Sunday 13 July 2014

Changes

Life changes, and so do we. Well, certainly I do. And right now, life changes quite massively for me as well.

As announced, I have now removed myself entirely from the Pirate Party Germany. The new board has been elected, I gave them a complete handover, and thus fulfilled my promise to do my job until the last day. I also attended my last meeting with the Flaschenpost-team last week, after building it for more than four years. It broke my heart a little, but you got to do what you got to do, and I still feel it was the right decision. The way "my" board was treated at the general assembly in Halle left me deeply disturbed. I expected it to be bad, but not that bad. The new board surfed into their positions on a wave of hatred, and right after their successful election, there's talk of unity, reaching out to the "other side", and working together again. I wonder where this attitude was hidden in the months proceeding the assembly, and thus can only doubt that it is honest. Like many things in life, time will tell.

For me personally, I went through hell for this party, and what I got for it is boos at the sound of my name, and hatred from a full assembly. There were bright spots still, individual pirates that appreciated work and commitment, and were able to see differences without hating the opposite opinion. Nevertheless, I can no longer justify for myself why I would waste any work on this party.

But then there's the UK party, and I do look forward to getting involved here in my adopted home. I would welcome more contact to pirates in the UK, as I try to broaden my network here! As for German pirates who want to stay in touch, I left the party behind, but that doesn't mean I want to abandon all the wonderful people I met there. Do feel very much invited to use my contact details, if you need support, advise, or just want to chat :-)

With the change to my party involvement, I'm not yet done with the changes in my life. I'm actually changing most of it in a matter of months: I also resigned from my job after more than three years, as I will start something new in September: I'll be studying Web Science at the University of Southampton, a four year course that'll allow me to study the effects of the internet on society. And, in my particular case, the effect of the internet on the democratic process. I have never been a "proper" student in my life, having completed my first degree in part time at distance uni. So this is a fantastic prospect I am very much looking forward to. With the change from working to studying as my full time occupation, I will change yet another thing in my life, and move from Oxford to Southampton.

With all of these changes, four years in, the UK now fully becomes the centre of my life. Consequently, I feel it is appropriate to change the language on my blog to English. I trust that my German friends will still be able to follow! And I hope, that I'll soon have opportunity to blog about more interesting stuff than Pirate Party Germany internal matters. Actually, the German party is far more interesting from the outside ;-)