- Pretty well, enjoying having some time to relax and unwind at the end of a stressful year - maybe have some more to dedicate to NationStates-ing around

- Probably a controversial one, but I like the shorter days around the solstice, just because of how cosy everything gets in the early dark - hopefully with a blanket and a hot drink. That's assuming I'm inside and warm though, so if I were to pick something without the conditions attached, I'd have to go with the food around this time of year. It all feels a lot heartier and suits the cold weather so nicely

- Fairly traditional - usually a fairly standard British roast with chicken (I don't eat pork, beef or turkey), and then your usual potatoes, Yorkshire Pudding, vegetables and cranberry sauce. No gravy though. I sometimes deviate from that a bit (mostly with a nut roast instead of chicken), but I don't see any reason to upset the classics.

- Visiting family mostly, I don't have too much planned beyond that. We'll see how it goes.

- 2024 was certainly the latest in a series of... interesting years for the obvious global reasons, but I felt like it's been a fun year here on NS and in Forest. Feels like a long time ago now but we came into the year with the quieter latter half of Eins' term, then moved into Zerph's busier summer term. After the introduction of Strongholds and Frontiers it's been the first full year we've had free of any thread from raiders since Errinundera CTEd and barring a Ruinenlust coup or Forest Project 2025 we can keep the focus on more interesting things than regional security or the glut of embassy requests once the Frontiers hit 6 months old. I've had a lot of fun being involved in the various government projects this year and events in Forest and our embassies, especially founding the Forest Arboretum and what we've managed to get going this term so far, like these interviews.

Looking forward to 2025, I can see myself stepping back a little bit as I lose a bit of the free time I currently have for NS, I've already said a few times I'm not planning to run in any more elections, but I want to make sure the rest of this term has everything I wanted to deliver from the start and then who knows what will happen beyond March. I usually don't think the new year is much more than a symbolic boundary, but it does offer a nice chance for reflection and some planning.

- No comment.

- Someone I know IRL started playing and mentioned it to me a few times. I decided to give it a go and once I got past the initial confusion of being founded on N-Day, settled into a regular habit of logging on to answer issues and so forth. I've always enjoyed a good webgame, especially ones on the older side, and once I found Forest that habit managed to really stick, and now I'm too far into all of this to turn back any time soon

- Well I was obviously founded in a Pacific (no memory of which one), sat alone in a region I founded for a little while, and after that I joined our good embassy friends at The Leftist Assembly before jumping over to Forest. I honestly can't remember how I came across Forest but I assume it was something to do with the embassy, as it so often is. As for the Ruinenlustian puppet allegations, no comment again on that one.

- I was woefully underqualified :p
Statistician is one of those government positions that very rarely changes personnel (I've stayed in the role ever since that first term), and I was taking over without any great understanding of how to actually work with the nationstates API or put together Greenness Index dispatches. For the first run I had to use data from Window Land, and the List of Exceptionally Green Nations wouldn't return for another 2 years. It's definitely fair to say I was pretty rubbish at it, but since around the release of my first Exceptionally Green Nations it's all been more stable, and more recently I've brought back the Index Bot for the discord. That first position was as part of Jutsa's huge government, the "Shelf", and it was at a time where there was quite a lot going on, but it was a good time, enough to keep me hooked on regional governance

- It was certainly a very different role to move into so soon after first getting involved, and looking back I ran at just the right time to be able to get in. Jutsa was coming in off the back of 2 successive terms and a full year in charge, and they were the only other candidate who posed a serious platform. The term that followed was broadly unremarkable, but it got me acquainted with the higher levels of government for later terms in government, and although it definitely could have gone a lot better, it wasn't as disastrous as it perhaps could have been.

Following that term, I returned to just doing the stats, before taking up a DFK post for two terms straight, which is perhaps the most deceptively simple job in the government, and I served it under 2 very different styles of Forest keeper in Einswenn and Zerphen. That first election win was a definitely a sudden step up which I largely think was down to running for election at just the right time though.

- I think it's largely going quite well, although there is an argument to be made that it's lost a bit of momentum in the last month or so, as winter terms usually do. After overpromising and underdelivering in my first term, I wanted to balance that a little more in the second term and so far we've got a couple of projects set up - these interviews, the Transparency Reports, the embassy closures and the Arboretum, but we're still only at the term's midpoint, and in the remaining few months there are already plans for quite a few things in motion, events in particular, and various other plans - the Arboretum Style Guide and discussing a few more regional admin changes most notably. Although it's good to come into office with a few ideas for the term, it often works better to remain open to changes throughout that term and adjust accordingly. I think that keeping a low barrier of entry to governance will always help a term keep moving

- I definitely fancy staying as the statistician for a while - changes there are more trouble than there worth considering the dispatches currently take maybe 30 minutes to put together post twice a year. Apart from that I don't really know - something more specialised than the FK or DFK maybe but of course it's all up to the next Forest Keeper.

- I think I've shared this story before, but the root of it was a fantasy setting I had written a year or so prior to joining NS based on a "Larbel Island". I dropped the Island for -ia to make it sound more nation-y, but Larbelia was taken by some nation from earlier in 2020 who CTEd almost immediately. For whatever reason that L shifted to a G giving the world Garbelia. I do hold the nation Larbel Island right now, and Larbelia will be available in about 300 days so I plan to take it too when it comes up.

Apart from "Otter Nation" and a poorly designed map, not really any lore, it's another thing I've wanted to expand on for ages.