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// February 18 [Letter from Aquamarine] 
// Story: Silver Glow's Journal 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
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February 18

There was a light snow falling when I got up, so I went outside and let the snow fall on me for a bit before I started my trot around the neighborhood. More of it stuck to me before I warmed up enough for it to melt right off.

I can tell spring is coming because the days are getting longer. Sunrise is earlier each morning: on Earth this is because the whole planet tips on its axis, wobbling like an unstable top. It's a kind of ridiculous system; it would make so much more sense if the Earth were nice and stable like Equestria and the sun just changed its path through the sky. Maybe when God created the Earth and humans to put on it, He thought they wouldn't follow instructions and so He had to come up with a different way of making seasons work.

(At least He kept weather the same. I would have been so confused if it had been different.)

It was going to be light snowfall most of the day, I thought. I'd have a better idea if I was up in the sky, but from down on the ground, it felt like the clouds were going to stick around.

When I’d gotten around the neighborhood and back to campus, I got permission for a short flight and zipped into the sky to dance with the snowflakes. I couldn't get up too high, because the clouds were low, but I skirted their bottoms while keeping my ears alert for approaching airplanes.

I went a bit west, not quite all the way to the Maple Hill Mall before I turned back around and made a long descending approach to campus. Some pegasuses are really good at gliding and can go a really long ways. In fact, there are gliding competitions which I've watched before. The trick is to be as aerodynamic as possible and make the fewest possible course corrections, because turning robs you of airspeed.

I probably wouldn't have impressed anyone with my glide back to campus. A foal could have done it; between the hill and my starting altitude relative to the distance I had to go, I was gliding down at a thirty degree angle or so. Not very skillful.

I made one loop around the bell tower and landed, then headed to the shower to wash off the sweat and all the snow that had stuck to my wings.

Since I was done with my morning routine a bit earlier than usual, I read through Aquamarine's letter. She said that it was still confusing to be on such a big campus where most everybody didn't know everybody else and that her dorm was noisy all the time with radios playing and people up and talking and sometimes partying late into the night. She said that that sometimes made it hard to sleep, but that it was nice in the mornings because everybody was quiet.

She had gotten several potted plants and kept them on the windowsill and they were doing alright. She was working in the greenhouses a lot, which she said was fun, and that I wouldn't believe how big they were. She said her family farm back in Ponyville would have fit inside the greenhouses, along with their house and if the greenhouses were taller, the barn would have fit, too.

She said that south of campus there were research farms with research animals and she'd had to go there when one of her shoes had worked loose because there was a farrier there and she got to look at some big Earth horses up close, and it was true what we had been taught that they weren't all that smart. Not even as smart as Equestrian sheep.

That struck me as kind of sad. What if we had wound up that way? How did it feel to be a dumb animal anyway? I couldn't imagine what it must be like.

I started to write her back about how I had gone on a road trip to Pennsylvania and that almost everyone I'd met so far was nice and friendly. I told her about my friends and about Aric and then before I could finish the letter, it was time to go to class.

I sat in my favorite chair and waited for Conrad to arrive. He was in a playful mood today; he said 'expect nothing' as he walked through the door. He stood behind his desk and said 'live frugally,' and then he unbuttoned his coat and added 'on surprise,' as he pulled off his coat and revealed that underneath he was wearing a t-shirt that said Mötley Crüe on it. A bunch of the kids in class began laughing when they saw it. I wasn't sure what was funny.

Then he sat down in his chair and finished reading the poem, which was called Expect Nothing.

That was a good motto for life.

Next, he had a student read A Picture Story For The Curious. I tried to imagine how I might look meditating on a chair or against a wall. I've heard that when zebras meditate they stand upside down on one hoof and if they're really wise they do it while balancing on a stick.

There was also a brief stanza about growing a garden in a pot, and I thought about Aquamarine fretting over her plants on the windowsill of her dorm room—I bet they were thriving.

And there was a part in the poem about snuggling all morning with her lover, and I sighed at that. 

We talked about the poem a little bit, about how it's a poem about growing up and growing old. Conrad chuckled and said that he didn't know how to speak German and probably never would, and he asked us what things some of our grandparents didn't know how to do.

The first student who raised her hand said that her grandmother didn't know how to use a smartphone, and there were a few chuckles, and Conrad asked her if she thought that her grandmother had thought of using a smartphone when she was young. He said that he ought to have been more clear; the poem was about a skill or a dream which had never been fulfilled.

I raised my hoof.

It took a little bit before he got around to me, and I told the class that my granddam had never learned how to read; she'd only taken one year of school before her mother pulled her out of class saying that the teacher was filling her head with stupid ideas that no pegasus would ever need to know.

There were a couple of chuckles in class, and then Trevor raised his hand and said that his grandfather also had been illiterate. From the way he tensed his shoulders, it was obvious to me that Trevor was just waiting for somebody to chuckle, but nobody did.

Conrad finished off the class by reading Knowing You Might Someday Come, and that also made me think of Aric. Maybe I ought to make a list of all the things I liked about him. He was a good snuggler, and he smelled delicious; those were important qualities. Alice Walker was a very wise woman to think of all these things.

I passed the afternoon finishing up my letter to Aquamarine. I wanted to know if she had plans for spring break—ours was coming up soon, but Kalamazoo College had a different type of schedule than Michigan State did.

She'd told me that Michigan State had a very good basketball team and that they were probably going to go on to the finals. Last year, she'd told me, they were in the Final Four, but got defeated by Duke.

I didn't know if we had a basketball team. I supposed that they probably did but I'd have to ask Peggy to know for sure.

I sealed up the letter and mailed it on my way to dinner.

Almost as soon as I sat down, Christine asked Sean if he would get her another glass of pop, even though hers was half full. She said that it tasted funny and she wanted something else, so he got up and went across the room to the pop machine. As soon as he was gone, Christine leaned across the table and asked me how last night had gone.

Christine said that she thought Meghan was furry, and I said I was pretty sure only in one spot and then Christine started laughing and said I was so adorably clueless sometimes. She said Meghan had made a pretty clear invitation for sex, at least from how I was describing it. Then Sean arrived with her drink and she changed the subject, but it left me with something to think about.

Tomorrow was the opening night of the play, and Aric had invited me to watch it from the light control booth. He said that then I could come over to his house after the play was over, and since it would be a Friday night, we could stay up late.