Happy Belated Leap Day

Happy March, everyone! It is now March 3rd!
Now, I didn't get around to doing anything about leap day on leap day, so I'll do a little thingy now. Leap year. Leap year is when we have the presidential election, and both the summer and winter olympics, and when we have a 29th day of February.
The whole concept of February rather confuses me. Only 28 days, on average. (Actually, the average is 28 days and 1/4 because that's how long february actually is!) It seems to me more logical to have the short month at the end of the year, where you actually store the excess time. Otherwise, this whole ripple of a quarter day tears through the calendar and then has no where to go come february!
But, leap year works.  Otherwise, you'd have a whole extra six hour-long day on December 31st, and then you'd have to set your clocks back for January and it would be as if those six hours didn't exist.
BUT THEY WOULD.
Because your clocks would no longer line up with the sun as we picture it! Midnight would look like dawn! So either we have dawn look like midnight or midnight look like dawn, and you'd have to choose the latter - otherwise you'd be missing six hours of January. You'd have to ignore those six hours that you would be used to having in December and then the clocks would be thrown off even more.
There might be some compromise found in what I've just said, but the point is that our current system would appear to be the best option.
 On a normal year, where do you place the extra six hours? Where does it go? Well, we IGNORE IT. So although our dates are generally in context with our orbit around the sun and how that affects the environment.  But only every four years do we actually match our time with our placement around the sun. Basically, our system for leap year decides to compromise the years as a term of measurement rather than time. It's too confusing to keep slicing off hours all over the place, so we treat it like a relay race. Just as long as we get to be in this place on this time in this pattern, everything's fine.
We treat the year like a mile lap. As long as you get to the finish by the fourth 1/4 mile lap, you win.
So, although you think of your birthday as being "Oh, exactly 13 year ago today I was born" that's not true. Because although we ignore those hours, they are still there. But you can still say "So? In 13 of those units of time we identify as years, I WAS born."
And that is not true. Because you have to take leap years into account. You would be off by several hours, even days, depending on how old you are, unless you even out the excess time.  So only every four years past your date of birth would that be correct.
(By the way - I'm not actually objecting to this way of identifying with your birthday. Stick with it. Any other way is just too confusing.)
Anyways, you might want to measure your birthdays by the distance. "Oh, I was exactly here in relation to the sun 13 years ago, getting born." But that's not true either. Because only 1/4 years are you actually in the right spot. Only 1/4 years does that spot actually match up with the time of your birthday. This is the same issue that comes up when you measure years with time. It doesn't matter if it's a leap year in which you were born. Just as long as that year is in the same context to a leap year as you year of birth. So your birthday is only accurate on your 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th... etc. birthdays. Only the multiples of four.

Feel free to forget all of that. Because it will just make you get really upset on your birthday.

Anyways, if you have an actual birthday on February 29th, it's stupid to celebrate on the 28th. Celebrate on the 1st. Because it's the 60th day of the year. You'll be in that spot around the sun. (Yes, I know I just explained how that's not technically true, but it's close enough) A lot of people are like "har har, he was born on the 29th so he's only had 3 birthdays" which is stupid. That person has a birthday every year. It's just hard to pinpoint it unless it's leap year when the time evens out. Just like EVERY OTHER SINGLE PERSON in context to their fourth birthdays.  The closest you can really say without getting all mathematical is March 1st.
Whether you qualify that as a March or a February birthday is up to you.
You could say, march, because 75% of your birthdays will be.
But when you were actually born was in February, and that's what birthdays are all about anyways.
Most people would probably say February.

So ya. Leap year. Enjoy!


I actually started this post to tell y'all about the red goat graffiti going on in New York. Now it's mostly me ranting about leap year and talking in circles. I can't really call this post "Red Goats" anymore. So I'm probably going to tell you about the red goats tomorrow or something. It's not that exciting.

So I guess that's all for now! Happy birthday party day, Clarissa!
~Julia