May 20
I didn't get out of bed until Peggy's telephone alarm went off. I should have, but I was nice and cozy and Meghan had wrapped her arm around me, and I told myself that I didn't want to move and risk waking her up.
But if I didn't get up, I wasn't going to get to go flying, and I did consider just skipping it today.
When Peggy had gone off to the shower, I wiggled out from under Meghan's arm, and that didn't wake her up, so I nosed her shirt up a little bit and kissed her on the tummy, and that did wake her up. She pushed me back and sort of scooted away so that she could sit up.
I told her that I was going flying but I would be back pretty quick so I didn't miss my shower time.
She said that she'd left all her shower stuff in her room, and I said she could use mine, but she said that she'd rather go back to her room where it was more private.
So I said that I would go there when I was done, and that made her happy. She leaned down and kissed my nose, and then I tilted my head back just a little so we could have a proper kiss. Then she helped me get dressed and put on her own pants while I was getting permission to fly.
It was another nice clear day out, but this time I stayed low because the grumpy man was on the radio again.
As I was taking off, I thought about the radar picture he was seeing. I couldn't see any airplanes, but the big ones were really hard to see if they didn't make clouds.
I flew around below the tops of the tall buildings in town, where airplanes weren't allowed. I circled around a couple of them, kind of playing a flag race in the air, then I chased a couple of cars down the street for fun, before I turned around and went back to campus.
I stopped off in my room first to leave my flight gear behind, then told Peggy I was going to take a shower with Meghan, and happily went down the hallway, down a flight of stairs, and then out to the roof boardwalk. It was a perfect place to fly to DeWaters from, and I don't know why I'd never thought of it before.
She opened the door when I knocked, and said that we had to wait because Becky was in there.
It wasn't too long before she was done, and Meghan went in and turned on the shower and started getting undressed while I got in and rinsed off the lather. Then we brushed each other and went to breakfast together.
I told her how Aric had cooked yesterday, and Angela had helped. She wanted to know if I was going to live with him for the summer, and I said that I didn't know—I hadn't asked him if I could. I really needed to think about it, but I didn't want the school year to end, and I guess in my mind maybe I thought that if I didn't make plans, it wouldn't. That was stupid, of course; school would be out when it was supposed to whether I had a place to stay or not.
She said that maybe I could stay with her if it was okay with her roommates—she didn't have a really big place, but I was small and didn't have very much stuff.
I kissed her again as we left the dining hall, and she went off to her class and I went to mine.
Professor Sir Doctor Banerjee started teaching us a new way to find fractals, and he started out by giving us a different equation and showing how it would work on squares, because they were simple. And he explained how it would have to be contractive, or shrinking down.
He wrote out a couple of proofs, which I really like seeing. Proofs demonstrate that something that you think is true is true all the time. Plus, it's fun to see if I can figure out what the conclusion is before he gets there. I think if he just wrote it all out, it might be boring, but he always keeps pausing partway through and asks the class what we think is going to happen to one of the variables as he goes on.
Once we had finished the proofs, he showed us pictures of iterated triangles, and then he showed us how to completely map out a table of the values. Then he showed us for the rest of class how to make things with them, like squares that turned into a triangular shape, and he showed us how to do it for a fern, and he said that over the weekend we could practice and see how to write out other fractal shapes.
At the very end of class, he told us about a book called Fractals Everywhere, in case we wanted to learn more about the proofs. I made a note to get that after I returned the World War One book.
I went to the mail hut after class (which I should have done before but I was having too much fun with Meghan to think of it). There were a bunch of letters there, one from my sister and one from Aquamarine and one from Comcast and one from Discover.
I sat down to read them all. I read Aquamarine's first, 'cause I was surprised that she'd sent it so quick after getting mine (I was surprised she'd even gotten mine). But it turned out she'd sent it a couple of days ago, and they had just passed each other.
She said that she was done with school already, which I hadn't expected. I had two full weeks and then finals before I was done. And she said that she had a nice apartment with Jenny—it belonged to a bunch of students who were going to be away for the summer and they were subleasing it. She said they were called The Hamptons, and they weren't too far from where she had lived before. It was above a bunch of stores, which reminded her of Ponyville, and that they had a balcony and the railroad tracks were right by her room, too.
That sounded pretty nice. I wish our room had a balcony, then I could fly right off of that and not have to go down the stairs and outside before I could take off.
My sister wrote that it was kind of boring without me, and that a lot of the mares on my team really missed me. She said that my little cousin was asking her if I had seen any of the big metal sky-ships, and if I had could I send a photograph of me next to one?
She said it had been a good year so far; she'd flown south with a bunch of the girls at the beginning of spring and helped to wrap up winter all up the coast, ending in Baltimare, where a group of northern pegasuses took over. She said that they all talked funny.
And she told me that the Crimson Bounder had been lost in a storm. They'd lost their masts and their lookout Helia had flown to the nearest pegasus patrol and they were able to rescue everypony before the ship sank. Some of the crewponies were hoping to sign on to the next merchant ship that made port, while the captain and her mate had gone to Baltimare to get another ship built.
Both Discover and Comcast asked me to buy things that I didn't want. They had little envelopes inside that were called sassies that you could send back without a stamp, which I kept so I could send them a letter saying that I didn't want their credit card or cable.
At lunch, Joe amused us by only talking Japanese, which he said was for practice. Sean started talking back to him in Klingon, and pretty soon the two of them were laughing because neither of them understood what the other one was saying. We ignored them.
Professor Amy picked up where she had left off in her lecture, almost as if we hadn't had a day off earlier in the week. I guess everyone had said what they wanted to say, because this time she got right through it pretty easily. I sort of knew what she was going to say, since I'd stayed after on Monday and asked, but it was nice to have her go over it again.
Then she said that we were going to have a test, and she said that she wanted us to be honest; they were all true/false questions, and we were going to grade our own tests so nobody else could see them or what we'd written. And as proof of that, she put a wastebasket with a special cover on the desk.
She showed us two dozen pictures and had us answer if they were a particular thing or not. Then she told us all the answers, and said that we were to remember our score and then fold our papers and one at a time put them in the wastebasket, which ate them.
Then she asked if anybody had gotten a perfect score, and nobody raised their hands.
Professor Amy said that was proof of what she had been saying. And a couple of people complained that she had given hard examples, and she said that she'd make it easier, then, and she asked each one of them to guess her ethnicity, and neither of them were right. Then she asked if anyone else wanted to make a guess, but no one figured it out. So she said she was a Bosniak, and nobody in class knew what that was, either, and she got a sort of sad smile on her face and suggested that we Google it.
I was going to start reading my World War One book after I finished writing letters, but Christine and Sean and Ruth and Rebekkah all came over and were playing cards and it would have been rude to just ignore them, so I joined in, and pretty soon we were making enough commotion that Kat came down, too, and we had a three-way game going with me and Sean and Christine, and a four-way game with the rest of the girls.
We switched around, making the two winners of the four-way and the winner of the three-way play a three-way, and kept on rotating like that until we'd played a bunch of hands and had a few drinks each, and it wasn't until almost eleven that everyone finally drifted off.
I flew over to Aric's house, and when he was getting undressed for bed I mentioned the poem about the city at night, and he put his pants back on and said that it was time I experienced it, then. It was a perfect night, and the moon was full.
So the two of us walked through the neighborhood and by the college and then through downtown. There was a different feel to it; there weren't so many cars and most of the stores were dark but there were lights on in apartments above them.
We went all the way to the railroad viaduct, and he said sometimes when it rained, it flooded and cars got stuck underneath. Then we went up and over, and I said that I thought it was dangerous because a train could come, and he said that was what made it fun.
I thought that was pretty bold for someone who couldn't fly away.
We went back along the other side of the main street, then up to the top of the parking lots next to the hotel, where we could see all of Kalamazoo stretched out around us. I had to stand up on the wall, 'cause it was too tall to see over.
He told me to just listen, and I did. At first I didn't really hear anything, but then I started to notice that even here in the middle of town there were bugs chirping, and every now and then I heard a car's radio pass by, or people down on the street below talking as they went past—some of them were really drunk, too. Lights in the hotel went on and off, and I heard a car below us start up and then it sort of faded out as it descended through the levels.
I don't know how long we were up there, but I was yawning a lot on the way back to his house, and it was really tempting to just turn away when we went by Trowbridge, but I still wanted to spend the night with him.
By the time we got back to his house, I was swaying on my hooves, and I was in bed as soon as he had opened the bedroom door. I remember putting my head on his chest when he got in bed and thanking him for walking with me, then I fell asleep.
Aric is being romantic tonight!
I liked the little touch with all these lettres, it was nice!
Weird names tougth, Comcast?
And so Aquamarine is Ponyvillian. Interesting...
Silver Glow gets a pass but the rest should really already know what Bosnia is by this point in their lives, I think.
The town at night sleeping... It's a good thing.
Is that a shredder?
Wow. Soon the story will have 250.000 words - and I'm looking forward to each new chapter. It never fails to make me smile, when I get the notification e-mail for a new chapter.
Silver reminds me of the old joke "I can't fix the roof because it is raining and when it isn't raining the roof don't leak."
For all you kids too young for snail mail. Sassy= Self Addressed Stamped Envelope.
Yeeaahhhh.... Maybe it's best not to google that. Bosniak's came out of the war pretty brutalized.
7405457
Comcast is an American cable company. They also provide phone (landline) and internet services as well. Discover is a credit card provider. Basically She got junk mail and is being polite and telling them she is not interested and destroying the material so people will not impersonate her.
...I might've been more interested in math as a kid if someone had told me there were Transformers in it.
I have added a word.
Also, I at first thought that Discover and Comcast were annoying younger siblings or something. I mean, Discover does sound like it could be a pony name, and Comcast could theoretically work in a post-humans Equestria.
7405507
My momma gave me the explanation that got me to enjoy geometry:
It's educated doodling.
Sounds like Aric and Meghan need to have a chat.
I'm actually surprised that Meghan is allowing things to progress when she knows about Aric; I can't imagine her letting things progress if she's unhappy with Silver's other relationship.
I wonder what Silver means by "proper kiss"
She mentioned in an earlier entry that she found a kiss on the nose to be strange, so proper could just mean on the lips, but not with tongues...
Yeah, I don't really buy it either.
wow Silver, that's adorably polite. I think I literally burned the last junkmail I got. I also hung up on a Sirius XM rep today.
7405471 Yes. I'm surprised SG didn't say it growled and made confetti.
7405464
Yeah, it would be like not knowing where Rwanda is.
On a lighter note, curse you Biscuit for teasing us about that book!
Oh so many ways this could be read.
And no one knew what a Bosniak is? Seriously?! I thought Americans learned about geography via the places they bomb. I mean that war wasn't that long ago was it? And... Two wars ago? <sigh> And now I feel old.
7405507
I've said many times, US kids could get out of the bottom of International STEM rankings if dark age gambling laws were abolished and they were taught practical stuff like card counting and bookmaking math.
bookmakingwithkids.com/wp-content/themes/twentyfiftenn-child/headergraphic.jpg
i1.irishmirror.ie/incoming/article5869103.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/Roy-Keane-as-Braveheart-Paddy-Power-3.jpg
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/irish-bookie-paddy-power-stirs-5871270
7405192
That may very well be the case...
Ooooh!
"Those two ponies have really weird parents. "
"Also, they seem kind of annoying. You know, I bet they're both unicorns. Not that I have anything against unicorns, of course. A few of my best acquaintances are friends with unicorns."
Took me a minute to get that Silver is describing a shredder.
7406156
Long enough ago that I was in elementary school, and I've probably got nearly a decade on the students in this class (turned 29 yesterday). I feel old too.
7405505 Ah...
I lacked the necessary cultural reference.
7404559 Let me know when you're done with the book.
7406156
Yeah, 90s baby here, never heard of Bosniak and I had to google her Also a lot of schools are cutting out geography from what I can tell? If that means anything.
From what I've googled, there was a Bosnian war that ended after I turned 1. I hope I googled the right conflict; if not then I'm looking really dumb right now.
I'm not sure people realize this, but school systems kind of assume that if you were alive during a conflict then you'd remember it. The teachers remember the Bosnian war, so there's no reason to teach about it. Why can't you remember - you were alive during the time!? For instance, 9/11 happened when I was 6. I have no memory of it since I'm not near New York, hadn't lost any family members, and my parents didn't see fit to force a 6 year old to watch people die on the news.
I never learned about 9/11. I knew it happened, of course, but didn't know the details behind it until I decided to just Google it one day. I saw articles where schools were worried about teaching those born after 2001 about it, but they failed to teach us. I thought Al-Queda was a real person until high school!
So...yeah, basically, schools suck.
It's a pity Clinton lost his nerve after the Battle of Mogadishu and refrained from getting the US involved in that ugly business and in Kosovo.
But then, the American Public's tolerance for foreign intervention remained pretty low all throughout the end of Vietnam and Yom Kippur and the Soviets in Afghanistan. By the time of the First Gulf War, the Military Industrial Complex had quietly built up the perception/hubris of American invulnerability through superior firepower and technology, but that collapsed in '93 and public opinion regressed back to "it's not our fight, we can't put our people in danger."
That was a really nice thing Aric did! Makes me want to go to the edge of my hometown and do the same.
I know what Bosnia was, not too clear on the details on what happened to it though. Based on where it is/was I imagine it is one of the many conflicts in the Balkans that ended up horribly for all parties involved. Yugoslavia was probably involved somehow. After that I got nothing.
7407191
Logan's Run was a milestone in visual effects, being probably the first to use actual lasers for visual effect, but otherwise, it's pretty forgettable and has very little to do with the book.
A remake has been in the works for years. Maybe it'll do better.
I first saw it in 5th Grade, despite the total nudity. (The teacher covered the screen).
The previous year in 4th grade, we were shown Aguirre Der Zorn Gottes.
Teachers have gotten so sissified since then.
7407459
Having that experience splashed across the internet not so much.
Silver's turning into a lazy pony!
Oh boy, things are heating up with Meghan again. I can't help but feel somebody's gonna get hurt.
7407415
Ah, my bad.
Still, I can hope she gets them and herself together.
7406961 I say it's actually incredibly fortunate that the USA did not directly put soldiers in Yugoslavia. What the USA and other NATO powers already did before and during that war was bad enough. From predatory loans which destroyed the economy,to funding nationalist sectarian groups, to bombing the "wrong" targets... Did you know NATO sent troops there? That they happily allowed the genocide of Bosnaks to occur. They would literally stand there and watch Serb soldiers drag Bosnak civilians to firing squads, hear the victims scream for help while making eye contact with them, and not do anything, because they were only there to protect western business investments and not people. US Army in Yugoslavia would not be there for good, but for evil.
7407719
Considering how the the US raked national hero Bobby Fischer over the coals for violating UN sanctions on Yugoslavia, at least some people in the US were earnestly trying to help.
It's more than anyone has the guts to do today. Imagine if Dennis Rodman was jailed and blacklisted for his North Korean visits.
7407459
Unless she gets Peggy to follow her in a boat, or Cayenne coming out in a boat and meet her halfway.
7407791 Describing infamous anti-semite racist Bobby Fischer as an American "National Hero" really just reinforces my belief that Amercia should have left Yugoslavia the hell alone. The morals of people who would look up to such a man are garbage.
As it is, going after Fischer was not a righteous act. They did not go after him because of any of the many bad things he has done and said, America left him alone when he did those. He faced no punishment for denying the holocaust, for example, which is something that will get you sent to jail for a long time in sensible countries.
Instead they went after him as part of the economic war waged against Yugoslavia. This economic warfare hastened its demise as a viable federal country, and fanned the flames of sectarian nationalism, genocide and destitution.
You cannot spin that as proof "some people in the US were earnestly trying to help." because it is actually an act of malice against Yugoslavia and its many peoples.
Lol, reminds me of the little train overpass on Pennsylvania Avenue by the Potter Park Zoo... though it also likes to eat semi and boxtruck roofs as you have probably seen in the past.
Oh and, as you probably have seen before too, that place on Saginaw by the old GM plant where the road goes under what ever it is there it does, it likes to flood too and idiots get their cars flooded.
7408277
Wait, wasn't he a chess champion or something? How is that being a national hero (especially in caps?)? As for not being punished for denying the Holocaust (kind of silly, since there's all kinds of records of it!) well, the price of Freedom of Speech is letting people say things you don't like. Even stupid things that aren't true.
7405489 They had little envelopes inside that were called sassies that you could send back without a stamp, which I kept so I could send them a letter saying that I didn't want their credit card or cable.
Normally spelled SASE, but with Silver Glow's use of them "sassy" fits too.
7405457
Yup. She's actually in the show occasionally as one of the background fillies.
7405464
I didn't know the specific ethnic groups involved in the conflict. If you'd asked me before I wrote this chapter what a Bosniak was, I might have guessed someone from Bosnia, which is technically correct, but I didn't know it was a specific ethnic group within that region.
I spent so many nights wandering the streets of Kalamazoo.
7405471
Yes, it is.
7405473
7405489
Speaking of which, I need to fix my roof.
7405504
And I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't know that. I blame my high school for not ever bringing it up.
7405505
One of the things I often forget (and this is worth remembering for any author on the site) is that this story has a global audience, so some readers might not be familiar with American companies.
7405507
Fractals are cool as hell.
www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/complex/s3.gif
(The first iteration of this shape is a square, and it becomes increasingly triangular as you go on)
7405745
Correction made, thank you!
Both of them could be pony names. Really, practically any noun could be a pony name.
7405746
That's pretty good. I did like geometry, but I wound up hitting my math ceiling when I got to functions.
7405905
Or is she just happy that she's getting some pony cuddles, thinking to herself that half a glass is better than no glass?
7405978
you know, a proper kiss on the lips.
7405983
She doesn't understand that a heartless machine sends those letters.
7406054
Yes. I'm surprised SG didn't say it growled and made confetti.
She was, but that wound up accidentally getting dropped in editing
7406063
I don't know where Rwanda is, besides that it's in Africa. I probably did once when it was on a geography test in middle school, but I don't remember any more.
I should see if my library has it, or can get it.
7406156
Sadly, that is how we learn geography.
But I missed out on that lesson because the high school teacher who taught the class that should have covered that was so bad.
Let me tell you a little story about that class. Because the school I was in was poor, the books were outdated. I took the class in '95, but the textbook was printed in 1981. A good teacher would have overcome that handicap by either not using the textbook at all, or by giving us handouts which explained the current situation. A bad teacher--which is what I had--would grade you based on whether you knew the book answer or not, which meant that we had to be able to identify East and West Germany, Yugoslavia, all the states of the USSR, and so forth. Had he tested us on who the current American president was, we would have had to say Regan.
That was a terrible class.
7406157
See, that's the thing. Telling kids that they have to learn math because it's a requirement doesn't motivate anyone. Telling kids that they need to learn math so that they can become bookies and make a fortune--that's a motivator.
7406232
As cynical as I often am, I suspect that the egg-washing laws in the US started out with noble intentions. I'd almost be willing to bet at the time that passed, there was a disease outbreak of some sort which motivated the legislation. It's how we roll here in the US--for example, we didn't get the clean water act until rivers started catching fire.
7406355
I haven't seen this in a lot of stories, but I would bet one generation after first contact, you'd have ponies with a lot of new cutie marks and strange new names.
That was another consideration with the students not knowing--IIRC, the conflict ended in '95, and very few students in the class would have even been alive when it happened. So unless they had some reason to have an interest in that part of the world, it probably wouldn't even be on their radar screens (so to speak).
7406781
Will do!
7406896
Assuming that you turned one in the mid-90s, you've got the right war.
That does seem to be the case with current events. Might be covered in college-level classes, but certainly not in high school (well, none of the ones I was a student at, anyway). 9/11 . . . man, you young'uns. I remember that vividly. Saw some of it on the news at work, then I was running tires to another shop when the first tower fell. That was a strange day.
7406961
Yeah; the more I look into recent US military conflicts we seem to have a habit of rushing into the wrong wars, and ignoring the right ones. I'm probably being overly cynical, but . . . .
7407102
Or if you're in Kalamazoo after dark, I recommend the top level of the parking garage right next to the hotel. One of the best views of the city.
7407217
That's a pretty accurate summary. IIRC, Yugoslavia was a country at the beginning of the war but not at the end of it.
7407363
I've noticed that about a lot of Sci Fi movies. Like Starship Troopers, or I, Robot. Man, I was so disappointed in I, Robot. That's one of those movies that I was anticipating, and then I started watching it and was like, 'did the screenwriter actually read the book, or just the front and back covers?'
My mom tried to get my brother and I to appreciate foreign films, and did the same. I think we might have appreciated them more if she hadn't covered the screen.
Sadly, it's true. I think part of it is that a certain part of the population is trying to paint teachers as the bad guy--saying that they're overpaid and that they teach students the wrong things, etc. It makes me sad. There was stuff some of my teachers said that never would pass muster these days, but dammit, I learned things.
7407463
Yeah, that's the downside of everyone having a phone that can take pictures. Some nudist resorts put stickers over the camera lens on the phones.
7407558
She's slacking. She's learned how to be an American.
You'll have to wait and see.
7407806
Yeah, and that's the kind of arrangement they'd want to make. In the airplane world you don't fly a single-engined plane over the Great Lakes, because there aren't any alternate landing spots you can glide to. If they have someone follow her in a boat, if she can't make it, she's got a landing spot. If they don't . . . well, she'd have to tread water for an hour or two until the Coast Guard got a rescue helicopter out to her.
Incidentally, if you're keeping up on modern aviation, twin-engined passenger jets are now allowed to cross oceans, as long as they meet certain requirements. The acronym for those is ETOPS, which some pilots say stands for 'engines turn or passengers swim.'
7411276
I've never seen anyone actually hit it, although judging by the looks of the bridge it happens. At least it's not struck as often as that famous 11'8" bridge on YouTube.
I missed out on ever seeing that, too--lived on the southwest side of Lansing (Stonehenge, the trailer park on MLK right next to Shroyer's) for a few years but never spent a lot of time going downtown. All my friends lived on the west side of town.
Somewhere between Lansing and Hastings, on St. Joe, I think, there's a section of the road that floods a lot. One of the guys I used to work with gave me back-road directions to Hastings, 'cause I was playing D&D there for a while. One rainy night, I hit that on the way back. As I was coming up on the depression, I saw an Impala way off in the cornfield, then I looked back at the road and when I looked back, I thought I was driving into a lake. Made it through, luckily enough.
(There was also a section of road, I think it was Clarksville Road, that had a warning sign saying 'Road Settled.' I didn't know what that meant, so I didn't slow down, which was a terrible mistake. The road was reverse-crowned because it had been built in a swamp. The same guy who told me about the shortcut to Hastings said that they'd lost a D-9 dozer there when they were building the road--it hit a really swampy patch and went down like the Titanic.)
7417276 Like any other big fucked up situation in the world, it all started so long ago... So The war in Bosnia started with the battle of Kosovo in 1389 and the arrival of the Ottoman invaders (and thus the islam) in the balkans. Add to the mix some ethnic diversity and let in slowly boil for a few centuries.
Then just let them figth over who's got the rigth to live were and who should rule and you get the war of Bosnia and the subsequent war of Kosovo...
7406896 what the actual fuck.
I learned about every war from the establishment of the BNA Act onwards that involved Britain, America, or Canada, which, by association, includes many peacekeeping efforts around the world. Yugoslavia was about three days worth.
And my high school isn't even considered prestigious!
¡Miss Silver Glow has 4-Ways!
Really enjoying the story, been basically binge reading up to this point and staying up later than I really should to just read one more chapter (and see just when she's finally going to read that WWI book, her perspective should be interesting to see). Though I am wondering what that talk with Meghan really accomplished in the end; Silver still doesn't seem to get it because she's kissing Meghan on the mouth and sleeping with her every other night, and unlike before, Peggy and nobody else seems to really care, even though it's exactly the same. About all that changed was Silver saying "I don't want to have sex with you" and then she's still getting intimate. I guess I'll just have to see how it plays out.
8043315
Also, fair warning, it takes her a really long time to get around to reading the WWI book.
Well, the difference for Silver Glow is that sex is one thing, sleeping naked with someone is a totally different thing, and doesn't imply more than friendship. Obviously, that's not how human culture works, but Silver doesn't quite get that. So she's following the rules, as far as she knows, especially since Meghan isn't objecting.