Not dead (yet)...

[Spleen]

First of all, thanks go to Kyle for pointing out that people are worried about my sudden complete disappearance from the Internet. It's not that this message was never going to be written, but the fact of the matter is that it's dangerous to even have this website in my history list right now. A long-distance phone call where a concerned friend makes sure you aren't dead can be pretty galvanizing, though.

Posters with long memories will remember that this isn't the first time I've left the board (and yes, I've left the board, and it's no one's fault except my own). Throughout my life I've fought various battles against my own skewed priorities, and the first semester of college became a battleground on which I made hardly a stand at all and was overrun. For the first time I was taking the classes I wanted to take in subjects that genuinely interested me and yet, unchecked, I almost became that guy in the dorm who doesn't go to class. I stopped going to my 8:00 altogether - sure, it was general chemistry, which I took in high school, but I got lazy and stopped going and my grades showed it. Homework in all of my classes was done pretty much when I felt like remembering it. I started lying to my sister (who goes to school with me and was charged to watch over me) about how badly I was doing, knowing full well it would come back to bite me. My grades came to light, and the "brightest kid in the family" couldn't pull a single A in anything but band; I avoided failing courses because I studied for finals but the GPA I pulled overall wasn't worth a semester's tuition to my parents.

So in order to be allowed back into the University of Maryland and not get pulled out and put in the local community college, I had to make a number of concessions, the most important of which being that I would be sent to college next semester with a computer that can do almost nothing but run Word and go online for academic purposes (some way of monitoring my other use of the internet might be put into place as well). Video games of all types are a distant memory - I hope my N64 and Gamecube are going to be okay spending from January to June in the unheated and un-air conditioned attic, and I hope my roommate is polite enough not to play Brawl right in front of me when it comes out; this is both a punishment and my own admission that so far I haven't found a productive balance between video games and life where video games have more than 0% share. Anyone who's been to college (especially any of you) could say how difficult this is going to be, but I'm going to fucking stick with it because the alternative is too terrible to comprehend.

So, at least for the moment, I'm away from the internet, because God knows this isn't a productive use of my time. Once I'm back in Maryland on January 26th (assuming I keep my head above water until then...I've had less of a winter break and more of a winter torture session, with the constant reminder that if I slip up then Sarah goes back to school alone and I enter Super Hell) I'll probably be on AIM again, although likely not much. SE5 is out of my life for the duration, and I doubt I'll have anything like the leisure time I'd need to run my planned Metro City board RP or participate in Idran's Planescape campaign, especially over break, and I'm sorry if any part of that inconveniences any of you.

It's going to be a difficult time, and I thank everyone for their concern, but I have a lot to motivate me and I'll get through it, so don't worry. This isn't the last you'll see of me, mark my words.

Keep on truckin', whatever that means.

-David C.

[Capntastic]

Take it easy, man. Don't let the bastards keep you down!

[Justice Augustus]

Good luck. It's not an easy task.

[Kai]

Thanks for letting us know.

Do what you do, and come back when you've got the time. We'll still be here.

[Taiar]

That's more than could be said for the chat.