Hello everyone:)

I've been back from my trip for quite a while now, but I still haven't gotten around to uploading all of my pictures and posting about all of my marvelous adventures with thesteppyone, oncelikeshari, and shocolate. I'm hoping to get at least some of that done sometime tomorrow as I'd like be able to share my experience with you. Life has been keeping me on my toes since I've returned and school, homework, and work have been dominating my attention.

Also, just to let you all know I have decided that it has once again become necessary for me to do a little housekeeping with my journal. This means that I will be trimming my flist a bit in order to keep things managable. Please understand that I have no desire to hurt anyone's feelings by making these cuts, but the fact of the matter is that my primary interests have shifted a great deal from what they were when I intially began my journal.

I am not nearly as active a poster as I used to be, mostly because I simply have not had the time or the energy to devote to my fandoms that I used to. The unfortunate result of this is that there are some people who I simply haven't spoken to in years, mostly due to a shift in interests on both of our parts. Some of you have moved on to completely different fandoms that I have no interest in. That's completely fine. I know that while I have not completely abandoned the Harry Potter fandom, I have shifted onto the Torchwood and Doctor Who fandoms as more primary interests over the last few years. It's normal, it's natural, and as sad as it is to admit it, many of us have grown apart as a result.

My online time these days is considerably less these days than it used to be, and I spend a great deal more time of it reading or skimming the contents of my flist than I do writing, posting, or even responding. I find myself getting sad as I realize that I am skipping by large amounts of posts by flisters who I used to be close with that are excited about whatever fandom currently holds their interest but that I simply cannot relate to. There are still others who changed their names somewhere along the way and whom I cannot even remember who they used to go by and therefore I have completely lost the frame of reference as to how we became friends in the first place.

Anyway I know I'm getting a little longwinded in my musings on the subject but I just wanted you to understand where I'm coming from with this. I don't want to be sad as I'm going through my flist since I spend so little time here as it is these days. I want to be able to try to make the shift from an almost completely fandom related journal to a more personal one. This means that I want to try to salvage the relationships here that I feel that have transended whatever fandom I may be involved with and move on from the fragments of the relationships that did not.

I want to emphasize again that this is not intended to be personal or to hurt anyone's feelings. I am simply doing what I feel is the best thing for me at this time. If you feel that you have been cut in error, or if you strongly wish to remain on my flist after I've made the cut I am open to talking with you about it on this post or by PM and taking things from there. If we were friends solely because of fandom, my fanfiction is and will always remain public on fics_by_star54, star54kar, The Quidditch Pitch, and Teaspoon and an Open Mind, so if you were here for my previous works they will never, ever be barred to you.

Anyway, I will update to let you all know when the cut has been finished. To those of you that do not make the cut, please know that I wish you all the very best in the future and that I thank you for the time we have spent here together.

Sincerely,
star54kar