Progress Report Week 26
Not sure why I'm still calling these things progress reports. Habit, I guess. Plus, Twilight seems to think it's appropriate, given that my intelligence enhancement still hasn't really leveled off yet.
Spent most of the last few days going through the books from the Crystal Empire library. Old Terran is... well... different. Fortunately, the Crystal Equestrian dialect still contains a substantial number of loanwords and grammatical structures, so the path to it is easier than it might have been. Perhaps I should write a treatise of my own. One of the other books included in the shipment was another of Broken Arrow's works, this one entirely in Old Terran. No pony has bothered to translate it to my knowledge, so I'll be the first to read it in over a thousand years. That's something to look forward to. At least, once I finish with my more onerous duties. Twilight has me undergoing a gargantuan battery of tests, and has summoned experts from Canterlot University to investigate my new abilities. I found that if I limit myself to only a couple mental threads, and no more than two or three hours at a stretch (with at least half that much time to recuperate between sessions) I don't risk migraines.
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My Old Terran studies are going swimmingly. I've gotten a basic grasp of the language, which has probably the most bizarre grammatical structures I've ever encountered. Even Griffon wasn't that convoluted. No wonder none of the Earth Ponies still speak it. On the less swimmingly side, I seem to have developed an infection in my left forehoof after stepping on a thorn. The doctor drained it and put me on a course of antibiotics, and gave me some medication for the pain. I can't decide which is worse though, the distraction of the pain, or the stultifying effect the analgesic has upon my thought processes. They're both slowing me down. Rose has been around a lot to comfort me, and play with Muffins. She's really taken a liking to the little mouse. I might start to get jealous (heh heh). That means not much running back and forth to the library; so I'm concentrating on just sitting and writing. Put another half-dozen short story drafts down on paper, along with notes for several more. At least I'm a little productive, even if this is "majorly cramping my style" as Rainbow Dash would say.