Well, this is it: My last post as National Editor. Technically, anyway. Anyone who’s been reading the site for the past few weeks knows that Charlie, the National Editor-designate for next semester, has been carrying the section almost entirely on his own shoulders for a little while now. He’s been doing a fantastic, not to mention scandalously sexy, job.

As for me, I’ll be going across the pond to London, to take in the quiet dignity of their parliamentary system and bring tales of their wisdom back to this savage rogue colony. I’ll still be hanging around NYU Local whenever I can, but things just aren’t going to be the same. So before I go, I’m going to abuse my editorial powers one last time and do one of those self-indulgent farewell posts where I thank a bunch of people.

First off, thanks to Charlie for doing a great job of taking over, and generally being the knowledgeable, dependable guy whose stuff I had to barely edit before it went up. This job would have been a hell of a lot more challenging without him around, and I hope that as editor, he’s lucky enough to find himself a Charlie.

Thanks to all the other editors: Cody, Lily, Nicole, Joe, and Dean. I couldn’t have asked for a cooler group of people to work with. Special thanks to Cody and Lily, the two blogmasters; Cody was the one who had the crazy idea that kicked this whole NYU Local enterprise off, and neither of them could have been more supportive of how I tried to shape my own section.

Thanks to Daniel Strauss (whose recently formed truly excellent group blog you should all read), John Cain, and everyone else who contributed witty, insightful commentary to all those groupblogs and stopped them from just being me talking to myself.

Since no list of thank-yous would be complete without it: Thanks to my parents, who not only let me go to NYU despite the obscene tuition, but also got me interested in politics, writing and, yes, blogging in the first place. I love you guys.

And last but not least: Many thanks to everyone who reads this blog. Seriously. I know it’s a cliché to say this, but you guys are the reason why NYU Local is successful, not me or any of the other editors. Nothing I post here would mean anything if people didn’t read it, and better yet, argue about it, like you guys have. You’re the reason I kept writing, and you’re what kept me from getting lazy. You’re all so damn smart that I know I have to stay on my toes and think hard about what I’m writing, or I’m going to catch hell in the comments.

I hope you’ll treat Charlie as well as you’ve treated me, and stick around to see what happens next. It goes without saying that there was an explosion in political engagement on the NYU campus because of the election, but that can’t go away now just because the election’s over. The election was the easy part. NYU’s first day of spring classes is the day of Obama’s inauguration, and whatever happens between then and May is going to be huge.

In the meantime, if anyone still wants to follow my writing and blogging outside of NYU Local, you can check me out at my home blog, Campus Progress’s awesome group blog Pushback, and, of course, my twitter account.