So, the answer is to start dropping jobs. This is unfortunately not that simple because that set of jobs that I actively do are all ones that I really like and thing I’m reasonable at. IRC group contacting is something I cannot stop because I am needed for that; I have brought in changes to speed things up and process cloaks very quickly as a freenode staffer. Answering e-mails on OTRS is important now that I am additionally doing the press queue as part of communications work. It would be reasonable to take a break from answering the general info queues as they have plenty of people on it, but I haven’t been that active on that anyway. Press and communications work is short-staffed and I think I’m pretty good at it, so I want to continue with that one. That leaves mediation… I really like the idea of it and think that is an important part of the community (and am honoured to be involved) but at the same time I’m not actually that great at it. It sucks time in with the reading required and often I’m not sure where to go. I am now weighing this one up.

We played DnD last Sunday, and it went very well. I was able to DM effectively and the players made it very entertaining by coming up with things; it was nice having Jonathan do most of the combat and riding on the airship was fun. The pickled brain prompted me to give brine-related magical abilities to our party leader, who can now do some cool stuff. The party used strategy but quickly bored of combat so the dungeon I made was sorta wasted as it has been before, but it wasn’t a problem. They did the key bit of having the rest of the story explained to them: they are now at a stage to continue the campaign next year fully understanding what their aims are. More here.

Well, I bought the Harry Potter book a lot earlier than I expected to and have consumed it quite happily. I originally decided to wait and get it out of the library, resolving that since the the past two books had been spoilt for me this one would be too. However, the opportunity arose as I am with grandparents at the moment to buy a copy relatively cheaply and so I did. It was definately worthwhile; it was *a lot* better than I expected. The story of the book itself was good and the overall plot, coming together across the series bringing in elements and characters from all the way through, was brilliantly done. I realise Rowling is, as they say, an excellent story teller. The hype that surrounds the release however remains absurd as it isn’t that good.

Another issue related to Wikimedia is a new policy which has come into force, meaning that all those under eighteen cannot handle personal information, meaning I have to abandon my work as part of the e-mail response team for a year and half. This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me as I’m pretty sure there is an easy-ish way round it: with freenode, I handle a great deal of personal info and I am able to because we are using non-disclosure agreements which are legally binding; getting a parent/guardian to be involved in this can ensure that responsibility can be brought where appropriate. It seems like an easy way out simply to ban all minors on the part of the foundation.

There has been a bit of a build up of other news relating to my life due to the fact I haven’t posted in a while, on a subject I rarely blog about: real life. Exams are approaching and I still get the impression I’m really not doing enough revision. I break up officially on Wednesday but for the two weeks following I will be in school almost every day for revision sessions and in the case of history every normal lesson (which will result in a lot of time wasted travelling back and forth) due to the fact that we have not yet finished the course, which is concerning as the bit we have not completed is the bit our second paper will focus on entirely, which is obviously quite concerning. I’m not sure who to blame for this as the teaching hasn’t been too bad, but the course is designed to be completed in the time allotted, so it’s mad that we haven’t got to that point. In other school news, the sole topic of conversation among the masses at the moment appears to be the upcoming Y11 Social event, which I really have no interest in. As you know if you read this blog with any regularity, I am going because I lost a debate and otherwise would not be. I do not plan to stay as late as 11:30pm, so I’m working out my plans for getting to this obscure hotel and then returning at the moment. In addition to this as a general topic, clothing seems to be the most important thing. Who cares about what people are wearing? The girls waste money on various dresses that may be nice piece of clothing but really don’t matter at the end of the day, and every single boy (except, of course, me) will be wearing a ‘tux’ as they like to call it. I have been asked what I am going to wear a lot and I really don’t think it matters.

On the topic of exams I have completed one of them so far, my French oral. This was the one that I was least looking forward to and in the preceding week I put a lot of time into preparing my answers for the general conversation, the worse section. I don’t at all like how the exam works, as there are roughly one/two sentences you cannot prepare for through pure memory. Unlike the mock exam, I was even able to take in my prepared role play with me, which I’d been trying to memorise in my ten minute prep time. A complete waste. I was told that I got an A* (hopefully) and also that my coursework marks have again risen to A* level, and so I’m happy to leave it. I do not think that I am over-confident by saying that I basically have my A* French, as listening and reading exams are very easy, especially the latter which is often just matching up.

As for non-school activities, Dungeons and Dragons had it’s final session of the year with regard to normal, after school sessions this week. It was pretty fun as we had a huge battle to defend a small town, but the older players including myself didn’t find it as good because it didn’t have a lot of freedom and real player interaction or roleplaying, which was a bit of a shame. Hopefully this situation will be improved when we start again in September and perhaps in any sessions that get organised during the holiday. OUr aim of chronicling all adventures is continuing as I have set up another blog which will contain the regular updates as recorded by Jonathan, who is hopefully going to continue writing up the sessions as we do them.

Over the past month or so my ringing confidence and general fluency with handling a bell has come on quite dramatically, and I have started on call changes, which means changing the order of the bells according to someone’s calls who is keeping track of all the bells. Some changes are more difficult than others: it’s easier to slow down and wait than to cut in and ring faster. However, I’m improving in general and so I’ve asked to get hand bell ringing started again which is significantly more mentally challenging, or at least it is in a different way as the physical ringing of the bell can be learnt in minutes, but you are changing two bells at once which is more difficult. I’m glad that I’m finally getting better at a reasonable pace and I’m becoming more interested in the mathematical theory. I suspect I’ll always be better at this than bell handling itself, assuming I get good at either!

We had a cracking last meet of the debating society with socialism vs. caplitalism. There were some very intelligent points going around and plenty of people attended, but unfortunately, socialism lost in the end, which was a shame but was not unexpected at a school like Silverdale. There were a mixture of ideological views from Mr Moore-Bridger and economical attacks and rebuttals from me with various other intelligent, philosophical points coming in. The other side only won on the vote, in my opinion, converting more and ending up higher at the beginning and end. It was good to see the debate continuing out into the corridor afterwards – this is exactly why I started up the society. After a year or so I’m pretty pleased with it (especially since a friend at High Storrs is starting one up too, and we can have exchanges as the schools are so near) as it’s got people talking about these issues more often, despite the fact we have ended up with a core group of regulars and few people outside of Y11, which is why it has ended now for the year. That will change to sixth formers next year, hopefully.

I’ve finally got DnD started again at school and this is good because I am getting several more people into the game. Things have gone well so far: we have a lot of roleplaying going on with the rather stereotypical party, and combat isn’t really an issue – this is good for me because I don’t have to pretend to have a strategic mindset for the monsters, because I’m running things. We’re having just over an hour once a week and this is a sensible amount because we can get a reasonable amount done. I’m never sure, however, what to do about the largish number of people I have who would like to join, because more people can slow things down to such an extent that the game stops being particularly entertaining. This is why I’m limiting numbers quite strictly and we may have two people playing one character to a certain extent.

Yesterday two teams of two, including myself, were supposed to be going to the regional heat of the Oxford Schools Debating Competition in Bradford. This failed miserably. It’s a rather long story, but adult after adult pulled out of taking us and eventually the snow finished off the last (I don’t blame her – there were severe weather warnings out and she was ill). This meant that we couldn’t go and attempt to win something, which was a real shame. We are however not giving up and are continuing our practice sessions for the british parlimentary style of debating after school on most Fridays to prepare for other competitions, which there will be.

I’ve been thinking about the collaborative nature of blogs, or rather how much more so they are becoming. I’d really like to make this blog more about a general topic or something rather than me personally and what I get up to, but of course to do such a thing you need a very focussed interest that you can find enough to write about – I don’t really have such a thing right now. Ah well – there is always the possibility of splitting this blog into more than one. Another point is that this site is personal, and it’s under the domain that it is. Whatever the case, I do need to update more – this most is reasonably convoluted due to the fact that I have had a build up of things to say. I think I need to make it habitual.

After a bit of messing around we reached a portal, which appeared differently to each of us. The guarding statues spoke: “we are the guardians of the ninth gate, pay the toll to pass”. I gave up my shadow, as Peter had told me some months before, and now I glow permenantly – but I have several demi-celestial abilities. The monk gave up all the hair on her body except for her head, and got a load of penalties – and a minor bonus somewhere or other. The bard gave up her birthday and became immume to time. This was probably the coolest; the hair one got a rubbish exchange because it wasn’t very exciting.

So we entered a city made up of nine cubes through this portal, with each face of the cube having a door to a elemental plane and the cubes being influences by the faces they were nearest. We romped through to do some minor quests and escaped from the area back home. T’was fun.