with letting a pony drive a truck?
7381832
It does, or a chance to bail before it's too late.
Finding food is hard for vampire bats. Most of them would starve if they would not share (pay it forward):
Hungry bats beg random bats for blood. If a bat has feed, the fed bat regurgitates some of the blood. Next time the bat who was hungry but fed by strangers has a full belly and another stranger begs, the bat regurgitates blood for the hungry stranger.
When I help strangers and they ask how can repay me, I just tell them to pay it forward.
7474629
I think in the 20 years since I took a cultural anthropology class (and I was refering to my notes from that class, as it happens), we've learned a lot more about animal behavior. I know that when I was in college, it was a given that animals can't/don't make tools, and that they can't lie; both of those things have subsequently been disproved by observations and scientific studies.
Presumably our.
7641573
oops! correction made; thank you!
A comforting thought: Even in the exams, the lecturer is usually available to answer questions -- not relating to answering the question but he'll help if you don't understand something.
Don't mind me, just picking my marbles from the gutter.
Note taken.
When I switched dining halls I was quite surprised when the fried hake actually tasted like hake. As opposed to a car tyre.
7771846
Although that has its own set of potentially embarrassing problems. "Professor Doctor Sir, I can't remember what the little cross symbol means."
"You mean the plus symbol?"
"Yes."
"Addition."
"Oh, right."
At least in 'Murica, you can cover up all your cooking sins by deep-frying. Got garbage fish? Deep fry it. Nobody liked the baked chicken you had last night? Try again after sending it through the fryer.
That is a common misconception, there is no anchovies in the original Caesar dressing. The slight anchovies taste comes from the Worcestershire sauce.
7375638
Dude... what kind of glue are you sniffing?
I don't really know where you are getting your data... but comparing the planet to an HOLLOW MARBLE FILLED WITH WATER is totally crazy.
The planet is hard rock, with a molten ROCK interior, an external nucleus of liquid iron and an internal nucleus of solid iron due to the pressure...
ANYHTING mankind can put out wouldn't even scratch the surface of the planet...
The total gravitational bounding energy of the planet is incredibly high, as can be seen from here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_binding_energy
It is on the order of a WEEK of the total output of the Sun, or on the order of 10^32 Joules that is 10^16 Megaton.
The maximum number of nuclear weapons was in 1986 where there were about 65.000 nuclear warhead around the world even if ALL of them were Tsar Bomba at 100 megaton each we would only get to 6.500.000 megaton still TEN order of magnitude less than the amount of energy required
9311944
And Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce contains anchovies. Not sure what brand was used in the original Caesar salad, but it could have been Lea & Perrins, since that’s the original Worcestershire sauce.