Please read all, as there are important things here for everyone

Courses and Competitions

Well, these two things happen to go hand in hand this time. First off, the capital starship exam is available and a good number of people have taken it thus far. I did do some tweaking of the questions as I graded the exams. Also, we reached the 2000th exam earlier this week, so the winners of that small competition are as follows:

• 1st Place: Karel (#2000)

• 2nd Place: Sarin (#1999) and Aabsdu (#2001)

• 3rd Place: Rosh (#1998) and Michael Arkaso (#2002).

Medals will be in the mail soon. Joining them is the winner of the trivia earlier today, Sarin. Last week, the trivia was won by Karel. Next week, I will likely run a trivia event off the message board, as it will open it up to more people and help those who suffer from the horrible disease known as lag.

Expansion and Contraction

First off, as I’ve said before, the SA will offer new courses while I’m Headmaster, or at least as many as we can get in. Just to give you a head’s up, History of the Sith Empire II and III are coming soon; number two should be out sometime this month if all goes well. Exam three will probably come out in December. Joining in December or January will be a Melee combat course. Whatever we end up doing with the Core exams will be out ASAP (see below). We’re also looking at Clan history courses in the near future, too.

The Core exams all have their various problems, with unique ones per each exam. Now, I ran a poll about this, but not many people responded, and there was no majority opinion on what do. I’m in discussion with the three current EPs to get their views on the matter. Along these lines, however, is the fact that there are several SA courses which really don’t get taken all the much, to the point where we will probably stop offering them. I can’t justify keeping courses up that no one takes. But, to be fair, though I don’t really have to do this, the following things will happen:

• I will, over Thanksgiving Break, go through ~8 months worth of submissions and figure out exactly how many exams are taken for each course. Thanks to Gmail’s search function and my impulsive filing, this will actually be fairly easy.

• Secondly, there will be a message board topic on the Shadow Academy message board asking for your opinions on the matter. If you don’t participate in it, and then complain later because I chose to remove an exam, then I really won’t care what you have to say. So, make your opinions known in that discussion.

Fictional Reality

It is done; all the information has been gathered into a nice document. When my staff gets around to it, a good bit of the info will be on the wiki. But, we’re also looking at linking it directly from the SA site. It is, after all, supposed to be like a datapad you’d receive upon arriving at the Shadow Academy.

Real life stuff of concern

Up until Thanksgiving, I will be doing a good bit of homework so I don’t have to worry about it during or after the holiday. Yes, my classmates have already called me crazy. Anyway, I’ll still be around and answering e-mail, but if there are some minor delays, now you know why. I’ll make good use of this weekend, though, and get a good bit of it done.

Summary

• Yay to competition winners of all types; Yay to Sarin as new DGM.

• New SA courses still coming; some old ones may get the axe. Talk about it.

• Fictional Reality is essentially done.

• I will be rather busy this coming week, but all for a good cause.

Have a good week; be safe, except in competitions, where you are encouraged to maim your opponents as frequently and as painfully as possible.