Introduction

A little over two years ago, Sarin turned over the reins of the Shadow Academy to me, giving me the unenviable task of following an excellent Headmaster in Bubba. I’ve had the pleasure of leading an incredible team in the Shadow Academy and I’m proud of the work we’ve accomplished in my tenure. However, it’s time for me to step aside and allow someone else this fantastic opportunity. I will continue to serve as Headmaster until Mav and Vyr can find a replacement (a news post from them will be coming shortly with more information), but after that I’m seein’ the light and going to Odan-Urr… y’know, since Tarentum got all nuked and stuff.

I also wanted to take a second to provide some transparency as to why I’m stepping down. First, I’m happy to say that this is 100% my choice - Mav, Vyr, and the rest of the DC have been nothing but supportive and I know if I wished to continue on as Headmaster they’d have allowed me to; in fact, the Panda tried to hit my retirement with his denied stamp. The reality is I’ve been rapidly approaching burnout for a couple of months. I firmly believe that any leader in this club - from BTL to GM - that feels that coming on needs to tackle it head first. I tried to do so in such a way that would allow me to continue serving you all and was unsuccessful; when that’s the case, retirement is the only option. Burnout is not a permanent thing, and I fully intend to (slowly) take on leadership positions when I feel comfortable doing so again. However, my real life job and responsibilities coupled with my DB work has taken a toll that isn’t healthy for me or the club. Besides, two years seems like a perfectly fine tenure to serve as Headmaster, right Bubba? :P

By the Numbers

• 3: Praetors (thank you so very much Marcus, Laren, and Seraphol!)
• 7: Magistrates (some amazing work done by Mirus, Alishu, Rins’zler, Kojiro, Celevon, Kelly, and Bentre)
• 1: Incredible Special Magistrate (Ood, the Institutional Memory of the SA)
• 17: Professors
• 19: Docents
• 14,000: Auto-generated SA emails (maybe more)
• 3302: Exams graded by a DBer
• 5160: Exams graded by dbb0t (<3 you Skynet)
• 15: Average grading time, in hours and with trivia competitions I ran throwing in statistical outliers (11.4 hours is the average with the outliers removed)

FARRIN FLEE!

Oh, and by the way - I’ll be out of the country from Monday (tomorrow) through Saturday with no internet (and no desire to have internet). Anything you need from me can be directed to Seraphol in the meantime, who is more than capable of holding down the fort. If you don’t want anything but want to send me drinks, I’ll be on a cruise. The more drinks the merrier!

Conclusion

Now, for the last time… The Shadow Academy is an amazing resource, created and administered by some imperfect human beings who strive for perfection. We try our best to catch and fix any and all errors before we release courses, but we're not always successful. Because of that, we will always need your help. If you spot an error, please report it to the SA Staff using this simple form; if it's a major enough error, or you spot enough, you'll be rewarded. With cookies. And an SA team thankful for pointing it out.

In Darkness -
Farrin Xies,
Headmaster of the Shadow Academy