Last reflection ever
The end is near. Soon, conlanging may never again be an official, subsidized activity for me. I can't say I'll regret that senior projects will officially end, though I will miss the many hours of legitimized free conlanging time. I won't miss the numerical requirements (a sad reality of school projects). And I won't miss the /required/ reflections. (I reflect and introspect pretty often on here anyway.) My memories of this year are doing that weird telescoping thing. The first day of senior year feels like it was yesterday (ah, how vividly I remember my apprehension for Physics), but 1st-semester finals seem like years ago. The funny thing is, the telescoping effect only works on the timescale of a year. The same effect doesn't hold for freshman year and junior year, or the beginning and middle of this semester.
I've started actively participating in the online conlangs community a lot more. Before I started this project, I was almost exclusively a lurker. Now I actually comment on people's posts, and suchlike. There are several reasons, I think. One, I've posted several of my own questions and naturally been involved in the resultant discussions. Two, I have enough knowledge and confidence to give some constructive criticism. (Of course, I still only know a tiny fraction of all there is to know about (con)linguistics.) Three, I felt like I should give to as well as take from the community. It's a nice feeling, being really integrated into a circle of people, especially when they're bound by a common interest and not by accident of going to the same school. It's a little like the feeling I had when I first came to the Neighborhood at the beginning of freshman year.
I will definitely be continuing with Tlharithad in the long term, but in the short term I have plenty of Karate work to do. At least I have made up all my combos for the black belt test -- now I have to memorize them. Actually, I'm fairly good at memorizing, so I don't think that will be a problem. All it takes is time, and I have time. But I should go over every single last little thing we ever learned, at least twice. And I should talk to Audrey about how to eat before a physical exertion.
There are several things I wish I'd known at the beginning of my senior project. I'd like to go back in time and tell myself not to stress out about anything, ever -- and to be rigorous about the time-log and the reflections so that it was possible to not stress. I'd also like to have known that this month would be as much fun as it has been. Most of all, I'd like to tell my former self that I had the persistence and the drive to spend a month conlanging, and that my creative well wouldn't run completely dry over the course of the month (though it might get a bit clogged every hour or so). I would emphatically NOT want to know which books were most helpful and least helpful. If I'd known, I might not have started reading all of them, and that would be a definite loss.