Update

It has been quite a while. I finally got my first BLD solve, and it has really made my day. Actually, nothing else has been happening, as school is taking up too much time. All I can hope to do is keep myself sub-20 till I get more time (college, anyone?). Speaking of college, it's that time of year. I already sent off my app to University of Chicago (don't expect to be accepted) and am planning on applying to Swarthmore College, as well. I'm so stressed out about that stuff right now it is downright ridiculous.

But my BLD skills have gotten much better. My first success had no parity and 3 solved edges in place. The second one had about 6 cycles and parity and some nasty flipped corners. My memorization is based on a number-letter system, with the format [piece position][orientation]. So a corner could have position 6 (DRB) and orientation of either O (orientated, or U/D, color in buffer position), D (depth, or F/B color), or S (side, or R/L color). Edges can be O or U (unoriented). What I've found most surprising is that once I can trace the pieces with my number-letter pairs, I don't have to remember them for the solve - I just know what piece is where. It's quite extraordinary.