This time exactly 11 years ago I was still living in Adelaide, probably still having no idea I was moving back south to my home state of Tasmania in only a couple of months time. I was a small nine and a half year old kid back then, now I'm a twenty and a half year old 'grown up'. In a couple of weeks that year I would hear about BIONICLE for the first time, and thought hey they look pretty neat, but why'd they replace Slizer, oh no. I was very much into LEGO at that stage, among things, which has certainly waned in the past several years. And yet I still think it's a great thing. BIONICLE shaped a lot about me. It boosted my interest in several different things, particularly animation and music, thanks mostly to Templar. It also added to my vast respect for symbols and iconography that I've had since as far back as I can remember. It added greatly for my thirst for knowledge and revelations, and somewhat regrettably to my somewhat obsessive and compulsive nature. Most importantly (and positively, though), it has done wonders for my creativity...it's helped showed me that I can be imaginative when I need to be.BZPower of course has been fundamental for that. It's given an outlet for many of us, through art, comics and writing (at times I've done all three). Places to show our theories, vent our frustrations about this story and our own lives, and generally bring a community of vastly different people of different backgrounds together who all like at least one thing. And we're not restricted to that, friendships have been built around all of these things, simply because this site existed. I'm not saying other sites don't do that, but this is the only site that immediately comes into mind in my own personal experience that exemplifies a true online community. I from time to time visited here, when I was on the trail for interesting images and things like that. I probably came here back in 2003 and saw some images of the new sets for the Northern Hemisphere summer or something like that, when they were appearing at a Comic Con or Toyfair or something like that. I didn't join (initially) till 2005, by that stage well into liking BIONICLE, and enjoying the story as much as I could without getting the comics (and the online comics were rarely if ever updated in those days). My interest in the site grew when I started reading the humorous comics found on here, in particular Chilli God's Rise and Fall of the Toa. It inspired me to start writing comics, as did CyberKN's Mask of Humour, and so I did a few months later. And then getting into the swing of the forum, becoming more known and getting to 'know' people, it was really fun.I was still a pretty immature 14/15 year old in those days, thinking he was a genius and all that. That was not true, but I stayed here long enough to mature and take everything in its stride. The only thing I haven't outgrown is setting myself up with truly overambitious tasks and then not bringing them to fruition...but I'm slowly working on that. I'm no longer in primary school, nor secondary nor even senior secondary school. I'm approaching my third year of my liberal arts degree, and I'm beginning to work music back into my life, the only thing I was ever truly good at. I like to think, in a nutshell, since I've really just been writing what's come to the top of my head, that BZPower has greatly influenced the way I approach things, by giving me the confidence to try new things, and I guess not worry so much about what other people think, because there are more like-minded people than you think, and they will have interest in what you have to say, you just gotta say it.Yeah I'm pretty sure I didn't finish this post the way I started. But that's life isn't it.