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// January 28 [Meghan, Lisa, and Becky] 
// Story: Silver Glow's Journal 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
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January 28

I have decided that I like Tuesdays and Thursdays the best. Poetry class is really fun.

Last night I agonized over poetry—agonized over it. What poem spoke to me the most? I'd think I'd found just the right one, and then I'd read a little further ahead and come upon another that I really really liked.

I thought for sure my favorite would be Why did you go, and as I narrowed down my choices (I even read some to Peggy, who doesn't really like poetry all that much) I kept coming back to it. But I had the good sense to take the book with me this morning, tucking it neatly in my saddlebags.

I didn't read anything at breakfast, of course. It would be rude to be reading a book in front of my table-mates. But once breakfast was over, I sat on the front steps of the dining hall just for a bit and read a couple more poems.

Then I found the perfect poem, or maybe it would be better to say that it found me. A wind has blown the rain away. I might not have even thought of it, except that I was sitting on the front steps of the dining hall and looking at the snow-covered lawn and the bare trees stretching to the sky, waiting for spring to come.

I'm sure he was talking about fall rains, and nopony really appreciates them. No; that's not totally true, a lot of earth ponies actually like them because it is a time when they can cuddle together in their homes and drink hot chocolate and see if they are ready for the winter (but they won't tell you that they like them). Plus they are important to keep the ground moisture up in the forests so that we don't have forest fires. Lots of fallen leaves and dry brush can be a fire hazard.

Right at the beginning of class I read the poem, and Conrad smiled at me and said that he thought it was a lovely poem as well.

After lunch, I thought it would be fun to chase the wind for while. It was a little gusty, but not too much.

After I got permission, I went south. Not too far from the college was a big stadium with a horse-head on it. The university next to us is called Western Michigan, and their mascot is a bronco, while we have a hornet.

I'm really more partial to the bronco, I have to say.

I followed above the road until it got to a big highway, and then I turned around and headed back. That was enough exploration for one day—there was so much to see! So many buildings! Right now I was still trying to get a sense of the area, so I'd know where all the important places were. It was the best time for it, too; without all the leaves on the trees, you could really see a lot. Later, in the summer, much of it will be covered by the tree canopy.

Since I could see the bell tower from my altitude, I decided to take a different route back. I knew where the main road (which is actually called Main Street) went, and I was sure that the crossroad I was at would lead me to it, so I decided to find out. Sure enough, when I got close I recognized the Maple Hill Mall.

Unlike the cars below me, I wasn't constrained by roads, so I cut the corner in a broad arc, and then followed Main Street back towards the center of town. As I got close to Aric's house, I thought about flying down and saying hi, but I could see that Winston wasn't there. The other truck was, completely covered by snow.

I'd made a point of not working myself too hard on my flight. I didn't want to have to take another shower today. It's best to get in the hard exercise in the morning, anyway; it's a good way to wake up. A lot of the students rely on coffee or cans of what they call energy drinks.

I landed in front of the chapel and opened the front door. When I was inside, I thought maybe I'd been misled—there was a big meeting hall, with a railing and a podium, and behind that a gallery. But then I saw a little sign on the wall that said “Offices,” and pointed downstairs. So I went where the sign had told me.

Nobody was downstairs. All the rooms were closed and locked up. That was disappointing, but I had nopony to blame but myself. I could have gone over to the chapel right after lunch and found out about God, if I hadn't been flying instead.

I stopped back in our dorm room long enough to comb the tangles out of my mane and tail, then I went to dinner. It was another themed night; most of the food was what they called 'Italian,' and they had put red and white checkered tablecloths on the tables. They mostly had different kinds of pasta and sauces to put on the pasta. None of it looked all that appealing, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway, since you can't always judge things by their appearance.

Well, that experiment was a bust. Noodles are a menace. I kept getting little splotches of sauce around my muzzle, much to everyone else's amusement.

I did finish my plate, because it's not polite to take food you don't intend to eat, even if you don't like it all that much.

Once dinner was over, I made my way over to Meghan's room. She lives in a dorm called DeWaters, which is right next to mine. Like many of the buildings on campus, it's built on a hill, so the floor where you enter the building might not be the first floor (my dorm has entrances on the basement floor and the first floor).

I hadn't seen a room like hers before. She has a roommate like I do, but then there is a bathroom and another room on the other side of it, so there are four people who share a pair of rooms and a bathroom. The other three people were Lisa and Becky, who I already knew, and Amy who I hadn't met yet.

We were going to work in Meghan and Amy's room, but Amy was doing homework and so we decided to go to the other side. We went through their bathroom (which has a bathtub that I'm going to ask if I can use sometime) and to their room which was essentially a mirror-image of the first.

Since there weren't enough chairs, Meghan and Lisa sat with me on the bed, while Becky sat in one of the desk chairs. Instead of sitting in it the right way, though, she turned it around and leaned against the backrest. I didn't know you could use a chair like that.

They had a lot of questions about the book, and I tried to answer them as well as I could. It's funny how much you forget about a book when you haven't read it for a while. Then I had to explain a bunch of stuff to them, like that there aren't really living clouds (although sometimes with magic you can make it appear that there are).

It was fun to talk about it, and it brought back a lot of happy memories. I'd gotten the books for my birthday, and so many of my friends were jealous because they all had spring birthdays—like most ponies do—and so the books hadn't even been published yet. I've got a late birthday, because my Mom got lucky at a meteorological convention, and they always hold those in the summer and fall, 'cause the weather's easier then.

After we'd talked for a while, Meghan asked if she could touch my wings. That was kind of an odd thing to ask, and maybe a little forward, but I told her as long as she was gentle it was okay, and I stretched one out across her lap so that she could.

The feeling of her fingers on my wings was really weird, but not in a bad way. She was kind of hesitant at first, sort of poking at them, until she got up a bit of confidence, and then she lightly ran her fingers over them, feeling my feathers. To be fair, I stretched out my other wing, to give Lisa a chance to feel it, and of course then Becky wanted to touch them as well.

I was a little tense; I don't know them all that well, after all. But I felt in my heart that they were kind people, and after a little bit I relaxed. Maybe it was foolish, but it was nice to have two warm bodies against mine. I don't think humans touch each other enough, which might be why they're grumpy a lot.

Before I left, I asked them if I could come over sometime and use their bathtub, since I didn't have one. Meghan said that I could; that I should just call her when I wanted to use it.

All three of them were really nice, and if Amy lives with them then she must be as well. It was good to meet some new people. Meghan said I could come and watch them practice bells—I was curious about that, so I said I might. And she asked if I'd be willing come over more, and I said I would.

I hadn't realized how late it was until I was headed back to my dorm. Fortunately, it wasn't too far, and when I got there it hit me just how tired I was, so I just crawled into bed and wrapped the blankets around myself and fell right to sleep.