I have a begillion inbox things I  need to get done.

I still have another 3-4 character applications, 4 player complaints, 3-4 misc requests that need to be actioned. A lot of these take a good couple of hours to investigate, and respond to. I know they need to be done, but I’m finding my motivation is a bit lacking.

Sitting in a computer lab, want to go home and relax  but don’t want to deal with the psychotic whirlwind that is currently my Mum. Every speck of dust or minute bit of fluff, has to be investigated. “Where did it come from?” “When?” “Why?” “Why didn’t you do this and then it wouldn’t of happened?” “I told you to do it this way, and if you had…” Yeah, well you get the picture. Even a smile. A simple smile gets a full inquisition. So I just tend to not. Easier. I know people (family) say I should just stand up and say ‘none of your business’ or ignore her and live my own life.. but they’re not the ones that have to put up with a week of temper tantrums or sulking just because you refuse to heat her plate up for dinner, or lectures that go on and on for daring to cook the peas to anything but mush. And it’s not just me that has to put up with it, but my son too.

It’s March. She was supposed to be moved out by March. She hasn’t even put in the application to secure council housing, the waiting list for which can be up to a year. I suppose, at the very least, in August I can move out myself, when the lease on the house ends. I’d rather stay though, I like the place. And the ironic thing is, if I do move out, Mum cannot afford the place, so she would be forced to at that point too move out.

August seems too far away. Five months. That doesn’t sound so bad. Almost half a year. Meh.

Some research yielded the following from the studylink documentation:

“If you are studying part-time, part-year (less than 32 weeks) and your course has an EFTS value of 0.25 or more, you can only get the compulsory fees part of the Student Loan.”

That’s good news. My tuition fees are still paid. That is a good thing.

Further research yielded:

	Question
	Can I get a loan if I’m studying part-time?
	Answer

If your course is 32 weeks or more and you meet the other conditions, you can get a loan for compulsory fees and course related costs – you can’t get a loan for living costs.

You will be able to claim the same amount for course related costs and compulsory fees as someone studying fulltime.

So. It seems that I’m all good for fees and course related costs. Which… is all I was applying for. Why in hell did I get sent a limited part time study form? When I didn’t need to apply? Why did I get sent a declined letter from student loans saying my loan/course application had been refused?

Today is one of those days where it feels like all the life has been sucked out of me. Uni wasn’t so bad. Usual stuff. But it was from the point that I stepped through the door that everything went wrong. Picked up the mail. Opened a letter and my part-time status for University has been declined, when always previously it has been accepted. Apparently being a solo Mum and sole caregiver for a disabled and semi-psychotic mother isn’t enough to qualify.

So, after an angry phone call with someone in a foreign call centre who didn’t get a damn.. I think I have at least, partially sorted things out. Maybe. And so that the seriousness of this sinks in, if I don’t get it sorted, I can’t study.

So you can imagine. Not a good day. What I would of liked to of been able to do upon coming home is to chill. Do a bit of RP. Escape a little. Maybe a little code.

But the bad day, unfortunately, didn’t end there. We haven’t had complaints for a while. I get 4 in the space of a couple of hours. I admit, not looking forward to handling them. I’d rather be spending my time coding, or role playing, or well, even changing nappies is more appealing.

I think it just comes down to it being ‘one of those days’. I just wished I could of been able to relax and get past it, but.. yeah, not going to happen. 12.13am. Definitely not going to happen before sleep.

Whilst mostly we have had very very positive feed back about the ball, we have had one player approach us OOCly with some concerns, claiming ‘everyone’ felt this way.

So, in the event that ‘everyone’ does, I wanted to clarify a few things for you:

* The plague that many of you have, codely, it won’t kill you. We as staff wouldn’t do something like that.
* It is a plot that is playing out. Something for you to role-play around. Investigate. Research. Plan. Group together. There are ways to prevent the spreading of the plague already in game. Work together. Clues will be given out over time.
* A cure isn’t going to happen over night. This will likely extend a couple of weeks. If not longer.
* Much of what happened at the ball last night was spur of the moment, actions by a single player and not pre-determined by staff. In their place, you’d not have wanted us to step in and rip up a PC with NPCs, and so we gave them the same opportunity to do or die by player hands.
* Give us a little time to work things out, stuff happened last night that wasn’t expected. So now, we as staff need to work out our next move, and change our own plans to accommodate it.

Now that bit is over with. I want to thank ALL the staff for their hard work in bringing such an event together. It was a lot of fun (I even got a little chance to play myself) and probably of all the six or so that I’ve held, one of the ones I most enjoyed. I want to thank the players for getting into the spirit of things, turning up and roleplaying with us in this wonderful event. Thirty one people on! That is pretty amazing. One of the best turn outs I’ve seen.

Click the image to view a larger, prettier version

The Masquerade

Who will you be?

5pm PST, 26 – 02 – 2010

As a bit of incentive. If we can get enough donations in to cover the cost of our hosting this month, I will code in a drag command by the end of this weekend.

Given the petitions and questions been raised OOCly, I thought it was necessary to do a bit of a post about the current IC situation.

Firstly, murders and deaths within Seahaven is not an uncommon thing.  People die of starvation all the time, or illness or really a large number of things. Finding a corpse in the slums would be more common than you might think. Recently the murders have increased. A little. Not significantly. But enough to draw a few raised eyebrows. But ICly, it wouldn’t be quite an ‘OMG the city is overrun with demons and Vek!’ situation. Vek have pretty much always existed in Seahaven, think of them like cockroaches and rats. They are always there, feeding off the city. Lately, some of the deaths have been a little more.. colourful.

Next. The Watch. Without the modern day forensics, they are limited to doing only a couple of things. Taking a report, sometimes doing a brief investigation and filing it. Unless the corpse is that of a Noble, the investigation is more commonly limited to ‘did anyone see anything?’ ‘No? Well, not much we can do.’

The Watch presence. Imagine, even now in the ‘modern’ world. If you had no cell phone/house phone, how hard would it be to get a police man to your home. How far would you have to walk to a station? How likely are you to run into one in your travels during your day? Now consider the fantasy world of Dark Isles. Watch numbers are considerably less. No modern methods of communication. Demons running rampant. Deaths amongst their own members high. They work hard. All of them. But they can only do so much and be in so many places.

From an IC/OOC perspective, how we see things as staff: The NPC/vNPC watch manage and look after the NPC/vNPC population of Seahaven. The PC watch manage and look after the PC population. For this reason alone, it is unlikely that a NPC/vNPC watch will get involve in a law breaking situation.

If you, as a player, would like to see more Watch managing the players, then join the ranks.

Two new commands that don’t really do anything important (yet), more there for roleplay value:

• raisescarf <clothing>
• lowerscarf <clothing>

As it only covers a portion of the face, it does NOT hide the identity of the wearer.

A big thanks to everyone who attended the wine tasting and the announcing of the ball and a big thanks to the player that arranged it. A large number of tickets have been sold, though still more are on sale at the Gilded Swan. Again, I really must implore those that wish for custom items to be made for the ball, you MUST have your requests in by the end of this week. We’re busy people and we have a lot to prepare for the event. The following are a list of time zones and times for the event:

I was a pretty lucky girl this Valentines Day.

I got a half dozen roses from a friend – Thanks Kristin.

A single rose from my stalker-friend – You shouldn’t of.

And a really nice video from the boyfriend.

One of the nice things about knowing people from multiple time zones is that it ends up spanning almost 48 hours.

A few changes have been made to the smuggling code – more items should now be available as a result.

Check Aura has been removed. If you have it and want some RPP reimbursement, send in an email.

Skills with re-requirements can now be raised to the max.

Thanks to Demos, lots of new help files have been added. Keep an eye out on his title for the latest ones. Demos: you should email me a list of them and I’ll link to them here. I’ve added a help CARMINE.

Masquerade Ball coming up very soon. Tickets have been made and we’ve started to get busy preparing all the costumes for the ball. Please, PLEASE put your orders in ASAP.