I’ve recently started to move away from using a pseudonym on ’serious’ sites and communities to using my real name. The main effect of this was my Wikimedia accounts needed changing, which I got done quickly enough. However, I am now experiencing the pain of having to move links over, and also getting non-MediaWiki usernames changed requires lots of running around and finding people who can get it done. I knew this would happen, but in general it is way easier to use your real name for things like this - if you consider that at some points in the project you are going to have to use your real name, it just simplifies things by allowing you to simply use one thing all the way through. I’m getting other usernames changed to swhitton or spwhitton, and intend to use these in the future, mainly.

I’ve also changed my main IRC nickname on all networks from xyr to seanw which has been even harder as it is more difficult to leave redirects etc. I’ve had to edit my cloak (leading to a few believing that I’d left fn staff, for a reason I cannot fathom as yet) and get privileges moved over from old stuff. As RichiH pointed out, a lot can happen in a year and so it’s better to change now (roughly one year in to Wikimedia and freenode) than later, and that it’ll all be forgotten about in a year (metaphorically speaking, of course).

As my exams roll up closer, I’m starting to be more and more concerned that I’m not doing enough to ensure that I get the grades I should be getting. For this reason I’ve marked myself as restricting myself to a few more important jobs with Wikimedia, and this should allow me more time. I’ve realised that I need to be careful to avoid whittling away time on things such as messing around with this blog’s name and design (ahem) and that I need to manage my time better to ensure that I get everything done. Now, this may seem strange coming from me because as far as homework and coursework is concerned I always (i.e. 99.9% of the time) get it in, but revision is often forced to the bottom of the pile. This is why I need to be more careful with how I lay my time out. Unfortunately, activities like general chatter on IRC are likely to decrease, but I intend to get more actual freenode staffing done by simply remembering to go ‘on duty’ more often.

With all this name changing I realised that xyrael.net wasn’t really an appropriate domain anymore, and so I’ve changed over to using seanwhitton.com for my main blog, and as you can probably see a new design has been introduced, which I’m now pretty happy with but may tweak a bit. And yes, I didn’t do it - it was a Blogger template. I’ve created a space for static pages, because I do still want some form of a website. That’s hosted over on SilentFlame whilst this is on Blogger’s servers. I think I’m pretty happy with my setup now, once I get those static pages working and somewhat organised (and transferred over at least partially from the old xyrael.net, which aside from the front page is still fully operational).

I’m also trying to move more towards intelligent discussion on here, and as I’ve recently got a new way of keeping up with the news I think this is going to be easier. I need to stop talking about this blog and actually do some of the stuff I have planned! In life in general, I’m trying to balance my arguments and opinions well and argue them fairly. This is of course something that the debating society helps with (particularly Debating X-treme, a special club for a more formal style held after school). I’m fond of well-written persuasive, balanced writing, the kind found in commentary sections of newspapers. I hope that I can improve my skill in this, which will help with the kind of things I want to do in life. It’ll also help with my contributions to Wikimedia Planet, which picks up posts that I tag with ‘wiki’. Look forward to a selection of things I intend to write about in the near future (I have a list of titles at the ready).