February 5
We had a guest in climate science class today! She's named Cyndi, and is the meteorologist for WWMT, which is a local television station.
I don't think that the professor had told her that I would be in class. When I went in, she was standing beside his desk, talking over the lesson with him, and she looked up and saw me and then took a step back, and I was a bit surprised so I extended out my wings a little bit, then tucked them back in right away before I scared her off.
She kept kind of glancing in my direction as I took my seat. Crystal Dawn leaned over and told me that she thought I had a new fan, and Luke thought that was really funny, then he said I ought to have brought a cloud to class for her. If I'd known she was going to be there, I might have.
Crystal Dawn asked if pegasuses gave each other clouds for gifts, and I shook my head. A cloud wasn't much of a gift (unless it was a building cloud). It would be like an earth pony giving her stallion dirt.
Then we all quieted down when class started. Cyndi said that her father had been a meteorologist, and she was following along in his footsteps. Then she asked us if any of us had climatologists or meteorologists in our families, and I raised my hoof. I think weather work counts, and my mom is a weatherpony.
She asked if any of us were interested in becoming meteorologists, and one girl in the back of class raised her hand. Cyndi was kind of disappointed by that, but continued on. I would have raised my hoof, but I thought that working with clouds wasn't the same as meteorology.
She gave us a brief overview of how the television station presents the weather, and how much more complicated it is from what we see on the screen. She also explained that to become a proper Certified Broadcast Meteorologist, she had to have a college degree, a strong backing in math and science, pass a test, and take continuing education classes. She told us that a lot of weather reporters on television don't have those certifications and so they just read off what someone else had decided the weather was going to be. Which was how a lot of weatherponies worked, too; they just did what they were told. It was the supervisors who had to know lots of stuff.
She also told us what kind of equipment they had to monitor the weather, and how the technology had changed over the years. She said that the models were getting better every year, which made the forecasts more and more accurate.
Then she asked us if we had any questions, and Luke raised his hand and asked what her opinion of global warming was.
She rolled her eyes and sighed, and then she said that man-made global warming was a fact, backed up by mountains of scientific evidence. I thought it was a stupid question, too: the professor had covered that in the very beginning of class. Maybe Luke hadn't been paying attention.
Luke raised his hand again, and Cyndi gritted her teeth and called on him again. This time, he asked her what her professional response was when the television station aired a segment suggesting that global warming was false, or at least implied that it might not be true. That put the interest back in her, and she said that it was a difficult position to be in. She didn't have the authority to stop them from airing such segments, but that she would advise her fellow anchormen that the story was BS. She said that there had been a few segments she'd kept them from airing because they were fake science, but that there were other syndicated shows that she didn't have control over and that was kind of frustrating.
When she was done answering questions, she told us that we could be friends with her on Facebook, and a bunch of students took out their telephones, then she left and we finished up with a normal lesson.
I was happy that we were wrapping up Descartes in philosophy class. I couldn't make sense of him. Despite all the professor's explanations, I still didn't understand why he would start out his philosophy with the idea that he didn't exist. And it only got more confusing when Ted asked the professor if it would make a difference if we really all were brains in a vat, since we wouldn't be able to do anything to change that. Then he asked if, according to Descartes' philosophy, a self-aware artificial intelligence could be said to exist.
The professor said that Descartes was attempting to remove anything that could be doubted from his philosophy, and Ted countered that you can't have a first principle of nothing.
Then the professor sweetly suggested that that would be a great topic for the final exam, and there were a few groans in the class. It also shut Ted up.
Anyway, we're moving on to John Locke next, and that will be a pleasant change I'm sure.
Lunch today was mostly pizza, and leftovers from yesterday's dinner. Christine said that they weren't trying, but I thought it was pretty exciting, and judging by how many other people were eating slices of pizza, it was a treat for them, too.
They weren't as good as the one Peggy had ordered. Sean (who had nearly a whole pizza on his plate) said that it was better than dominos. I hadn't ever eaten a domino, so I just took his word for it.
I wanted to try lots of different toppings to see what my favorites were. I probably ate more than I should have—I felt really bloated after lunch, and I resolved to not eat anything besides a salad for dinner.
In Equestrian class, I asked Meghan if I could use her bathtub tonight. It would be a great way to relax after the week. She said it was okay with her, and the rest of the girls said it was okay with them, too.
So I went over after dinner and started drawing my bath. We talked a bit while the tub was filling, and I told them about the soaking tubs that every ground village has, and how popular they are with everypony. Meghan said that there was a place that had hot tubs in Kalamazoo, but she wasn't sure if they were sanitary, and she also wasn't sure that they'd let a pony in. And she said that her uncle also had a hot tub and maybe we could use that sometime.
Once it was full of nice hot water and lots of suds, I lowered myself in and stretched out, and just relaxed. At first, I was alone; the girls stayed behind when I went into the bathroom, but eventually Meghan stuck her head around the corner and asked if I minded if she came in, too.
I said that I didn't mind at all; she could even join me in the bath if she wanted to. It would have been crowded, but I think we could have managed to fit.
She said that she'd just sit and talk, which was almost as good. So she sat on the toilet seat, and then eventually Becky and Lisa pulled their chairs up to the door, but they were pretty hesitant. Becky stayed a bit off at an angle, and I really had to stretch out my head to see her. Until she eventually moved closer.
All three of them smiled when I sculpted the soap bubbles into little clouds and set them floating around the bathroom. I wasn't all that good at it; one of my weather teachers could make whole cloudscapes out of them, and she even used ink in the soap solution to represent different types of clouds. But she'd had a lot more practice, and she probably wasn't as good with real clouds.
It was really relaxing, and it was nice to chat while I was in the bath. Sometimes I try to have a conversation with the other girls in the bathroom when I'm in the shower, but most of the time they don't want to say much more than 'hi.'
When I was done, I was all fluffy from soaking and drying off with towels. Meghan said that I looked absolutely adorable, and asked if she could brush my mane and tail. I told her that she could, so I stretched out on her bed and let her groom me.
That was about the best Friday night ever, and it just got more better when I got back to our dorm room. Peggy and Christine and Sean were all there playing euchre (you can play it with three people, too, but it's not as fun as having a partner) and drinking beer. When they finished their game, we played a four-person game; not too long after we started Aric showed up as well; he said that he had just been passing by and seen our door was open.
He sat on my bed while we finished the game, and then Peggy thought it would be fun to watch a movie on her computer, so she turned it so we could all see. Aric and I shared my bed, while Christine and Sean sat on the floor.
There was a little debate while they decided what movie to watch, but they finally decided that How To Train Your Dragon would be fun, because I knew about dragons and because there were some good flying scenes in it.
I wound up snuggling against Aric when the movie got really intense, but he didn't mind.
It was kind of disappointing when he had to go—I think he didn't want to, either, but the party kind of broke up a little bit after the movie.