> As for me, I don't even REMEMBER how I got to RinkWorks in the first place. It was a long time ago, though. At least in 1999, maybe earlier. I have absolutely no clue how I ended up here originally.

With me it was the BAM of The Grapes of Wrath, which I was teaching at the time. I was looking for notes that would add to the lessons, and found the BAM instead ;-).

> But as for becoming part of the community here and not just a faceless reader - that's different. Last year, in the spring semester, I had longish breaks between classes and no classes with friends, and I needed something to do between classes.

Substitute "teaching two classes - one at the beginning of the day,one at the end . . ."

> So I went to the library computer lab and poked around websites there. At some point I remembered that RinkWorks had a lot of non-boring content and read almost everything on the site. Around that time the RinkAwards voting process was set in motion, and the chat archives were inadvertantly brought to my attention. So I read them all. Every single one.

I printed them all, (abusing my printing priveleges horribly) and took them home for bedtime reading.

>And I came to the inescapable conclusion that this seemed like a cool place and that I should go into chat sometimes.

I agreed with the first. The second scared the heck out of me - as far as I knew, only psychos were chatting on the net. But I figured I could always change my name and address before they found me . . .

> So I did, on February 21st 2001, and there are few single decisions I've made that were better than that one. ;)

Absolutely. And our dates are very similar I think I was the end of January, but I'm not sure.
>
> Sosi"almost a year old, ooh"qui

Me, too! Happy RinkBirthday, Sosi!

te (although, on reflection, I would have chosen a less geek-evoking nickname) ach