> The Diaries of Cyber Pulse > by Deuterium > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Entry 1: Monday, 25th of October > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- OK, first things first: if you are reading this, and are not me, then how on earth did you get hold of my diary? I keep it under lock and key in my bedroom, the reason being that if my roommate got hold of it, he'd probably write all kinds of fabrications in there. But nonetheless, you are here, and also you are reading this. So I'll take the liberty of introducing myself, and a couple of the other ponies I call friends. Hi, I'm Cyber Pulse, and I'm an unusually-nerdy pegasus from the Coltish isles, specifically Newcattle-Under-Lame, where I had lived for many years until I moved to Equestria a couple of years ago. I also look a bit like a girl, and it’s immensely annoying to me when ponies point this out, or worse, think that I AM a girl. One pony seemed rather taken aback when she found out I was actually male. If you are reading this then you may be wondering why, if this is my diary, I’m writing this as if it will be read by someone else. Well, all I’m going to say on that topic is that I have my reasons, however mysterious or unusual they may be. This is just how I write diary entries. But, I digress. Now, it would be hard to start a diary on my personal life without mentioning Cornflake. Cornflake is my (aforementioned) roommate...or at least, I call him a roommate. Technically I just let him live in my house rent-free because he couldn't be arsed to find a job after we moved to Equestria from Coltain (He only tagged along with me in the first place because he's the closest thing I had to a friend at the time). But as you may expect, letting him live with me makes things infinitely harder for me since I am the only one of the two of us who has a job (I teach Equine Biology at Star Swirl Higher Education Center. A decent job with a surprisingly good pay, but since it’s not actually in Ponyville it’s quite a long commute, and with Cornflake around working on lesson plans is hard to say the least.) Cornflake couldn't work to save his own life. He just spends his days either drinking unnatural amounts of alcohol (he has a preference, I note, for Flim & Flam brand cider, often diluted with vodka. Exactly why he does that I'll never know, Flim and Flam cider is strong enough as it is) or sitting in his room with his pornography which he somehow manages to smuggle in despite the strict no-porn rule that we "agreed" on when I let him move in. I often find piles of it in his cupboards and I always end up burning it or destroying it in some other way. And what's worse, he buys it with my money since he keeps asking me for subs, and whenever I say no he just does not shut up until I eventually give it to him, by which point I'm typically on the brink of clinical insanity. And when I do give him the money, I know precisely what it'll be spent on. Cornflake also has no cutie mark and I like to joke that when he does get it it'll likely be an image of the male anatomy, on account of his apparent porn addiction, always very much to his chagrin. But to be honest anypony would be annoyed if they had a picture of a nob permanently grafted on their flank. If not a nob then probably a generic booze bottle, for reasons that I should have already explained. But despite the fact that he's a freeloader, Cornflake isn't a total bastard, and if you’ve known him for as long as I have, he can be quite a good friend. The story behind how Cornflake and I became friends is quite long and very complicated. All I can say is it involved a passion fruit, a dictionary, a Tasmanian devil and sherbet lemons. And afterwards my head hurt. (To be quite honest though, the part about the Tasmanian devil isn't entirely true; it wasn't a real one). Another friend of mine worth mentioning is Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash is a pegasus with a rainbow-coloured mane and tail (true to her name) and she also happens to be one of Equestria's fastest flyers, placing 1st in the Best Young Flyer competition a few years back, and also landing a position as a Leader at Wonderbolt Academy (I'm thinking about applying for that myself when I have enough time... and courage). She is damn fast too - fast enough to create a sonic boom. But what's even more interesting is how she does it at a considerably lower speed than it normally would take to create a sonic boom of notable magnitude. One of my work colleagues, a Physics teacher named Nuclear Fusion, once told me it has something to do with air pressure and high velocity, but I can't be sure; Physics isn't really my area. I really should ask her to explain it to me again. I met Dash while I was grocery shopping one day. At the time Cornflake and I had just moved in, so we weren't too well known. I was just checking out the more exotic items on offer when, all of a sudden, she crashed into me at a very high speed. After she'd apologized and helped me pick up all my okra and artichokes, she realised that she hadn’t met me before, so we introduced ourselves to each other. After that little episode we started to make conversation. Rainbow Dash told me all about her win in the Best Young Flyer competition, how it'd gone a bit pear-shaped to begin with but she managed to secure the win with her "Sonic Rainboom" (as she calls it). She also discussed a few of her friends, and even managed to introduce me to some of them, namely an orange-coated earth pony named Applejack, and another pegasus named Fluttershy who, true to her name, is possibly the most timid pony I have ever met. When I tried to introduce myself, she simply mumbled something under her breath, and made some odd whimpering noises. To be honest it was kind of cute... Dash, on the other hand, went into detail about how badass Fluttershy had been in the past, which I found to be quite far-fetched, and even after Applejack confirmed it, I was still fairly dubious. Then, things got bat-shit crazy. After telling her stories of Fluttershy, Dash introduced me introduced me to... an alicorn. I shit you not. An alicorn, helping out with some of the market stalls, and doing a damn good job of it too. Dash told me that her name was Twilight Sparkle, and all about how she was Princess Celestia's star pupil, and ended up becoming an alicorn after finding some kind of mystery cure for some weird illness or something along those lines. On top of that, she told me she’d been royalty since way before she was coronated - she was sister-in-law to Princess Miamore Fucking Cadenza! All I could say was: Holy. Fucking. Shit. That is one lucky pony. After trying to get over having seen an alicorn for the first time in my life and actually introducing myself to Twilight, I told Dash and her friends a lot about myself, like where I lived, what I did for a living, to stay away from Cornflake, and so on. Eventually I noticed that I was running late and had to get on with that night's dinner, so I bid Rainbow Dash and her friends farewell, tried to stop gawping at Twilight (she told me she got it all the time), and started flying towards my house, clutching my very small bag of groceries. I don't normally buy much aside from essentials, because aside from working and writing in my diary I also like growing my own vegetables. It's a messy business, and at times irritating, but it's much cheaper than buying, and to be honest it is actually pretty fun sometimes. Actually I have a lot of hobbies, which I'll probably cover in more detail in a later entry. Anyway, enough introductions. I'll end this entry for today, my diary entries tend to be pretty long. I think I'll try my best to write in here as often as possible, but that'll depend on whether or not anything interesting or unorthodox happened that day. But for now, this entry is over. > Entry 2: Tuesday, 26th of October > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two very irritating things happened to me today. First of all, I had a problem at work, namely a repeatedly problematic student of mine named Tungsten. He is the worst-behaved pony I have ever seen. I mean, his behaviour is even worse than Cornflake's freeloading habits. Every single lecture he's in, he's messing about, not making notes, and then he claims that he hasn't been taught topics I've gone over thousands of times, et cetera, et cetera, day in, day out. And worse, I have had to deal with him every single fucking day, and will have to for the whole rest of this year!! I have no idea why he even went to college, let alone took such an applied subject as Equine Biology, if all he's going to do is be such a bloody pain in the arse. All during today's first lecture I was hoping that my break would begin soon. During my breaks I normally make conversation with the other teachers, and while we're talking Tungsten's outrageous behavior is always a major conversation point. Anyway, halfway through today's lecture Tungsten was blatantly not doing any work, or paying attention at all for that matter, so I told him to start taking notes like he should have started doing 30 minutes before. He then answered me back, rather rudely, to which I voiced my displeasure and told him, again, to start taking notes, to which he responded with a snide remark regarding my mother. Eventually it escalated into a full-scale argument, ending with me dragging him out of the room by the tail and telling him to come back when he's in a better mind for learning, and to stop being such a bloody twat. Well, not exactly that wording, but whatever I did say was met by a round of applause from the other students, who hate Tungsten almost as much as I do. The second irritating thing was when I got home I found Cornflake, slightly tipsy, watching his porn in the LIVING ROOM. Normally he does it in his bedroom, so this kind of behaviour was actually highly irregular, even for him. Even so I went through the standard procedure: Take the disk out, throw it out of the window (onto a huge pile of other disks) and berate Cornflake for being such an insufferable pervert. I'm glad I caught him while he was still vaguely sober, any more drinks after that and he tends to be difficult to deal with. I'm not sure if he… did anything on the sofa, but I decided to pressure-wash it anyway (you can never tell what Cornflake may have been up to, and in any case it was starting to smell a bit). Anyway, after I'd attacked the sofa with the garden hose for 45 minutes straight I decided, for some odd reason which I don't recall, to let it dry in the open air. This, I found, was an incredibly slow process, so whilst that happened Cornflake and I (after I'd ensured that Cornflake was sober and made him have a long, piping-hot bath to make sure he was sterile) ended up in my bedroom watching a pile of movies I randomly grabbed to pass the time. That seems to happen quite often when we're bored, though normally we do it in the living room, but we were in my bedroom on this occasion owing to the fact that the sofa was outside, and wet, at the time. We never really get bored of watching movies, since I used to be a bit of a movie buff my movie collection is pretty large (it takes up the entirety of a rather large cupboard, at least), and quite variable too, I'm sure I even have a few old tape reels in there somewhere. Today the random pile of movies I'd grabbed from my cupboard contained a few classic horror movies including a lesser-known silent movie called Nosferatu that I'd converted to VHS a few years back. There were more problems, however, when the doorbell rang and Cornflake went to answer it, to find a door-to-door salespony standing there. However, Cornflake, being Cornflake, somehow mistook him for a lawyer. Now, I should explain at this point that Cornflake has an irrational fear of lawyers which dates back to long before he met me and for some odd reason he has never fully explained it (to me, at least). All that I know is that it involved mayonnaise and a toupée. Anyway, the salespony seemed a trifle confused when Cornflake yelped at the sight of him and ran into the kitchen, whacking his nose on the door-frame as he entered. It was only then that he realized, much to his immense embarrassment, that the pony standing at the door was NOT a lawyer and had in fact come to try and sell me double glazing (which, as a matter of fact, the house already has). After getting a tissue for Cornflake's bleeding nose, I shooed the very puzzled salespony out of my house and hurriedly shut the door, at which point Cornflake remarked how my attempts at getting rid of salesponies usually took longer. I jokingly suggested that I should just put up a sign on the door saying "Salesponies, fuck off", and Cornflake found this to be hilarious. I must say it was pretty funny too. After this ordeal, we returned to my room and resumed our movie-watching. Eventually, Cornflake fell asleep during one particularly long movie, so after checking that his nosebleed had gone, I dragged him by the tail to his bedroom, spitting out some of his stray hairs, and washing my mouth out afterwards (You should probably know enough about Cornflake to know why by now). It was only when I got back to my own bedroom that I realised that it was almost 10:00 at night. And believe me, when you’re a Biology teacher who has to know exactly what he’s doing every day, that’s quite late. So, I removed the tape from my ageing VHS player, and decided to get some sleep. However, I realised after about 30 minutes of lying awake that that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, at which point I remembered that I had forgotten to write this diary entry, so I decided I'd do that. Enough said. Well, in any case, I’m ending this entry because after about an hour of writing I’m only just starting to feel tired. Better late than never, I suppose. > Entry 3: Wednesday, 27th of October > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today started out mostly ordinary. I got up and decided to enjoy my one day off in the week (On Saturdays and Sundays I have to make preparations for the coming week, stuff like setting up presentations and booking science rooms for practical assignments). To be honest, my job would be more interesting if it wasn’t for Tungsten being a total prick every single day. Anyway, Wednesdays being my only off-day, they’re also my only chance in the week to do grocery shopping because normally the markets have closed by the time I get home on work days. It was when I was visiting the markets today, however, things started to get a little irregular. I was just picking up my lunch when all of a sudden something very fast and very turquoise collided with me. It didn’t take too long for me to guess that the fast, turquoise thing was Rainbow Dash. For some reason, the only times I and Rainbow Dash have ever met have been at the markets. I reckon it’s because she actually lives in Cloudsdale as opposed to Ponyville, which would make sense, considering she’s a pegasus. I personally didn’t want to move there in the first place, because of the fact that only pegasi and alicorns can live there. Well, technically a unicorn could live there if they used a cloud-walking spell every so often, but it’d likely be a bit of a pain to have to replenish it at regular intervals. Anyway, I chose not to live there because if I had, then Cornflake, being an earth pony, wouldn’t be able to live with me, and considering he wouldn’t survive for 10 seconds if I wasn’t there for him to leech off I’d rather not have taken the chance. He is my friend, after all. Anyway, I digress. After I’d managed to pick myself up, I dusted myself off and greeted Rainbow Dash, who apologised for crashing into me for the second time in my life. Considering that her colliding with me at high speed in the middle of a market was a rare occurrence (having only happened to me once before) I felt compelled to ask why she was in such an apparent rush, to which she replied, after a little hesitation, that she had run out of potatoes and needed to restock. Which made me wonder exactly why she was in such a hurry to perform such a mundane task as buying potatoes from the local market. But anyway, my skepticism aside, Rainbow and I got talking and the first topic to come up was work. Rainbow told me that if she hadn't decided to get a job straight after leaving school, she would have gone to college and that she most likely would have studied Athletics. I say “studied” very loosely here due to the fact that I have seen many an Athletics “lecture” during my break hours and from what I can gather it seems to revolve around everypony involved just having a whale of a time flying around the Aerosports pitch. And on rare occasion some ponies collide with my classroom window, much to the amusement of my students when a lecture is on. Dash found this description of Athletics to be quite amusing, and she told me that she now wished she'd actually gone to college. However, she seemed somewhat lost for words when I asked what else aside from Athletics she'd have taken, so I jokingly suggested Equine Biology. And to my surprise, Rainbow actually said it sounded pretty interesting. I never thought that somepony like Rainbow Dash would take an interest in the wonders of the equine body, but it made slightly more sense when Dash told me that at least an Equine Biology EL2C was a requirement for entry into the Advanced Aerobics Course at the University of Canterlot. Well, gotta have ambitions, I guess. Rainbow Dash and I eventually parted ways and I went home to find Cornflake, sleeping on the floor and surrounded by cider bottles. He only ever does that when he's REALLY smashed, so I jabbed him with my hoof to wake him up again, before realising that amongst the many cider bottles, there were also some clear bottles labelled "Total". Now, living with Cornflake means I know way too much about alcohol, and for those who don't know Total is a particularly strong brand of vodka which Cornflake REALLY loves to mix into other beverages, especially cider. And it tends to make him smashed beyond belief too, today being no exception; it took him five whole minutes to get up the stairs, and another three to get to the bathroom. This is why I try not to let him have any spirits. Cornflake thinks he can handle all the alcohol but I can safely say that tonight was proof enough that he really can't. It took a piping-hot bath and 23 (I was counting) glasses of water for him to sober up after that. After I'd had a snoop round the house to check if there was any more vodka hidden away (I found 2 more unopened bottles total), me and Cornflake sat down to watch some movies, as per usual. Today's pile of randomly-grabbed movies contained mainly psycho-thrillers but also included was Pan's Labyrinth, which I hadn't actually seen for a few years and since Cornflake hadn't yet seen it I pretty much insisted on watching it. Eventually we started feeling a bit sleepy, so we both decided to turn in. I obviously decided to write this diary entry, while Cornflake went straight to bed. I suppose he needs his sleep, what with all the vodka he consumed today. Anyway, I’ve spent ages writing this entry and now I'm well and truly knackered. Thus, I'll end tonight’s entry here. > Entry 4: Friday, 29th of October > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nothing very interesting happened yesterday, hence I didn't write an entry. Today, on the other hand, was more interesting: Whilst I was on my way back from work today I bumped into this female earth pony. I was just about to apologise and walk away when I noticed something odd: This particular pony seemed familiar. Now, I’ll have to explain this, for ponies who may be reading this who shouldn’t be (case and point, Cornflake) who didn’t necessarily know me whilst I was in college. Whilst I was in college myself in Coltain we had a transfer student come in from Equestria to study Foal Development. Now I should mention that this was before I knew Cornflake, and at that time I was a bit of a social outcast, so making friends was a bit of a foreign topic to me, so when the transfer sat down next to me in the on-site café it came as a bit of a surprise to me. We very quickly made friends, and very firm friends at that. We'd talk to each other quite often during our breaks but we didn't get to see much of each other besides that. But then after she completed her Foal Dev course, she just left without warning. Just packed up and left for Equestria again. No warning at all. I was pretty shocked at the time. I mean, she never even gave me any kind of contact details, so we couldn’t get in touch. She never contacted me either. So the years went by, I graduated and left, and I slowly forgot about her. But then today I bumped into her on the streets of Ponyville. And it was only after a few seconds that I realised: the pony I’d just bumped into was the very same earth Pony I’d befriended in college. This pony was Cheerilee. So yeah, that was a pretty nice surprise. Cheerilee and I spent pretty much the whole rest of the day together, mostly wandering around Ponyville reminiscing about our college years. Cheerilee told me she’d got a job as a primary teacher, and even managed to introduce me to some of her students: a pegasus named Scootaloo, a unicorn named Sweetie Belle and an earth pony named Apple Bloom (whom I suspect may be a relative of Applejack). I'd actually seen them around Ponyville a few times, but normally they were doing some kind of weird stunt of some kind, so I was never really introduced to them until today. Eventually, after sharing some long-delayed contact details, Cheerilee and I parted, and I returned home in high spirits. Upon my return, I was blessed with a rare sight: Cornflake, sober. Around this time he's normally off his head, but his supply of cider ran out yesterday. Actually, I note that he's been drinking a bit less than normal these past few months (in spite of Wednesday's vodka-thon). I wonder if he's actually started putting the money I force myself to to give him towards something decent? He did say that he'd be getting me a more "special" birthday present this year (My birthday's in about 3 days now!), but knowing Cornflake, I doubt that. So, in any case, nothing else that was too interesting happened today, so I'll end this entry.