Ahh, springtime in September.
Here is one of the more fascinating bits of trivia that I can share that could win you and your drunk mates a free round at the next quiz night at the pub. Oh wait, you don't really go to those things? Yeah, I don't either because I seem to have become a quasi-puritanical American yoga freak who gets a headache on one sip of a fine bourdeaux. I am such a refined party animal. My drink of choice, should you ever wish to impress me: Rasberry Lemonade, or as they call it in my homeland, a Shirley Temple. Pack those cherries in, please, and I will impress you right back with my cherry-stalk tongue-tying trick.
Onto the quiz topic! You never know when you will lose your mind and sink into a deep bout of alcoholism to impress your friends. On what day do New Zealanders believe that Spring has sprung? The answer is ... NOT September 21! No, here, it's September 1. What? Really? That's not what I learned in my traditional, although poorly funded, public school in California when I was, oh I don't know, 7. And I really can't determine why people keep insisting on persuading me of this. I ask them, "Is New Zealand so far away from everything that the Earth's rotation and position is somehow affected thus changing the date for the Equinox?" I will share two of the more memorable responses I received: "I don't know who came up with it, but that's the way it is." The other: "Well, it's the day we change the clocks back." Okay, that's not true either. Clocks remain where they were in August.
Where are all these people getting this weird information? This leads me to indulge in one extremely tangential comment: there is a car down the street with a bumpersticker promoting a flat Earth. Maybe on a flat Earth, the Equinox is on September 1. Ew, I don't even want to think of the math for that one.
In fact, this year, the Spring Equinox is September 23, 2005. The knowledgable pagans online even list the time at 10:23 am for New Zealand. Good for those pagans. It's good to know the witches and warlocks are paying attention.
This is the definition of the Spring Equinox as I learned it from my extremely quick Google search just a second ago: "On the Spring Equinox the Sun rises exactly in the east travels through the sky for 12 hours and sets exactly in the west. On the Equinox this is the motion of the Sun through the sky for everyone on earth. Every place on earth experiences a 12 hours day twice a year on the Spring and Fall Equinox." For anyone so jazzed up that they need a cite, I'll include it and add that there is a fine diagram of the Sun's very harmonic travel over a nice little person for those who need visual representation of these dreary old typed-out words. http://solar.physics.montana.edu/YPOP/Classroom/Lessons/Sundials/equinox.html
So, there we have it. "Every place on Earth" is going to have its Equinox on the SAME day! And, as the pagans have shared with us, along with their studious astronomy friends, that day is September 23 this year. As if it isn't weird enough to celebrate October showers bringing November flowers (hell, that doesn't even have a decent meter), I keep running into taxi drivers and grocery clerks and friends and pharmacists all wishing me, "Happy Spring!" Yeah, right back at you, in 21 days. I'm not going to prematurely celebrate that big day. You won't hear any Spring glee from me until I get my 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. Bring it on; I'm waiting.
Happy September 2.
Onto the quiz topic! You never know when you will lose your mind and sink into a deep bout of alcoholism to impress your friends. On what day do New Zealanders believe that Spring has sprung? The answer is ... NOT September 21! No, here, it's September 1. What? Really? That's not what I learned in my traditional, although poorly funded, public school in California when I was, oh I don't know, 7. And I really can't determine why people keep insisting on persuading me of this. I ask them, "Is New Zealand so far away from everything that the Earth's rotation and position is somehow affected thus changing the date for the Equinox?" I will share two of the more memorable responses I received: "I don't know who came up with it, but that's the way it is." The other: "Well, it's the day we change the clocks back." Okay, that's not true either. Clocks remain where they were in August.
Where are all these people getting this weird information? This leads me to indulge in one extremely tangential comment: there is a car down the street with a bumpersticker promoting a flat Earth. Maybe on a flat Earth, the Equinox is on September 1. Ew, I don't even want to think of the math for that one.
In fact, this year, the Spring Equinox is September 23, 2005. The knowledgable pagans online even list the time at 10:23 am for New Zealand. Good for those pagans. It's good to know the witches and warlocks are paying attention.
This is the definition of the Spring Equinox as I learned it from my extremely quick Google search just a second ago: "On the Spring Equinox the Sun rises exactly in the east travels through the sky for 12 hours and sets exactly in the west. On the Equinox this is the motion of the Sun through the sky for everyone on earth. Every place on earth experiences a 12 hours day twice a year on the Spring and Fall Equinox." For anyone so jazzed up that they need a cite, I'll include it and add that there is a fine diagram of the Sun's very harmonic travel over a nice little person for those who need visual representation of these dreary old typed-out words. http://solar.physics.montana.edu/YPOP/Classroom/Lessons/Sundials/equinox.html
So, there we have it. "Every place on Earth" is going to have its Equinox on the SAME day! And, as the pagans have shared with us, along with their studious astronomy friends, that day is September 23 this year. As if it isn't weird enough to celebrate October showers bringing November flowers (hell, that doesn't even have a decent meter), I keep running into taxi drivers and grocery clerks and friends and pharmacists all wishing me, "Happy Spring!" Yeah, right back at you, in 21 days. I'm not going to prematurely celebrate that big day. You won't hear any Spring glee from me until I get my 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. Bring it on; I'm waiting.
Happy September 2.
posted by your friend at Thursday, September 01, 2005
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