Just to let you all know up front, I'm not leaving the Forest. With that said, I regretfully announce that I am not going to be *nearly as directly involved* in this community has I have been. I have been thinking about this for awhile now, and I have already told a couple of other people here; however, but I feel too much responsibility to the community to pull away without telling you all. I have several reasons for backing away:

1)This semester, I am going to graduate from college. I'll be going to graduate school, and that is a great deal of work. I'll be getting my Master's degree in psychology, and I'll hopefully be doing work in human-computer interactions (HCI). Right now, I have a lot of pressure on me to keep up my high GPA (3.9 something) and to get into the HCI subplan, and the work is only going to get harder in the coming years. This on top other non-school responsibilities IRL, keeping up with forum discussions and what goes on here at the community site other than major happenings, working hard in the Forest to help people, and keeping up with the blog is too much. I'm 24 years old, I have to get serious about my work other than simply doing it to make the grades, I am not about to stop being helpful in the Forest (although I'd to just chill out in the Forest now and then ), and I am not going to close my blog down any time soon.

2) The community, still largely caring, is evolving into something in which I don't have the time or the energy to participate as much. The community is much different from what it was when I first came in March 2007, and simply I can't keep up. What I post is also somewhat redundant and unnecessary, and I don't want to waste your time or my own.

I'll still have my Endless Forest blog on blogspot, Stagleaf. While that blog may seem redundant as there are blogs here, I want to keep it on blogspot so others who are not part of this community will become interested in the game. I'll post my art there, too. Laruna, Jen, and Wildbluesun contribute to it as well (although they're more directly active in the community as I am).

Like I said, I am not leaving the Forest. I'm just backing away from the forums and the community site so I can work on my responsibilities and let the community grow. I'll participate in the Secret Santa exchange and jump on if anything major happens, since I'll still need to keep up somewhat so I can update the blog.

Again, you can always visit me at Stagleaf or send me a message either through the community site or the forum PM system.

Take care, everyone! *nuzzles*