I’m pretty sure not many are aware of this, but All Right Choices isn’t the first website I’ve administrated. Some of you might not even be aware of the fact that I’ve been an animal and environmental activist, for pretty much all my life.

When I was only 16 years old, I was quite active on ASPCA online community, signing petitions, getting involved in online adoptions, fighting against animal cruelty in any way possible.

Going fast from creating only a group against animal cruelty, to opening my own online community for animal lovers in Romania, a full time job started, which lasted for more than 2 years. That’s the moment when Romanian SPCA Online Community was born (September 10, 2008).

With almost 500 animal lovers actively involved, we really got it going. We became the voice of the voiceless  and did what we could to get animals adopted worldwide, send petitions all around the world to gather signatures, create petitions and forward them to the responsible authorities, write articles, inform people, start competitions, games and share our love for animals.

That community became my online family, bringing into my life a lot of wonderful people, which are up to this day, part of my family.

What went wrong?

The online platform which used to host the community went from free to … expensive. For a high school student, with no income, that translates into the end. I had no other option but to shut it down, and it was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do, up to that day.

This year is spring I managed to find the ruins of my community, on web archive, and I can’t even begin to describe what went through my heart when I saw the page. I went from happy to sad… That community meant the world to me at one point, and to take just another quick look at it, was a complete miracle to me.

Take Two

As I was working on becoming a programmer, I decided to bring it back to life, just as an exercise, to see if I can do it. Not being provided with the infrastructure of the online platform which used to host the original community, I had to start from scratch, with only a mental image of how it should look like.

Soon enough, I realized I don’t really have the knowledge to finish the job. A lot more learning was needed. So, I took it slow: learning how to create the database, then making the database interact with the website, building the homepage, working on the sign up form.

Little by little, it all started to fall into place, and made me wonder if I should finish it and put it back live again.

The Decision 

Even if the community is long gone, I never actually let go. You can’t really give in to animals being abused. Sometimes, however, it becomes a bit too much to handle. I have problems understanding why people like to project so much hurt around them. And even more, why would you hurt a defenseless soul?

I’ve decided to do a bit of reading, on the page of an animal protection group, and see how I feel about doing it all over again. In just a few seconds I came across an article about a guy who decided to kill a dog by splitting the animal’s head into half, with an ax. The answer: I can’t.

It hurts way to much to put myself in the middle of all of this, once again. I can’t go on a larger scale anymore. It’s bad for my sanity. Instead, keeping in mind the circle of concern and the circle of control, I’ve decided to help at a smaller scale, one animal at a time.

I can’t help all the animals in the world, but I can completely change the world of a few animals, so I better focus on that. The alternative is way to painful, and I just don’t have anymore what it takes to keep it up.

That being said, project RomanianSPCA Online Community will remain at project level. Good exercise for my coding skills, and a wonderful way to bring back great memories.

Through this post I want to thank the absolutely incredible people who came into my life, through the community. I am very happy to call you part of my family, and I hope this post will bring back some good memories for you as well!