February 3
It was nice to wake up in my own bed again. I was up a little bit earlier than usual, because of how early I'd gone to bed the night before.
I decided I'd start my day with a short flight, and then trot around the neighborhood. Maybe I'd see John again, or Jackie with her dog that likes me, or Ethan who sometimes trots along with me.
I'm starting to get a bit familiar with the people who control the sky. I don't know their names, because they're not supposed to say them on the radio (which is silly), but I know their voices. The deep-voiced man was talking on the radio this morning. He always sounds so calm and professional!
They give me a weather report each time I want to take to the sky, although of course I can see the weather with my own eyes. This morning was no different; he told me how high the clouds were and then gave me permission, and I took to the sky.
I flew right up to the base of the clouds, stopping when I was there to look around for airplanes, and to be sure I gave a good listen as well. Small airplanes buzz like bees, and bigger airplanes . . . well, I don't know what they sound like from outside, but inside they're noisy and shaky and the air smells funny. I haven't been close to a big airplane from outside, because it isn't safe.
I touched the base of the clouds, and tried not to think of what they promised, but I couldn't. It was too much a part of me, and it couldn't be ignored. Maybe Lisa was right; maybe I didn't have something that humans did. Maybe I couldn't appreciate the weather; maybe I was forever cursed to just see them as objects to be moved around in the sky to fill a quota.
Was that what we'd become? Did we pawn a part of ourselves when we first began moving clouds? Or had that always been in our nature?
It bothered me that I didn't know.
If I were allowed to fly through thick clouds, I would have flown to the top and sat there until the sun rose. Sitting on a cloud perch and watching the moonlight paint the cloudtops silver, and then watching as the sun begins to light them in reds and oranges, washing out the stars, until they're all a perfect white like a fresh new snowfall, that's something you can't see on the ground.
So what if I knew what the cloud under my belly was? When I stood on the cobbles and watched the Summer Sun Celebration, was it lessened by the fact that I knew what cobbles were and how they were made? Did their meaning change because I knew that they'd be there tomorrow and the tomorrow after that?
I didn't think so, but Lisa thought so, and I still wasn't entirely sure that she was wrong.
As I sat through climate science, I considered if even human-style weather teaching took the magic out of the weather. I don't think that Lisa knows any more than what she reads in the normal weather report—most people don't. The dining hall sometimes has a newspaper called USA Today which is kept above the garbage can and that anybody can read if they don't mind that it's all wrinkled and the pages are out of order. It has a picture of the whole America, and it shows what the high and low temperatures will be and if there will be any precipitation, and that's all. No pressure charts, no humidity charts, no winds—the airplane control tower gives more detailed reports than that!
Then Crystal Dawn asked if I could clarify what the professor had just said about valley exit jets, and I explained how diurnal mountain wind systems often coupled with the heavy cold air could cause them at low altitudes, and then I wondered if maybe I was taking some of the magic of the air away for her—but ponies and people with airplanes need to know about them! Foals can get caught in them unawares, just like rip tides.
In philosophy class, we continued with Rene Descartes. I'm still trying to wrap my head around his philosophy. Who wonders if they even exist? I know I exist. I can touch my hooves to my body, and I can hear and see and smell; is that not proof enough? Apparently, it wasn't for him.
I overheard one of the boys in class mutter that if God can lie, than Descartes' whole foundation collapses. He was the same boy who muttered under his breath about Aquinas, as well. If he's not going to learn from his elders, why is he in the class?
Some humans have an attitude about learning, I guess. There were some ponies in flight school who thought they knew everything and most of them got showed up by High Winds, who is a retired Wonderbolt (he didn't tell anypony that). I only knew because my Mom had a crush on him, and I didn't tell anypony because even though it's a little mean to watch somepony get blasted by a lightning cloud, it's also dumb to boast when you haven't got anything to back all that hot air up with.
Then in Equestrian class I nuzzled Meghan and Becky and Lisa before I remembered that humans don't greet each other that way even when they know each other pretty well. But it was okay because Becky ruffled my mane a little bit while I was doing it, and Meghan nuzzled me back. Then I told that class that that was how friends greeted each other in Equestria.
Ted, one of the other students, said that he preferred a handshake, but I told him that I didn't like those. It's dangerous to have your hoof grabbed! That's a weird custom, one that we were warned about.
I wonder if humans who are visiting Equestria are warned about nuzzles?
At dinner, Aric said that he had missed me at Durak, and I told him that I was sorry I hadn't come, but that I had gone to Pennsylvania instead. He said it was okay; there were things in life more important than a card game, but he'd missed me all the same, and since he looked really sincere, I invited him back to my dorm room to play a game of euchre, as long as he could find a partner. He said that sounded like fun, and that he'd probably bring Sean and Christine if I was okay with that. That was good, I thought, because if Peggy didn't want to play, Sean and Christine could be partners, and Aric and I could also be partners.
Well, it turned out that Peggy did want to play, so Christine sat out and watched us.
While we were playing, Aric told me that he was going to have a Super Bowl party at his house, and he invited both of us. I thought it sounded like fun, and Peggy did too.
It would have been nice to play a second round after the first, but my poetry book was sitting sadly neglected—I hadn't read any of it during the road trip—and so after the game was done, I started catching up on my homework.