Finals Are Bad

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.
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To anyone out there worried by my lack of posts, don't be. I guess I have only myself to blame for setting a precedence of two posts a week, so when the blog goes silent for over a week it's only fair that people start poking me for posts.  Now onto the post itself.


First off, "DON'T PANIC!" I'm not quitting EVE or anything like that.  I've just been busy with meatspace, what with the end of a semester occurring this week I had finals to study for and projects to complete.  Procrastination's a bitch.

So now we're all sitting here wondering what I decided to do after my last post.  As I'm taking some twisted sense of pleasure out of keeping you all waiting, I want to get some other things out of the way first.  Mostly to say thank you to my readers.  I received an overwhelming amount of support from people between comments here and EVE-Mails/PMs in game.  It doesn't look like I'll ever have trouble finding a home when I need one.  A friend even commented (half) jokingly that he should start a blog of his own just to help him get into Corporations.

The downside to all of this was that I had an awful lot of people I need to respond to.  I started typing up EVE-Mails, but after the second one it all just sort of felt like a form letter...

"We have now concluded our review of requests for the FNG.  I am writing to inform you that we are unable to apply in the category in which your request has been held.

The decision making process has been especially difficult in view of the quality and number of requests we received and you may be assured that you were considered to be very well qualified for the FNG and our decision is in no way intended to reflect discredit on your fine record of achievement. However, competition was extremely keen and we were able to join only a small portion of our large group of applicants.

Keep in mind that many applicants do reapply in subsequent years.  If you want to do so, you should consider which parts of your application can be strengthened.  We encourage you to consult with your CEOs, Directors, and Recruiting Officers who know you and with whom you've had recent contact.  They are in the best position to offer you advice.

Thank you for your interest in the FNG and best wishes in the future."

Or something like that.  Seriously though, my sincerest thanks to anyone who has offered me a home in recent weeks.  If I didn't respond to you individually, please keep in mind that what may have only been a single response to you and would have sounded completely sincere from your perspective, was starting to ring a bit hollow when I had already written almost the exact same thing several times that day.  I wanted it to sound sincere to both you and to me, so I'm instead saying it here for all the world to see.  Thank you.

One important note from this entire thing that others may be unaware of, because I certainly was.  Closed does not mean closed.  The Blood Money Cartel only had two modes when recruiting.  We were either open, and accepted applications from all comers.  Or we were closed, and would reject you immediately, laugh at you for failing reading comprehension and tell you that you were never welcome to reapply again.  A bit harsh perhaps, but that's how it was done.  Many other organizations in EVE seem to operate differently.

The two most common that I've recently encountered are Corporations that are always "Closed", but that simply means that they don't want you dropping off in-game applications out of the blue.  They're usually smaller organizations with a less formal recruitment process and expect anyone who is applying to them to have gotten a green light ahead of time through some sort of in-game means.  The other are Corporations that go through periods of Open recruitment when they're actively looking for members to expand their numbers, but for general maintaining of those numbers recruitment is Closed.  While it's closed, you are still free to apply, but your application might receive an extra level of scrutiny that it wouldn't get when recruitment was open.  The lesson that I took from this and that you too can take is that if someone in EVE has a big Closed sign on their door it's worth looking a bit deeper to find out if there's still a way for you to get in.

Now, why I couldn't accept any of them...at the end of the day, it came down to the simple idea that my time with Blood Money was a relationship.  Perhaps a somewhat cliched occurrence, but I didn't want my next relationship in EVE to be a rebound.  I felt it would cheapen the bond I tried to form with any new Corporation if I spent all my time comparing you to my previous one, and honestly I'm not quite over her.  I mean it.  You know what I mean.

Not wanting to get involved again before I was ready, I spent a couple of days in NPC Corporations.  I did end up joining Faction Warfare for a day and will be writing a post about that in the near future.  In the end, it wasn't what I was looking for and I decided instead to unsubscribe my accounts.

Wait, what?  Don't get ahead of me here, as I said at the very beginning of all this, I'm not quitting EVE.  I'm not even taking a break.  It's just that what I wanted to do couldn't be accomplished on my main account and so I've decided to put it in stasis for a bit.  What's that?  What did I want to do?  Well, that's a post for next time...

Regarrrds,

FNG