IMPORTANT SITE NEWS.

[Ƶαяαн™]

Dear members of GallagherAcademy.ning.com,

As I'm writing this, I literally cannot remember the last time I signed on. There are 63 unread messages in my inbox that will not be replied to. And a lot of other really sad things in regard to GallagherAcademy.ning.com.

In the 2.5 years since I made this lovely site (almost to the exact day, in fact), I have had a wonderful time. I've met people that are so awesome that there simply are not words to describe how awesome they are. I spend more time Googling things the FBI might be concerned about than I ever had before (in a good, educational, non-illicit way). There are too many wonderful things that have happened to me because of this website that I just can't fit them into one blog without the great chance of paying a lot of cash for using up too much bandwidth.

This isn't an experience I would give up for the world.

In the summer of 2009, I was an incredibly irritating 12 year old girl who was new to the internet, and had just recently taken up reading again after avoiding it like the plague for two years. I'd Tell You I Love You, but Then I'd Have to Kill You was on sale and had a fun cover in a school book catalog. It didn't hurt that I had a bit of an obsession with spies in the aftermath of having spy parties in the 4th grade.

Most people probably think that a kid can't change in two and a half years, but I would have to disagree.

I've recently started my second semester as a high school freshman. The end of first semester brought a report card with the first A+ I had ever gotten in math class. All of my other grades followed that pattern, save for history, which I completely bombed the first test on. But I still had a B.

The cost of these wonderful, near-flawless grades? The complete lack of maintenance to GA.

And since high school doesn't give the option to screw around and do it again later (if I want to graduate with my class, that is), it's going to have to stay this way. Tonight I have an English report to write, three pages of Algebra homework, a thousand word essay for Geography, a two-page piece of music to master, and an intimidatingly large packet of Physics problems to solve. I should be working on those instead of this, because my Saturday will start at 8 AM with a 4-hour long meeting for a school club, followed by a late night working at school on the theatre set for the musical (which will also be my place of residence on Sunday).

So the website really can't have a place on my priorities list right now.

It's $25 a month to pay for this site and the admin site together, which isn't available if I'm going to be able to go on a weeklong, $1,000 trip to Washington DC and New York this summer, which I probably won't have the opportunity to do ever again. Or if I want to go on any of the other, smaller trips I have this year, most of which come with a lot of points for their associated classes. Not to mention the fact that I'll be getting my license in a few years, and my parents have sworn to make me buy my own car if I want one. 

By March 31st***, I plan to close the website. I might open it up at a later point in time (ie. after graduation, in three and a half years), but I doubt any of you will still have interest by then. Please check out all of the wonderful sites at the Clandestine Locations section (http://gallagheracademy.ning.com/page/locations-links) and help out some of those sites, though. And if you aren't yet, become part of fan fiction. It's the best community you'll ever join, I swear.

I prefer for the site to go out with a bang, not a whimper, so there are two prizes awaiting those of you who comment. One copy of Only the Good Spy Young and one copy of Uncommon Criminals, both signed by Ally Carter and brand new. Only one book per person. If you want the copy of OGSY, send me a message with OGSY as the subject line. if you want the copy of Uncommon Criminals, send me a message with UC as the subject line. Please include your contact details (email or Facebook, NOT phone or address) in the message. A random number generator will determine who wins. Only those who live in the continental USA are eligible (sorry, Hawaiian, Alaskan, and international Gallagher Girls).

If you have any questions, comments, or thoughts, please message me at my Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/sarahkayvoigt) or email ([e-mail]) instead of a private message on here, as I want to reserve my GA.ning inbox for contest entries from here forward.

Thank you for your time, for visiting and supporting this website, and for being the awesome people you all are.

~Sarah

***Quick edit: Upon looking through the billing history for the network, I found that instead of the monthly payments I assumed were happening, Ning decided to bill me for the entire year all at once (which apparently saved $100). It would appear that the current payment will last through the middle of July, so the network will see its 3rd birthday after all :) I still won't be able to participate much, and I can't guarantee there'll be much activity anyway, but the site will still be here until then :)

[Ladybug]

Hey.

I'm late. Really late. Because i'm gonna miss you all :D JUst to make a long story short. I'm glad that I found an internetal (llc) community, bonded by love of books, espicially the Gallagher Academy books. I'm gonnna miss you all. 

My facebook is :Ketsia Nanny (my real name :P), my twitter GallagherGirl42 (I do't use it much though), and my email [e-mail] (also [e-mail]). Hopefully i'll see some of you again on the flip side.

Stay frosty (LMAO),

Ladybug :)

[Wish]

Well. I'm about three months late.

It's weird, looking back at the beginning of GA... We can all look back at what the site was like back then (dude, I'm talking like this was ten years ago or something) and what we were like back then and it's just... huh.

GA was one of the first internet communities I got to be apart of. Pretty sure it was my first time interacting with and being a member of a fandom like this. I had so much fun on here and I remember checking the site pretty much every day and having conversations with other members by leaving comments back and forth (so much fun). But, yeah, with all the good stuff came the bad (not sure I should be mentioning this in a goodbye post, but whatever?)... mainly that "war" with TGA. Which, honestly, looking back I find it kinda hilarious. Maybe it's because I'm older now. I mean, when I first joined and was thirteen it was so... mmm, how do I say this? It was a huge thing. We were all kinda young back then-- not that we're not young now but... I should just shut up.

Anyways, I wanna thank everyone. Thanks for the laughs and all the good things in general... Am I making any sense? I don't even know anymore. The discussions were amusing, the groups were hilarious, the members are just plain awesome. Even though I haven't been on much lately (college is heavy on my conscience right now... dude, I had to take the SAT Saturday. junior year is stressful.)... y'know, cuz I just wasted my time writing about the stressful-ness of school I completely forgot where I was going with that. Heh. I'll just continue thanking you guys, in that case. So thanks for helping me discover some awesome books, shows, and music; thanks for making me feel welcome; thanks for allowing me to be an admin and procrastinate with the others, yet get some amazing thing done (somehow ;b ). I'll stop because this is already too cheesy.

We should definitely keep in touch. For sure.

its-kinda-unclear (tumblr... if you don't mind putting up with some of my random fandom-obsession phases <- does that make sense?); skyeshawol (twitter); Flying-Squirrelz (fanfic)

Oh yeah: and thanks for tolerating my weird usernames/screen names/whatever. I don't know what was wrong with me... in my defense, I was only thirteen? (Seriously, did I have an obsession with flying squirrels or something? And wishes?) Yeah. Just plain weird. So thanks for that, too. (I'm seriously not even joking about this guys.)

[Tunarh]

@Zarah looks like the original one :D aw, let's reminisce on all the old times before we don't have a chance to :(

[Klavier]

Um,
I LOVE YOU ALL.
& My time here was relatively short, but I still fell in love with this place. Just, thank you to every single member - especially the lovely Zarah - for being a part of this wonderful website.
If anyone wants to keep in touch: I very rarely attempt checking FF, but my tumblr is smileonastranger. Please message me - just say you're from GA; I'd love to catch up.
Thank you for a great experience!

[☀Katie☀]

I'd just like to say, even though I havn't been able to log on much, I love this site so much. I've met some amazing people on here, and I'd love to keep in touch with ya'll.

[Ƶαяαн™]

@Tunarh: This is about as far back as I have the layout saved. Feels so nostalgic now...

[drey]

omg dude i will if we all will~

[Tunarh]

hey zarah, you reckon we can change the site back to it's old layout? just for old time's sake? :D

[Tunarh]

haha, drey, if you actually go on FF anymore, then maybe :D

[drey]

Guys, hey, man I don't do sappy thing but I'll miss you all and do we all have tumblrs? (I can remake mine) So we can keep in touch, somehow, anyway. We've all been busy, but this has been great, and I'm closer with most of you than I am with some people at my school (of course they're lame and listen to bad music, but still) and I really wish it were summer of '09 again just because those times were fun and I found tons of people to share my interests with.

Anyway, can we have somewhere where we leave all our online contact info (like twitters or tumblrs or fbs or formsprings or whatever) to keep in touch? Or we can all keep in touch through FF or something?