June 7 [Housewarming Party]
June 7
I had all morning off, 'cause my poetry exam wasn't until after lunch. So I stayed snuggled up with Aric, just watching the birds out the window and listening to him sleep.
I'd gotten focused on the birds when he finally did wake up—I felt the bed shifting and turned an ear back to him, then I felt his hand on my side, brushing up alongside my wings and then sorta along my flank and then down my leg all the way to my hoof, and I swished my tail at him and then leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.
He twisted to the side and looked out the window with me for a little bit, then started running his fingers down my back and over my dock and I responded by tickling him with my wing.
Before we got out of bed, I asked him to tell me his monologue again, and he did, and it sounded pretty good to me.
He had bought some breakfast food again because he said that since it was the last week of class it was worth eating well. He didn't make pancakes this time but he did have waffles that cooked in the toaster, and he made scrambled eggs too with a little bit of cheese in them.
All of the noise of us being in the kitchen must have woken up David and Angela, because they both came upstairs when he was putting the food on the table, and while he hadn't made enough to share, there was still food left so Angela went to the stove and cooked more eggs and David put more waffles in the toaster.
It turned out everyone had afternoon finals, and David said that we ought to have a toast, so he made some coffee for everyone from a jar of strange coffee powder and it tasted pretty bad (I wasn't the only one to think that) but we drank it anyway.
We went back up to Aric's room afterwards and I got dressed and kissed him goodbye and went out the window.
I went north, past the dirt mines, and over to farmland. Human tractors can plant their crops much more closely together than we do, so a lot of the fields weren't neat rows, but almost solid plant cover, and that was kind of strange to see.
I found another golf course, and this time I knew to avoid it so that nobody would yell at me. And then I kept flying straight even though the road turned until I came to the river, and I followed that back which was a lot of fun because I could fly right above the water and below the trees and there weren't many places I could fly that low.
Plus it made the trip back a little longer, since the river twisted around, and if I'd flown higher I probably would have taken shortcuts where it bent around a point.
I surprised a couple of men who were in a little silver boat fishing—they were both looking upriver and I just zoomed right by them and I heard one of them say something behind me but I didn't look back at them, I just kept on going.
When I got to the railroad bridge over the river, I flew up until I was safely above the tracks and the wires, and followed the rails all the way back to the base of campus, then turned toward my dorm and flew over the quad and landed on Pebble Beach and then went inside.
After last night, it felt pretty lonely in the shower, and I kind of considered going over to DeWaters to see if Meghan had taken her shower yet but she was probably either at a final or preparing for one, so I just washed myself and then went back to my room to groom.
Peggy came back in when I was preening, and I looked up long enough to greet her and then went back to work. She said that she'd just finished her math final and it was awful but she was sure she'd passed it. Then she got out a bottle of Oberon and asked if I wanted one.
I said I had my poetry final after lunch so I shouldn't, and she said that she'd heard that most poets were drunk all the time so maybe it would make more sense if I was, too. But I thought that was a bad idea—now wasn't the best time to try a new thing. And she said that she wasn't being serious, either; she agreed that it was better to be sober when taking tests but she was done with them for the day.
I read a little bit of Tagore to get in the mood for poetry class, and then we went to lunch together but I said that I wanted so sit with Leon and Cedric and Trevor, because I always did before poetry.
So we talked about finals and neither Leon or Cedric was in as much of a joking mood as they normally were—Leon kept looking at a book while he was eating, and Cedric was a little more quiet when he didn't have Leon to hassle.
He asked Trevor what we did for poetry finals—did we have to remember the names of poets or finish lines of poetry, and Trevor said that we each had to compose a couplet in full iambic pentameter on a subject which Conrad would tell us when we'd started. Then he said that as an example, if we were talking about love he might say 'I thank you for this profit, and from hence I'll love no friend, since love breeds such offense.'
Cedric just stared at him and Leon put down his book and asked how the hell had he just come up with that. And then I started to get worried, 'cause I wasn't prepared for that at all and I said that we hadn't had to do that for the last test, and had I missed something?
Then he started laughing and said he'd been lying; he'd played Othello in high school and that was something Iago had said to him and for some reason it had always stuck in his mind.
Leon said that he'd heard about Othello before and that was the play that had the greedy Jewish banker and Trevor said that he was thinking about a different play but at least he had gotten the playwright right.
Before we left for class, I told everyone about the housewarming party at my house, and they said that they'd come.
I would have liked being outside again, but we were in the classroom instead, and it was arranged back the way it usually had been, and there was a bowl on his desk with little slips of paper.
Once we all were in our seats, he said that most of us knew what was coming next, and he opened up his bag and took out a bunch of poems and then he had everyone count off and once we all knew our number he picked the first from the bowl and it was me.
So I went up front and got my poem and read over it once just to make sure that I knew all the words, then read it aloud for the whole class. It was called Trees by Joyce Kilmer, and it was kind of short but very nice, and I said that it made me think of afternoon naps on tree branches and listening to the birds calling out from the trees and then in the wintertime seeing the squirrel nests high up in the branches. And I told him that trees didn't get to choose where they lived but they made the best of it, from the twisted little trees that lived on the coast where the wind was always pushing at them, to the ones that grew on islands in rivers and got flooded every spring, and the big shade trees like the ones that were on the quad.
Then he asked me what my favorite kind of tree was, and I said that it depended on the season, because in the summertime it was nice to have shade, but in the winter if it was really windy you could get in a stand of pine trees and be warm and dry.
I was glad that I'd gotten to go first, because that meant I could really listen and enjoy all the other poems that people read, and they were all poems that were new to me and by poets we hadn't talked about in class.
When we'd finished, I went up to his desk and hugged him and said that I would miss his class, and he said that he was honored that I had been in it.
I didn't really think about it until I was back out on the quad, but that was it. My last class until summer vacation was over.
So I flew up and sat in a tree and watched people walking on the quad until it was time for dinner.
We probably would have spent a long time at the dinner table since pretty soon we were all going to go our separate ways, but everyone was coming to my party so even though I'd said it wasn't starting until eight, we all left dinner together and walked over to my apartment.
Both Peggy and Christine thought it looked pretty plain, but I said that once I put my posters up it'd look really nice and Peggy said that I only had two posters, which was true, but that was enough.
Sean put his telephone on the desk and had it play some music, and we went to the kitchen and got beer out of the electric icebox and talked until people started to show up—Aric came first, and I gave him a little tour (although with the doors all open inside, you could see all three other rooms from the living room) and then Meghan and Becky and Lisa came and after a while Cedric and Leon and Trevor did and pretty soon the whole place was full of people talking, and Keith had brought his Durak cards so a bunch of us played a round and then Cedric and Leon decided to join in even though they'd never played before, and I gave up my space because it wasn't fair to ignore my guests who weren't playing.
A couple of people brought their own food and beer, and pretty soon the kitchen counters were completely covered with more than I could eat in a week, but I'd underestimated how much people could eat and by the time everyone had left except Aric, the food was almost gone.
I said that we could go to his house, 'cause I didn't have any blankets or pillows or anything and then he said that he'd thought of that and went downstairs and when he came back he had all his blankets and pillows and he put them on the futon.
I didn't sleep all that well, 'cause it was a new place and so I kept waking up when I heard a loud car go by or strange creaking and popping noises coming from the house, and sometimes I didn't know why I'd woken up at all, but with Aric next to me I felt safe all night long.
Stats
Page generated in 0.07 seconds
Total duration
1,000 users online
1,719,280 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Couple of fishing jokes
Old fishermen never die -They just smell that way.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will annoy his wife forever.
7465141
Thing is... Almost every "war innovation" more or less based on invention or scientific discovery from before the war. Wars does not advance science.
And the city; both are set in Venice.
The poetry final was lovely, if bittersweet. Silver's just so earnest in everything she does.
As for the new place, I hope she'll be able to handle being alone there. And while she may have somewhere to stay, she doesn't have any actual plans for the summer. I wonder what she has in mind...
7465949 not during the war, but in the field of medical science war can create a new need and new incentive for governments to put funding into medical research. These things combined can lead to medical and scientific advancement. For example, there was phycological research being done before ww1 and ww2, but it was because of shell shock, PTSD, that the public began to demand that the government give more funding to medical and phycological research. Which lead to new fields within neuro-science and medical science, giving us better knowledge of drug affects and in part lead to the refinement of phycodelical drugs being used to combat PTSD
7465965
Considering how much money and resources burn in the wars and how many people killed... I'm pretty sure that we can achieve far greater scientific advices if we funneled all that money and resource directly into science.
War stupid and tragic. We DON'T need them to advance. I like to think that humans better that this. But... life often show me that I'm wrong...
Oooh, an electric icebox. Right next to the science oven, I assume. Silver's new kitchen is fancy.
Aww, it's nice that Silver had a good housewarming party.
"We've replaced Silver Glow's regular coffee with Folger's crystals. Let's see if she- ow! Hey, quit it! Ponies aren't supposed to hit!"
7465982
We would be better if we actually learned from our own history.
Stealth Pony!
No engine noise, just the sound of a 7 foot wingspan and 100 pounds of meat going 35mph at 10 feet altitude...
I'd imagine a "wooof" sound passing overhead.
Which is the sound that those orange and white barrels make at the construction zones when I drive past them on the highway.
Where does that sound come from anyway?
Is it reflected engine noise?
Is it the air my car is pushing away like the bow of a boat?
7465982 I'm not saying that we need war to advance, war is an awful thing and I wish that at some point in the future we reach a time when it won't happen. Additionally I concide at it can be hard to say that any developments are worth the cost of life and pointless destruction
But unfortunately a large majority of leaders and government dont set out to better society as a main goal, and its only when he public have something to rally together against that the establishment actually begins to take a full and active look at how hey can better society. War is unfortunately the most common thing to fill this role.
7466027
I pity really...
Sometime I think what happened if Korolev and von Braun worked together... I'm pretty sure that would be insanely glorious.
Iambic pentameter is realy strange,
Not so much purple prose,
As Orange.
About pony education :). There. Cheerilee tried to teach kids about potential and kinetic energy. I don't know about US or Europe but IIRC in Russia we learn this stuff in high school :).
But yeah, obviously it's just played for lulz.
Not quite. But the best ones were absinthe and laudanum fiends.
7466163
In the US, that's 4th or 5th Grade material. Or was in my district.
Shame the term's over already, I was wondering what would happen if Celestia (or one of the princesses) stopped by to meet Silver Glow and the other exchange students while visiting Earth, It'd be interesting to see the reaction of Aric and the others to her.
Someone else might be stopping by at some point as well... He'll keep more of a low profile though. n.n
Feel like a negative statement is missing from this sentence.
said or asked?
choose
and
7466200
Huh... And I'm wrong about Russia. It's a seventh grade material (so in Russia this is a bit beyond CMC age but not that much beyond). My memory obviously failed me... Oh well, my school years has been a long time ago.
7466025
"Woah! Bob, didja' see the size a' that egret?!"
"Goddamnit, Tom... Was blue, so clearly one a' them great herons."
"You sure about that?"
"Pretty."
"Man, if Dave weren't sick he'd'a known for sure."
"Yup."
"Uh-huh."
7465939
That's not how it goes!
"Old fishermen never die, they just wade away."
7466236
At least you guys never pulled something as stupid as the "New Math."
edit. Do they teach kids about Lysenkoism or is it too embarrassing/shameful?
7466277
Can't say about current school because I graduated in 98 (wow, I feel old :) but in my time our Biology teacher told us about Lysenko and Lysenkoism.
7466025 pretty sure it's reflected noise. Engine, tire sounds, and just the stuff on the other side of you, which now has something to bounce off of.
I kind of hope they do further Hollow Crown series like the Venetian Plays and Roman Plays. We need adaptations of Coriolanus and Titus Andronicus, played straight without artsy-fartsy modernized or bizarre, experimental deliberately anachronistic settings.
The Hollow Crown version of Henry V was disappointing compared to the Kenneth Branagh version (seriously, cutting the Southampton Plot was unforgivable), but the first three episodes were brilliant.
We owe Game of Thrones fanboys for prompting new Shakespeare adaptations intended to appeal to them, if for nothing else.
Next roadtrip... visit this!
http://66.media.tumblr.com/611b84a6d123f945494ddd50cd99beef/tumblr_oblm2yiaRC1qkvbwso1_500.png
7466017
7465982
oh yes? where did we get the jet engine from ? OH WAIT !
or modern medicin and the understanding how our insides work ?
no way these advances have to do with war right ?! right!
oh and the whole race to the moon was just a friendly competion...
7466376
You mean same engine that based on scientific discoveries that dated back to beginning of the twenties century? Yeah, human so stupid and cannot do the same without wars, yeah.
Oh, same medicine that based on untold centuries of experience? Yeah, humans obviously can't do anything right without wars.
Yeah, it's not like Tsiolkovsky talk about space exploration with rockets back in the ending of nineteen century? Yeah, we so idiotic that we cant understand what he write without war.
Can't say about von Braun but Korolev start dreaming about space when he read Tsiolkovsky book back in 1903.
7466223 It's probably neither instead of either, the sentence made more sense when I tried to read it like that.
I was expecting the friends to see what a dump the place was and help fix it up.
I suppose it had ALREADY been fixed up to be habitable before SG moved in.
Will SG have Wacky NeighborsTM or BE the Wacky NeighborTM?
**********************
As another commentator asked... will there be guest appearances of
any famous Equestrians in a future installment?
Or even a mention on the news of one or more visiting Earth?
"Silver, have you ever met Princess Celestia?"
"Have you ever met your President?"
7466376 7466405 And the CERN is obviously a product of war, rigth?
Silver probably never saw them, but there is also the very twisted very little tree on mountain top. The Krummholz can be very impressive by how much not-tree looking they are.
7465986 Hopefully she's a better cook than Horse Wife.
7465994
Funny thing is, I'm old enough to remember those Folger's commercials. (God, the 80s Hair...)
7466405
just writing and dreaming about this stuff and actually getting it done are two pair of shoes
7466205
I don't think Celestia would personally visit any of the students while they're still on Earth. Remember that she's a foreign head of state and makes headlines wherever she goes. She wouldn't want to inconvenience her ponies by putting them on the radar of reporters, politicians and less savory folk...
7466560
"Tsiolkovsky formula" still taught today. He, Goddart and Oberth practically a fathers of modern day aeronautics. It's pretty much stand on their shoulders. So he not "just write".
Korolev start to work on rockets back in thirties (if not in twenties, I don't remember exact date), long before the war.
And Korolev dream about flying to Mars. He actually believe that he able to pull it off. But USSR government more or less axed his dream.
7466445
Silver might not, but Aquamarine is from Ponyville, apparently, so she probably sees her every couple of weeks. For a supposed backwater, that city seems to be practically a second capital.
7466025
And maybe a little "extra propulsion" if she's coming back from Taco Bell....
7466555 It was the 80's. Nobody knew any better.
I am not at all admitting that I may have had my hair feathered at any point during that decade.
So she found a use for stallions, after the more important one.
Then again, she probably isn't normally alone at night in Equestria...
7467135
Good God, pony farts. That's gotta be a weapon of ass destruction under the Geneva Conventions.
7467178
She still hasn't found a use for unicorns, though.
Aww yeah new place (sort of) all to herself! Housewarming parties are awesome! But that first night in a new place can be either a good or not so good experience. Luckily Aric is there to make her feel safe.
7467236
Rather, a method of replenishing Earth's helium reserves.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/1/16/213924__safe_rainbow+dash_pinkie+pie_sweetie+belle_text_sitting_dialogue_balloon_speech+bubble_reading.png
Even if the pay be good, the discomfort of hooking up pegasi to tanks and feeding them Taco Bell would likely be unethical to say the least. it would be better to collaborate with them to study the properties of their digestive tract and possibly find a way to reproduce the effect.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/helium-shortage-could-be-solved-by-new-life-saving-discovery-a7106906.html
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/1/16/214049__safe_text_twitter_lauren+faust_silly_word+of+faust_pony+farts.png
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/1/16/214190__safe_pinkie+pie_twitter_lauren+faust_fart_word+of+faust_pony+farts.png
7466376 The jet engine was a 1920s peacetime invention. Spaceflight was developed for peactime propaganda purposes. Try again.
7459592
Ah, gotcha.
I'd fail.
So Silver basically only had one final. That must be nice.
Instant coffee. Its not for everyone.
7466163 Yeah, and the foals have no idea what physics is, which also kind of confirms that physics equation on the other chalkboard is left behind by a different class that uses the schoolroom.
7468191
Ugh... Quoting myself.
7467236
Well, sometimes you need to open a package or something that can't be done with your mouth. Or you need to poke a hole in something, which is much easier if you've got a head-pokey thing. Or in a pinch, they're nearly as cuddly as pegasuses or earth ponies, even though they're pointier.
7465939
Related: Build a man a a fire and you'll keep him warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and you'll keep him warm for the rest of his life.
7465949
The Devil's Advocate in me says that technically every innovation is based on an invention or scientific discovery that came before.
One thing that wars do is change what we prioritize when it comes to innovations, I think. So for example things like Radar would almost certainly have been invented sooner or later, but the war hastened research and development on radar. And some things might not have been invented at all--tanks, for example, don't really have a lot of use outside of war; on the other hand, tracked vehicles are pretty useful (and I honestly don't know if tracked vehicles existed before tanks).
But I don't think that we need war to drive innovation; just that war puts some urgency on certain projects while it also totally stops others.
7465957
In a way, it might be kind of relaxing--give her a chance to catch up on her reading. And you're right; she doesn't have any firm plans, but she'll find things to do. She's still got a lot of things to scratch off her bucket list, after all.
7465965
Actually, wasn't CA (cyanoacetate adhesive invented to be a quick way to patch someone up in the field? And unfortunately our current wars have led to innovations in prosthetics, IIRC.