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Hi Gaians,

For those of you who have been around for awhile, this is going to seem like deja vu. But once again, I'm here saying goodbye.

Quick background: My first stint here was for upwards of 2 years, from 2008 to 2010. I loved Gaia, but I've also always had a huge appreciation for education. I left initially to start a company designed to help schools raise money for themselves more efficiently. It was an idealistic crusade. And like most crusades, the crusaders got slaughtered. But during that time, I also started preparing for a future career as a high school teacher.

Fast forward a little, and Gaia approached me about coming back to lead the Gaia Online team. It was a great chance to work again on a site I love, with people I love to work with - while continuing my march towards becoming a credentialed teacher. It was a no-brainer to sign back on.

Fast forward to today. My teaching prep is done outside of doing my student teaching work. And as the year had gone on, it was looking more and more likely that I would start doing that in January, which would put me in position to try to find a full-time teaching position in the Fall of 2013.

But a few days ago, I got an opportunity I just couldn't pass up. I got a call out of the blue from a district I had talked to about student teaching. They had a super last-second resignation, and needed to hire a teacher ASAP. I'll be teaching full-time, which is huge because not only does it take care of the "working 9 months free" part of student teaching, but it puts me in pretty much an ideal position to get a long-term position. These types of opportunities (to teach without having yet done your student teaching) almost NEVER happen. It was an absolute gift. The only problem? Leaving Gaia (again).

I'll be around through next Wednesday. After that, you'll see my name go back to normal user status (that'll look weird on all my ATA posts).

Here's the thing. I'm excited about getting into teaching - and a little terrified. But I'm going to really, really, really miss Gaia. A lot of things have changed on the Internet over the past couple years. Of course the big one is Facebook. But to me, the beauty of Gaia is how it complements Facebook (ignoring the period where we tried to replicate many of their features a few years ago). On Facebook, everything is about your actual identity - "it's who you are." On Gaia, it's "who you want to be." Both are important. But I love the fact that Gaia lets people connect to each other beyond some of the superficial things that society can judge people on. In that way, Gaia is a true meritocracy - you're judged on quality of conversation, on humor, on style, etc., and not on looks, or possessions, or things like that. That is beautiful. And I hope it never goes away.

So speaking of which, one of your first questions might be "so what does this mean for Gaia?" The honest answer is "you won't see me answering a bunch of questions at ATA or hosting my chats in GCD, but other than that, not much." Most of my work was done behind the scenes in the office. And most of that is being picked up by extremely bright and enthusiastic people who will probably do a way better job than I ever did. People like Narumi, Siskataya, Pepper-Tea, Lanzer, and DJ Helsing, just to name a few. They and their teams have way, way more impact on what you experience on the site than I do. And they're committed to the things that we think are best of Gaia, such as more storyline, cooler events, more communication, high-quality items, and the like. And yes, even continued work on Alchemy smile

In the end, Gaia is YOUR site. We just try to keep it a fun place for you. So keep enjoying it, keep telling your friends to stop by (or come back), and hopefully it'll remain such a fun place that I'll be tempted to come back for a 3rd time smile

You guys are awesome.

Biglanky