Okay, since this has ended up as a discussion about me as a person, I guess I wanna make a long winded post about how I feel. So that's what I'm going to do, and I will do it in my usual posting style, so do expect quotage from TV to be thrown in as thats what I use to at least entertain me.

First, I think an illustration will help me describe how I felt when I first joined the team and what I'm feeling now. 

Take a look at this artwork for "Lisa Fitzgerald" by Beb (Fic written by Jenny Howe, well worth the read for anyone). The story is of Lisa, who is a cousin to Bart and Maggie and is Marge's niece paternally. She gets abused by her step-father, Jack Fitzgerald and eventually attempts to commit suicide. 

[img width=500]http://realities.simpworks.com/cnt/beb/lisafitzgerald.jpg[/img]

Notice Lisa in the Present on the Left? That's how I feel right now. And the Lisa on the Right in the Past is how I felt when I joined the team. 

When I joined the team, I was happy to be aboard, I wanted to see where I could aid in sending SMF forward any way I could. 

And just after one and a half years, I feel like the Present Lisa is in that picture. Beaten up, brused and with a black eye, and thinking about quitting. 

- [b]Starvation:[/b] Lisa's Starvation here can be represented by the fact that I never get told anything, nor does anyone actually wanna talk to me on messenger. I feel like I'm always the last person to know anything thats going on, especially when it comes to areas where I'll be working, like the theme site. So by starvation, I mean "Starvation of Information"

- [b]Tattered Clothes:[/b] Lack of Acknowledgment, it seems that many of the discussion topics I'm creating for feedback on ideas I have for 2.0 etc... are getting ignored. Mostly the ones that go in the design board where I'm creating images for feedback on. Everyone seems to go to Bryan when it comes to smaller graphics. He's a great designer, but I'm a designer too, there should not be any need to just rely on him. What am I some sort of British Country Bumpkin? (We're the bears who sing for Duke, Doo Dah, Doo Dah! - The Critic)

- [b]Black Eye:[/b] Personal level insults. If you have something to say about me, then say it to my face. Since Thantos said that there was a discussion about making me Grey before the MotM, I'd very much like to see it now. If you cant say anything to my face, then don't say it at all. 

- [b]Bruises: General Level threats:[/b] I don't appreciate being threatened into doing something I don't want to do. A perfect example would be that siggie topic to aid raising funds for the MotM. While I'm sure that the funds raised was a decent amount or otherwise it couldn't have been pulled off as easily, but if I didn't like the idea of using that wording that everyone else was using, then I didn't need to be threatened nor forced into having that wording in my sig, EVEN AGAINST MY WILL. 

Like I said, I've been considering on leaving for a while now, possibly around the time the MotM was announced but I stayed with the hopes that maybe things would change. And for a while, my real reason for attending the MotM was to accomplish a life goal, and nothing more, it had nothing to do with SMF. Just that one goal, to go see at least some part of America. But I kept that secret as I knew that no one would like me saying that. 

But when I met Bryan at Heathrow (yes, it lasted that long), we were having loads of fun together, that if you saw the things we were talking about, you'd think that we had known each other for a while. And he started to make me think that maybe there was hope for things to change after all, and I started to enjoy myself while out there. And it ended up being, for me, about SMF after all, while accomplishing a life goal so it was a double score. 

Anyone remember that on the last day for that "meeting" I was the last one there and Bryan had to keep coming to get me? This is why. I was back to thinking about this sort of stuff again. And I kept that to myself.

Now that we're back home, I can still see that nothing has changed. I'm still getting abused for expressing anything, opinion, idea, thought whatever, it all gets slammed or ignored. I put my skills to the test with what I did for SMF and I get treated like a pile of shit, I wonder why I should really bother anymore.

Rosebud...
Rosebud frozen peas, full of country goodness and green... penis. Wait thats terrible, I quit. Just some for the road. Oh what luck, there's a french fry stuck in my beard. 
(Orson Welles, The Critic)