Untitled
After seeing yet more comments from people who apparently know me (I assume they do, given how they speak of me) I wanted to put the record straight, so to speak.
I first started reading Harry Potter when the first film came out on DVD. I was given book 1 for Christmas, and proceeded to buy the remaining three books that had been released at the time. I was up at university, and working full time (helped by a really lazy schedule of 8 hours a week at uni). Working late and long shifts might make some people come home and look to be heading straight to bed, but I'm one of those who likes to wind down and relax first. Plus I'm a bit of a night owl, of course. I started looking around, thought it would be rather cool to find an online Hogwarts to take part in, and hence I found HOL.
Given the above about work, I turned out to be pretty active once I found IRC a few days after joining. I'd come on and chat with the others in #huff after work and sometimes end up there way past 2 or 3 am. Prefect applications came round, and a few people told me that I should go for it - I was polite, responsible and, above all, active. So I decided "what the heck" and put in an application. Stirry told me that I didn't get the position, they'd actually been decided by the point my application got in, as it was pretty much last minute. She told me that she'd have liked me to have got one of the positions because she liked me, and it would have been good to have another male prefect - given the way things are around HOL and Huff, we're far outnumbered by the fairer sex, and we had 1 or maybe 2 male and something like 6 or 7 female prefects.
When Stirry left, and Fumbly took over, I was already friends with Fumbly from time spent chatting on IRC. I think it may actually have been her who told me what Stirry had said about my application. After a while, there were a couple of positions that came up, and Fumbly asked Amanda and myself if we'd take on prefect responsibilities - she knew us both, and chose us rather than having applications go out.
As a friend of Fumbly's, and someone who was generally around a lot, I chatted with her on a regular basis. We brainstormed a few times, her running ideas past me for input, or just to see how they sounded / how I thought they would go. One of these ideas was the Kingdoms that Huff students are shared amongst, and I volunteered (or was given, I can't remember) the job of distributing the students amongst the Kingdoms. As I had the spreadsheets and had already made the start (though I did upload the spreadsheets for anyone else to use), I was the one who became the "database guy" for Hufflepuff. Fumbly decided that due to the extra work that we were doing, that wasn't regular prefect work, Shadow and I would become Head Prefects - Shadow for his forum mastery, me for my admin mastery.
During my time as Head Prefect, Fumbly and I continued in our friendship, and continued to discuss new ideas and the like. On a couple of occasions, she told me that if I were to become a professor, she would appoint me as her DHOH, no questions. But I was happy as a student. I did decide that I'd like to teach - purely because the class idea came up, and sometimes I find that I want to be doing new things, have a bit of variety etc, to keep my mind more active. I didn't want to stop being a student though, I enjoyed the lessons and Quidditch and just generally being a student. I guess I also had the idea of being a student for the seven years, hitting that milestone etc. Hence my request to be a student teacher, and do it that way.
Some months ago, I forget how long it was actually, Flea resigned from his position as Head Boy. Sam and I were shortlisted as replacements, we were both active and were both familiar with the territory from the prefect status that we both held at the time. If you want to ignore all that though, no offence to those very few who do fit, but quite frankly, there weren't even any other candidates besides the two of us. I was told that our names were put forth (this isn't something that we asked for, volunteered for, applied for). I spoke to a good number of people, seeing what they thought, largely I suppose, because I wasn't sure that I wanted to be Head Boy. I eventually got to the point of speaking to Sam. He was in pretty much the same boat, not 100% sure he wanted it, and we both knew that there was pretty much no one else. I told him that I'd decided to get his idea on it, because I'd decided if he was going to go for it, I would then be able to say no, and let him take it. If he didn't want it, then it was pretty much up to the Head Office to choose and ask whichever one of us. In the end, Sam was chosen, which made me happy - I think I'd already made at least 2 or 3 of the HO know that I didn't want it unless it was absolutely necessary. When the position came open again, due to Sam's departure, I was approached again, and asked if I would do it, so I said yes. I still wasn't entriely sure I wanted to be Head Boy, for several reasons, including the accusations that some idiots were making that I was nothing but power hungry.
Just lately (building up over the last couple of months) my team has been doing so much more at work, and I've been so tired far too often. I'd come home, and play a game, or read, or watch a film or something, and / or I'd come online to check my emails and to chat. I didn't have the time to do homework, because the time I did have, I was shattered and as I'm sure you all know, that's not the sort of time you want to be opening an assignment and engaging your brain. I didn't even have that time to write lessons for my own class, causing me to fall behind in that, and therefore let my students down, which I didn't like. I mulled it over with a couple of people, and eventually decided that the best course of action would be to drop the student status. I wasn't playing Quidditch any more, again largely due to the lack of time for practicing etc, and due to a couple of personal things, I wasn't enjoying it so much any more. I left the Quidditch team previously because I didn't like how sometimes it was treated far too seriously, with people going out to win at all costs and only seeing that side of it. Despite everything that has occured to make it better in the last year or so, deep down (and sometimes not so deep) that idea is still far too prominent. Basically this sort of thing led me not to care so much for it, and I felt that I wasn't putting my all into the team - as shown by my lack of motivation for practicing.
Being a professor has meant that I am able to focus on just one area, not needing to do assignments, just grade and submit points and write the occasional lesson - the former aspects of which can be done in one lazy weekend or a few evenings. Other than that, I still do pretty much the same thing, which to be honest at the moment means not all that much. I come home, play or read, chat a bit, I don't even moderate the forums much any more, as I'm no longer a global mod with my "promotion to staf." Oh yes, before I became Head Boy, Emma told me that she was giving me global ops on the HOL forum. I didn't ask for it, I just did a good job, and was around a lot, and this has allowed me to do such things as get rid of the dozen or so HP6 spoilers that someone posted in practically every area of the forum before too many people saw and had the book spoiled.
I am at HOL because I genuinely enjoy it. Without even going into the whole friends aspect, for which HOL has played a massive part in my life, I just like being here. When I was at school, college and university, I used to like work, I'd take extra homework now and then, or I'd go slightly over that essay word limit when it was only a "guideline." Basically, I have an active mind, I like to exercise it. HOL allowed me to continue to do that, because I had assignments again, and organised (and took part in) contests and challenges. I get a certain satisfaction out of HOL - when people tell me they've really enjoyed a contest I've set up, they send me their assignment with "thank you for a really good lesson" or some such in the email, they comment on IRC "Oooh! The new D101 lesson is up!"
I just find it pretty amazing that people will still say that all I've done, all the prefect, head prefect, head boy etc positions I've held are because I am power hungry. If I was power hungry, I reckon I could be a HOH and maybe member of the HO by now. I would have been head boy earlie, probably for longer. I would have tried to take charge at every possible opportunity (for those able to answer, how many times did I run an SC meeting?)
Plain and simple, I love HOL. I do a lot because I am active here, I am online daily, and I like to do things both for me and for others. I don't like to let people down - those in Huff may remember the time I tried to resign from my position as prefect (as it happens, this was because people were accusing me of being power hungry) but in the end I didn't because I didn't want to let Fumbly down. I didn't want to let Liv down. Through all my time as prefect, head prefect and head boy, or even now as professor, I don't need those titles. I could quite happily go back to being a student. Yes, fair enough, I'd miss my class, miss the warm feeling you get when people say how appreciative of the lessons they are, or of the help they've received on IRC or the forums, but I could do it. Admittedly, I'd also probably get bored pretty quickly - there's only so much time and energy you can put into 5 classes and a handful of contests.
Seeing people who I know from IRC, have chatted to a few times (or even people I "know" even less than that) accuse me of being power hungry, of doing anything I can to influence people, and to move up the ladder, is so frustrating. I am online a lot, and as a result am pretty active. I have friends who like me, are online and pretty active - we see each other pretty regularly and get on well. Yeah, a lot of these people are staff and prefects, because like me, those sort of people are the ones who are often online and active. When people go on about me "having influence" with certain of these people, I just want to laugh. There is a big difference between having friends and sharing thoughts and ideas, being trusted and maybe respected, moreso I suppose having your opinion respected - there's a difference between this and "trying to influence people" or that without the "trying to" depending on who is talking I suppose.
I tend to be a pretty quiet person. Short of the friends I have who I talk to, confide in perhaps, I tend to keep myself to myself - in as much as anyone can at a place like HOL. It's times like these then, that you have to make a difference. It's things like this that make me feel frustrated. People making such accusations without even knowing me. If these people did know me, they wouldn't make the accusations, because they would know them to be false. I'm not just saying that because I am (obviously) me, I am saying that as a direct quote that has been made by several people who actually *do* know me.
When people make accusations like this, it's not just frustration. It hurts. It hurts that people will think such things, think that you're only in it for "power." Why can't these people just leave you be, understand that not everything is about power and position. At the end of the day, I know it's not going to make much (if any) of a difference, but I had to at least try. It would just be nice if these people could at least begin to understand that there are people who do what they do out of the goodness of their hearts. Job satisfaction and that warm fuzzy feeling are a lot more important than many people give them credit for.
I first started reading Harry Potter when the first film came out on DVD. I was given book 1 for Christmas, and proceeded to buy the remaining three books that had been released at the time. I was up at university, and working full time (helped by a really lazy schedule of 8 hours a week at uni). Working late and long shifts might make some people come home and look to be heading straight to bed, but I'm one of those who likes to wind down and relax first. Plus I'm a bit of a night owl, of course. I started looking around, thought it would be rather cool to find an online Hogwarts to take part in, and hence I found HOL.
Given the above about work, I turned out to be pretty active once I found IRC a few days after joining. I'd come on and chat with the others in #huff after work and sometimes end up there way past 2 or 3 am. Prefect applications came round, and a few people told me that I should go for it - I was polite, responsible and, above all, active. So I decided "what the heck" and put in an application. Stirry told me that I didn't get the position, they'd actually been decided by the point my application got in, as it was pretty much last minute. She told me that she'd have liked me to have got one of the positions because she liked me, and it would have been good to have another male prefect - given the way things are around HOL and Huff, we're far outnumbered by the fairer sex, and we had 1 or maybe 2 male and something like 6 or 7 female prefects.
When Stirry left, and Fumbly took over, I was already friends with Fumbly from time spent chatting on IRC. I think it may actually have been her who told me what Stirry had said about my application. After a while, there were a couple of positions that came up, and Fumbly asked Amanda and myself if we'd take on prefect responsibilities - she knew us both, and chose us rather than having applications go out.
As a friend of Fumbly's, and someone who was generally around a lot, I chatted with her on a regular basis. We brainstormed a few times, her running ideas past me for input, or just to see how they sounded / how I thought they would go. One of these ideas was the Kingdoms that Huff students are shared amongst, and I volunteered (or was given, I can't remember) the job of distributing the students amongst the Kingdoms. As I had the spreadsheets and had already made the start (though I did upload the spreadsheets for anyone else to use), I was the one who became the "database guy" for Hufflepuff. Fumbly decided that due to the extra work that we were doing, that wasn't regular prefect work, Shadow and I would become Head Prefects - Shadow for his forum mastery, me for my admin mastery.
During my time as Head Prefect, Fumbly and I continued in our friendship, and continued to discuss new ideas and the like. On a couple of occasions, she told me that if I were to become a professor, she would appoint me as her DHOH, no questions. But I was happy as a student. I did decide that I'd like to teach - purely because the class idea came up, and sometimes I find that I want to be doing new things, have a bit of variety etc, to keep my mind more active. I didn't want to stop being a student though, I enjoyed the lessons and Quidditch and just generally being a student. I guess I also had the idea of being a student for the seven years, hitting that milestone etc. Hence my request to be a student teacher, and do it that way.
Some months ago, I forget how long it was actually, Flea resigned from his position as Head Boy. Sam and I were shortlisted as replacements, we were both active and were both familiar with the territory from the prefect status that we both held at the time. If you want to ignore all that though, no offence to those very few who do fit, but quite frankly, there weren't even any other candidates besides the two of us. I was told that our names were put forth (this isn't something that we asked for, volunteered for, applied for). I spoke to a good number of people, seeing what they thought, largely I suppose, because I wasn't sure that I wanted to be Head Boy. I eventually got to the point of speaking to Sam. He was in pretty much the same boat, not 100% sure he wanted it, and we both knew that there was pretty much no one else. I told him that I'd decided to get his idea on it, because I'd decided if he was going to go for it, I would then be able to say no, and let him take it. If he didn't want it, then it was pretty much up to the Head Office to choose and ask whichever one of us. In the end, Sam was chosen, which made me happy - I think I'd already made at least 2 or 3 of the HO know that I didn't want it unless it was absolutely necessary. When the position came open again, due to Sam's departure, I was approached again, and asked if I would do it, so I said yes. I still wasn't entriely sure I wanted to be Head Boy, for several reasons, including the accusations that some idiots were making that I was nothing but power hungry.
Just lately (building up over the last couple of months) my team has been doing so much more at work, and I've been so tired far too often. I'd come home, and play a game, or read, or watch a film or something, and / or I'd come online to check my emails and to chat. I didn't have the time to do homework, because the time I did have, I was shattered and as I'm sure you all know, that's not the sort of time you want to be opening an assignment and engaging your brain. I didn't even have that time to write lessons for my own class, causing me to fall behind in that, and therefore let my students down, which I didn't like. I mulled it over with a couple of people, and eventually decided that the best course of action would be to drop the student status. I wasn't playing Quidditch any more, again largely due to the lack of time for practicing etc, and due to a couple of personal things, I wasn't enjoying it so much any more. I left the Quidditch team previously because I didn't like how sometimes it was treated far too seriously, with people going out to win at all costs and only seeing that side of it. Despite everything that has occured to make it better in the last year or so, deep down (and sometimes not so deep) that idea is still far too prominent. Basically this sort of thing led me not to care so much for it, and I felt that I wasn't putting my all into the team - as shown by my lack of motivation for practicing.
Being a professor has meant that I am able to focus on just one area, not needing to do assignments, just grade and submit points and write the occasional lesson - the former aspects of which can be done in one lazy weekend or a few evenings. Other than that, I still do pretty much the same thing, which to be honest at the moment means not all that much. I come home, play or read, chat a bit, I don't even moderate the forums much any more, as I'm no longer a global mod with my "promotion to staf." Oh yes, before I became Head Boy, Emma told me that she was giving me global ops on the HOL forum. I didn't ask for it, I just did a good job, and was around a lot, and this has allowed me to do such things as get rid of the dozen or so HP6 spoilers that someone posted in practically every area of the forum before too many people saw and had the book spoiled.
I am at HOL because I genuinely enjoy it. Without even going into the whole friends aspect, for which HOL has played a massive part in my life, I just like being here. When I was at school, college and university, I used to like work, I'd take extra homework now and then, or I'd go slightly over that essay word limit when it was only a "guideline." Basically, I have an active mind, I like to exercise it. HOL allowed me to continue to do that, because I had assignments again, and organised (and took part in) contests and challenges. I get a certain satisfaction out of HOL - when people tell me they've really enjoyed a contest I've set up, they send me their assignment with "thank you for a really good lesson" or some such in the email, they comment on IRC "Oooh! The new D101 lesson is up!"
I just find it pretty amazing that people will still say that all I've done, all the prefect, head prefect, head boy etc positions I've held are because I am power hungry. If I was power hungry, I reckon I could be a HOH and maybe member of the HO by now. I would have been head boy earlie, probably for longer. I would have tried to take charge at every possible opportunity (for those able to answer, how many times did I run an SC meeting?)
Plain and simple, I love HOL. I do a lot because I am active here, I am online daily, and I like to do things both for me and for others. I don't like to let people down - those in Huff may remember the time I tried to resign from my position as prefect (as it happens, this was because people were accusing me of being power hungry) but in the end I didn't because I didn't want to let Fumbly down. I didn't want to let Liv down. Through all my time as prefect, head prefect and head boy, or even now as professor, I don't need those titles. I could quite happily go back to being a student. Yes, fair enough, I'd miss my class, miss the warm feeling you get when people say how appreciative of the lessons they are, or of the help they've received on IRC or the forums, but I could do it. Admittedly, I'd also probably get bored pretty quickly - there's only so much time and energy you can put into 5 classes and a handful of contests.
Seeing people who I know from IRC, have chatted to a few times (or even people I "know" even less than that) accuse me of being power hungry, of doing anything I can to influence people, and to move up the ladder, is so frustrating. I am online a lot, and as a result am pretty active. I have friends who like me, are online and pretty active - we see each other pretty regularly and get on well. Yeah, a lot of these people are staff and prefects, because like me, those sort of people are the ones who are often online and active. When people go on about me "having influence" with certain of these people, I just want to laugh. There is a big difference between having friends and sharing thoughts and ideas, being trusted and maybe respected, moreso I suppose having your opinion respected - there's a difference between this and "trying to influence people" or that without the "trying to" depending on who is talking I suppose.
I tend to be a pretty quiet person. Short of the friends I have who I talk to, confide in perhaps, I tend to keep myself to myself - in as much as anyone can at a place like HOL. It's times like these then, that you have to make a difference. It's things like this that make me feel frustrated. People making such accusations without even knowing me. If these people did know me, they wouldn't make the accusations, because they would know them to be false. I'm not just saying that because I am (obviously) me, I am saying that as a direct quote that has been made by several people who actually *do* know me.
When people make accusations like this, it's not just frustration. It hurts. It hurts that people will think such things, think that you're only in it for "power." Why can't these people just leave you be, understand that not everything is about power and position. At the end of the day, I know it's not going to make much (if any) of a difference, but I had to at least try. It would just be nice if these people could at least begin to understand that there are people who do what they do out of the goodness of their hearts. Job satisfaction and that warm fuzzy feeling are a lot more important than many people give them credit for.