Nostalgic kittens

VWER meetings attended: 1 (good); Kittens worn on head: 1 (nostalgic); Photos taken of feet: 3 (worrying)


Attended Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable meeting last night. Will note in passing that until about 2 weeks ago had thought it was called Virtual Worlds Educators Roundtable and have referred to it as such for years. Embarrassing. Whatever, acronym is VWER and will refer to it as such. Organisers i.e. me, Kali (Our Leader), Grizzla, Beth and Shailey now v.v. organised and have Google doc in which we mark who is moderating which week. Interestingly, invitation into this Google doc was sent by Yahoo email straight into Yahoo email spam folder. Perhaps is Yahoo policy to sabotage Google, stranger things happen.

This week Grizzla was moderating and when TPed in noticed quite soon that she was wearing kitten on head (see 1st pic). Had rush of nostalgia as a year or two ago I was one attending with same kitten on head, she had IMed me to say "cute kitten" or suchlike and I had told her where to get one, which she did. In solidarity, also put kitten on my own head (see 2nd pic, right). Am wondering now if she noticed. At any rate felt nice to recall happy shared kitten moment.

Currently am v. excited as embarking on RESEARCH into MY INFORMATION PRACTICE of being a VWER person. Involves a lot of 1) reflecting about me 2) talking about SL 3) Excuses to pose and insert pictures of cute kittens, exquisite feet etc. so all good. Research is with Swedish person who has never been in SL, so obviously great treat ultimately awaits him, but at moment am doing lot of explaining e.g. how to wear shoes. Readers of this blog, or indeed anyone who has got beyond the hello sky hello clouds why am I trapped under a table help help phase of SL will know SL feet are tricky things.

Had just written long rambling disquisition (note long researchy word) describing v. tiny bit of what you do in VWER, and started talking about how wearing clothes is something a VWER moderator ought to do. Will rephrase that. Obviously since we are not on Adult sim, ahem, wearing clothes is requirement, but is good idea if also have clue about how to change look if want to and know how others might be seeing/judging you. In my case this means sending millions of Lindens into coffers of fashion designers and agonising whether bangles coordinate nicely with nailpolish. However e.g. in case of Thinkerer who is v.v. expert but mostly looks like just popped out of newb shell at dawn of SL time, know that is his conscious decision to look same all time, and have heard him describe it as part of his brand. So can't assume that just because someone looks a bit newbish that they ARE newb.


Nevertheless can't help wondering sometimes if people who I know are no newbs really want their feet to look like that. Does it look ok on their viewer? Do they not look at their feet? Do they think it's a retro look? So, after had briefly cammed in lovingly to own exquisite feet as featured in last blog post, took pictures of other people's feet. Will note that as usual Grizzla was wearing v. smart and interesting shoes but had better not mention anyone else in case it is indeed a case of I Never Realised MY Feet Looked Like That and cause embarrassment.

So have 2 VWER participant practices to ponder here:
1) Kitten wearing
2) Taking pictures of people's feet.
In RL think first would be eccentric (and also v. difficult, hard enough to keep kitten on lap let alone head) but 2nd might well end in call for security guard and stern talking to, as crawling round taking pictures of people's footwear is not what might be called accepted practice at RL meetings. In fact very much the contrary. Whereas in SL can take ALL SORTS of pictures without people knowing unless of course you post them to Flickr or your blog, which in this case I will not do.

Re: kitten wearing is this:
1) Bonding ritual to assert membership of VWER elite Community of Practice
2) Pathetic attempt to win favour with Grizzla
3) Sign I have too many kittens in inventory
4) Look it's a KITTEN, it's CUTE, and I am wearing it on my head because I CAN, enough said.

Anyway, took kitten off head before shooting scene in mock-up of phone shop with Zo, as didn't want to look weird. Though if viewers of final vid don't think two pixelated beings pretending to be interested in pixelated phones and tablets isn't weird, a kitten probably won't make much difference one way or the other.