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I had planned on doing this in class but then I got distracted by the rad party we had in fourth period. Granted, the party was tinged with melancholy, due to the fact that it was our intern's last day. We will miss you, Ms. G. Come back and see us. Watch me fail at presenting this project. Follow me on Instagram.

So this week in Lang we spent all week working on our presentation for the project. We watched many TED talks and evaluated them. As a person that's absolutely terrified of public speaking or interaction, I have not been anticipating this with any amount of excitement. I don't know what I'm going to talk about, first of all. Secondly, how am I going to talk for five minutes about nothing?

Okay, a rant is not what you signed on for when you opened this blog. I will try to talk about what I learned from this project. 

For starters, I learned that I have it in me to write a good story. I've written before and this is the first story where I'm genuinely confident in the storytelling. Also the writing is good. There's good imagery, good depth. I managed to properly develop characters for the first time—ever.

I've learned a lot about history. Like more than I ever expected to know. I know how a trench was designed in WWI and the agriculture of the Loire Valley in France. I know about Edwardian dress fashions and how they changed when the war started and progressed. As Stephen Sondheim once said, "I know things now, many valuable things, that I hadn't known before". (If you didn't sing that, I pity you.)

Most importantly, and this is debatable, I learned how to challenge myself. Now this begins with time management. There were times when I managed my time well and there were times when I didn't. I learned how to cope with the consequences of both. I challenged myself to stay within my deadlines, which worked most of the time, but not always. Sometimes it meant writing 2 chapters in 2 days, but I did it. I challenged my ability to storytell and to do so effectively. Sometimes it meant being cruel to my characters, by telling them to make the hard decisions, and sometimes it meant completely changing the main idea of an entire chapter. But all of it was worth it. 

My project is unconventional. It's not life-changing, but it's not unimportant. I'm glad I did it, although my presentation grade might not be. But this has been a journey for me, and for you, my 2-3 readers. Thank you for taking it with me. 

Thanks for reading.