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Today I have officially been here one year! So to celebrate my first 365 days at 343industries Community Forum I've compiled a one year summary of my stay called "The 'First' Year of The Zebra." 　 Back in November I was in my room looking for Halo:Reach tips on YouTube. As I looked through the search results I noticed all of these awesome maps that I'd never seen in matchmaking before, I soon realized these were forge maps and I could send them to my Xbox and play them! But I had no idea how, so I went to the place that knows everything...GOOGLE! Which led me to none other than...HaloWaypoint.com. Where I received no help whatsoever. Back to Google! This time I scrolled once more eventually clicking on 343industries.org! 　 I signed up and posted my first thread, "Halo Reach Forge" I played so MANY maps. After that I shouted a bit, replied to 3 more discussions, and after about 2 or 3 days...I...I...forgot about 343iCF! I forgot about it until about 2 weeks after Christmas. Then I became pretty active on the forums. I tried to visit the site at least 3-5 times a week and I met a bunch of awesome members. I even got my first award, (The Assist, for helping AD find a news article) and attended my first Play Date. The Play Date, Reach Play Date to be precise, was really fun. I got to play with Absolute Dog for the first time, and Imakequilts, and a moderator now, Skummigummigube. Although I only got to stay for one match (I'm really busy on Saturdays) it was a great match, I hopped in a Scorpion and did major damage, then I went around armor locking (yeah, I armor lock. Come At Me Bro!) Following this I continued to make posts and really started to enjoy my early sessions of ShoutBoxing with Azzax. Then it came, on the very first Friday of February, I attended Spades Custom Game Night! With this event I met Spades N AZ, a really great boxer, who gives a mean massage and hosts the greatest custom game nights on Earth. The following month on the 14th, I shed my greenhood and became purple after beating Frankenzer in a race to 200 posts. (Although he did make it to 500 posts before me lol) After that I continued to diligently post and meet more of the wonderful members that make up the Halo community. On May 14th, I received what I consider my greatest honor to date, "The Dog." An award AD hand chooses to give out, and I find it an incredible honor to be the recipient of such an award. The following month I received yet another great honor, "Member of the Month." I wore my PINK with pride! I always thought it was pretty neat that I became MoM on the same month of my Birthday. (For those of you wondering when I left team Purple, I posted my 500th post and became a dedicated silver/white/gray during my status as MOM.) I wasn't on a whole lot in July, (didn't log on for an entire week at one point) because of my busy summer schedule. But in August I happened to come by a great post by Total Mayh3m that inspired me to do more for our community, and so the 343i Weekly Poll began! Also in August I cracked a list. I made it on onto a special list, that I had tried to get on since January and I hope I never get removed from it. Meet your Maker started up in August and I was really excited to start working on my first Dominion map! So I started forging, brainstorming for a map idea, learning Dominion, and going to bed exhausted after late night sessions. I saw AbleSir Thomas was hosting MYM testing lobbies, and so I submitted my map. A few days later AbleSir Thomas got up with me in forge. It would seem as if my very first Dominion map...was a disaster. Looking back now I completely agree with him, my map was way to small and wouldn't have made it very far (if at all) in the contest. So AbleSir Thomas gave me a wealth of valuable information and tips, and I deleted my map. For the next few days I worked hard on my map, putting in a lot of time because I felt like I was falling behind after restarting my map. But after a long early morning forge session, I took some other maps into forge to test them and after testing those maps I went through deleting them. Then it happened, I deleted my map on mistake! But I wouldn't stop, I kept on forging! I watched everything I could to try to make my map the best it could be. Finally after some testing and modifying, Eddok was ready for submission. I submitted and waited excitedly to see the results. 　 　 Come September Spyro started the USF nomination poll up and I partnered with Total Mayh3m to run for Forum Co-Presidents! The election was close, at one point Mayh3m and I had about 7 votes but some members changed their minds and we went down to about 5 votes I think. But ultimately Azaxx was victorious and became the forum's very own dictator! Uh, um, I mean President! Congrats Azaxx 　 Then BCAM rolled in and we painted the forums pink in honor of all of our cancer victims. We also had a great time when the forum's very first "Community Event" rolled around. It was a lot of fun...for GSD...and the rest of us too It really was a great event, as the staff steamrolled us...and began competitive crouching...yeah it was a lot of fun, when I joined we played I think 7 non FFA games and us members won 2, or 3 of those. But all in all, a lot of fun meeting members that I had wanted to meet for a long while. 　 October 29, 1:09am I was in the Shoutbox with one of my many friends on this site, Azaxx. But that's not the only thing that was special that night, you see Azaxx summoned... Twam. Then BOOM! In a burst of thunder, I heard a voice boom from the heavens, I heard Twam say: "Doritos :drool:" We talked some were joined by Gryffin and just had a great time. Then November (aka this month) rolled around and we got a new forum mother. Bnus! A well deserved honor for him. (Good job, buddy) I also hosted a play date for the first time on-huh? Oh. Excuse Me, D_D has just informed me I hosted a Community Event for the first time. Don't worry it's ok, no he won't hold against me. And that just about sums up my first year here! Thank you all for taking the time to read this, I know the following year will be just as fun and exciting with the addition of all the new faces on the site and the return of some older faces as well. It's been a great first year. -Thanks, BZ1