Lucky chairs; Nostalgia; Dancing

Free items acquired: 11 (good, on the whole); Time spent dancing in Rare dress: 30 mins (plucky); Av. no. mins spent waiting at lucky chairs etc., per free item, (i.e. total time waiting divided by no. of items): 9 (bad).
See that in last blog post became nostalgic after getting stuck in wall, this time am nostalgic after spending a good 60-90 minutes waiting for lucky chairs to come up with letter "S". Was chasing four poster bed in ChiaMia when saw not only lucky chairs but also Midnight Madness.
Midnight Madness is where if enough people slap the poster, you get whatever gaudy item is on offer, often without having to wait for midnight. Or, from previous experience, you slap the poster and nothing arrives as either item is unattractive, even if free, so not enough people slap, or place offering midnight madness is almost totally deserted and ditto. However in this case, items were OK bordering desirable, and lots of people were bumbling through in search of the four-poster (which was on discount for the Saturday Sale, or possibly the Weekend Extravaganza or some other desperate event aimed to part innocent avatars from their Lindens).

Can be seen in 1st pic waiting patiently for lucky chairs. These chairs had several virtues (1) Not set to group only (2) Only 10 mins before change letter (3)There are 3 of them (4) Reasonable proportion of items were worth having. Ended up with metallic photo frames and 60s vintage stockings which (unusually) included version for classic avatars, so a win. To be honest, more desirable items could have been mine had name begun with B, N, M etc. etc. At one point tried to boot up Firestorm and bring in Dimitrova to claim item that required a D, but unfortunately this crashed computer as was not only already in SL with official browser but also streaming live horse racing in Firefox. Was all a bit too much for the poor Viglan & its graphic card on a hot day. Again certain amount of nostalgia, as in early days of using SL computer would crash ALL THE TIME, but not something to be repeated too often, esp. as am not the world's best Backer Up of Files (in fact doubt whether am even best Backer Up of Files in my corridor).

Waiting for lucky chairs reminded me of great sport of hanging around in B@rerose until you randomly get dropped some strange item "Just for being here". Anyway, TP-ed over and in less that 20 mins had not only been dropped Gear Gloves but also Super Rare Card Dress. Inspired to have grand unpacking, so also scooped up new freeby group gifts from Fancy Decor (cake + patterned boxes) and from someone who does fractal art. Was going to be lazy and leave it without saying who artist was, but hey I took her free art, so at least should look up name [brief pause to dip into SL. Well, SHOULD have been brief, but was obliged to do SL update, sigh, which apparently now allows baked on somethings for the Mesh body and head I don't have. Sigh.] OK, art is by Milly Sharple and the pics are called Navajo, Roses and Lily, think is pretty obvious which are the last 2.
Also decided should wear dress, although not really my kind of thing, since is Super Rare so felt obligation. 2nd pic show me wearing both gloves and dress. Am still not sure what kind of Cards are involved in Card Dress, but it sparkles a bit and is evidently celebratory in some way. 3rd pic shows me wearing Super Rare dress accessorised with G Field boots and old pair of tights in suitably garish colours, also can see bed, a sample metallic photo Frame, 3 free fractal pics, cake and Patterned Boxes, plus geeky book cupboard, and a coffee table from a gacha (was hoping to get the rare house; still a gacha fool after all this time).

Not in pic are Sakura Curtains, 60s Vintage Crew Socks, Gold Minimal Candles and Shit Wall Art. In case of first 3 is because they were successful Midnight Madnesses, whose delivery had been attempted whilst offline/crashed and I hadn't yet worked out how to get them redelivered [answer=go to redelivery terminal, duh]. In final case can't remember whether this omission was because hadn't yet gone for 2nd bout of Lucky Chair stalking or because wall art is exactly what it says it is i.e. item with word s h i t on it, call me old fashioned, but don't think would be adornment for any self-respecting cat cafe.

Such was commitment to Rare Dress that even kept it on when TPed to the opening party for exhibition of Michiel Bechir and Tresore Prada's art (see pic 4) where was much dancing.
However, not sure is right thing for thursday's virtual Worlds Education Roundtable, where will be exploring Multiple Intelligences and need to look a bit less Rare.
In final pic am contemplating SL rezzed wardrobe and thanking my Lindens that actual SL wardrobe in inventory is not so small and drab.

Sakura

Sakura-related items bought: who's counting? (bad)
Sakura is japanese for cherry blossom, Hanami is about viewing the cherry blossom and March & April are the months when you haul all those cherry trees, cherry blossom petal generators, cherry blossom kimono, cherry blossom sweets, cherry blossom ground cover etc. etc. out of inventory. And despite the fact that you have more cherry blossom trees than there are prims in a sim March are April are also months when you launch yourself round the grid snapping up new cherry blossom delights.

The theme for the Virtual Worlds best practices in Education exhibition area was old-japanesey and Pancha did a v.v. good japanesey exhibition build so had excellent excuse to invest in complete new set of cherry trees from Forest Floor. Not only are they in 3 cute shapes, and can be resized, the foliage changes season on click and you get some artistic mossy rocks as well.
Have also acquired exquisite Cherry Blossom prim foods from Poche and Nonino, and after had finished swooning at beauty of cherry blossom viewing experience on the Sway's sim, recovered enough to buy a cherry blossom viewing couch, chair and screen.
Despite fact had already oodles of cherry blossom pictures, decided to go inworld and pose a few more.

Fatal. 1 hour later and do have some cherry blossom pics in bag. However, also got dropped freebies by Trompe L'oeil i.e. their new set of patio furniture. There is loads of it. Of course could not resist unpacking on spot and then fiddling with settings etc. to get a pic to blog on Home on the grid, another procrastination-pit. So show some bits in 2nd pic. Furniture is MESH so for some people will just look like a set of unsightly teal blots on the landscape. But, hey, it was ALL FREE.

Shopping

Shops visited with students: 2 (good)
On Monday had rare treat of combining shopping with genuine pedagogic experience, as had optional session showing Educational Informatics students delight of freebie hunting via shops and groups. Now must admit that is question whether should be blogging this as me, since in fact used alt, namely one Mikael Zanzibar. He is the only avatar in my possession who has current set of "entry level" avatars, as he was born last semester, so is more like what students have in inventory.
Had made notecard with landmarks and instructions and then we all tp-ed to Nicky Ree where sumptious gown awaited those able to successfully add selves to group by clicking poster. As you may guess, with 7 people clicking simultaneously, this was disaster and no-one managed to joing group. Luckily NR also has nice freebie wall including space suits so was not complete waste of time.
Then zipped over to Zero Style, a fave hair designer, which has 2 freebie hairs on offer. Pic shows Mikael demonstrating how to use the demos in the hair vendors, though don't think he's going to buy this one if he knows what's good for him. Two of my companions can only look on in disbelief.

CITASA

Conferences attended: 1 (good); Times computer crashed out: 2 (could be worse); People spoken to at conference: zero (bad)

Attended the CITASA conference in Second Life. Was a 3 hour event, which started at 10pm UK time. Talks were about identity in Facebook & SL, women & gaming, teaching in SL, Facebook & surveillance and some other related topics.

Slides are going up on Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/citasa/ and will not attempt to summarise talks esp. as now is 1.30am (i.e. conference has just finished). The actual programme is at http://www.slideshare.net/citasa/citasa-mc-30-program/

Sussed out venue beforehand (see first pic with me wearing New Shoes That Fit), but when tried to reenter 10 mins before start, SL seemed to hang, then RL friend phoned and in end was 10.20 before arrived. However organisers still fiddling with the data projector, so lateness not a problem. Some interesting points emerged, and also (as with previous conferences) useful to attend event to learn about how events run in SL. Somewhat depressing that found once more that, as in RL, when don't know anyone, more difficult to chip into conversation.

CITASA is the Communication and Information Technologies section of the American Sociological Association and although have something in common as researcher and educator, am not sociologist. Therefore worry more about appearing idiot - also quite a few people seem to already know each other - some attending RL event in the USA. Plus side is, of course, that (like BlogHer) this is conference which couldn't attend in RL, so experience is valuable and is first contact with community that may want to get to know better.

Certainly overlap with information science/management agenda in terms of privacy issues, social networks, and very interesting to hear research approaches described by others. Magellan Egoyan said that "In the Embodied Research Group [which he's part of], we have identified at least four scientific methodologies in use by different members of the group – behavioural experiments, a quantitative means of study ; conceptual design approaches ; computer simulation studies ; and qualitative research." He noted that to get rich picture, would use all of these, so collaboration between researchers valuable.

JoannaTrail Blazer's talk on “Participatory Pedagogy: Challenging ‘Real Life’ Practices of Educational Institutions in Virtual Worlds” identified useful points about student behaviour. Since don't intend to use SL for transmissive type teaching, useful to hear from those using facilitative or challenging approaches.

Some other references etc. are the website for Educators Coop (where educators can get little plots of land) at http://educatorscoop.org/ , and a reference from Joanna, “101 Uses for Second Life in the College Classroom” (Conklin, 2007 http://facstaff.elon.edu/mconklin/pubs/glshandout.pdf). Similarly, have started to compile thoughts on things to do or avoid when organising SL conferences, but shall save those for another time. Final pic shows me in obligatory freebie t-shirt from conference bag plus badge which was originally stuck in rather unfortunate position so good that now know how to move objects about.

Invitation, freebies

Invitations received: 1 (good); Freebies gathered: 3 (good); Opportunities missed: 1 (bad)

Receive IM from UK Educators Group "You are invited to join other educators and friends for a gathering on MCLC 1 and 2 on Thursday evening" (19th): Gives detailed timetable e.g. at 12.45 would be "looking at re-imagining education in light of what we now know about learning and using the new emerging tools and technologies." Alas in RL will be on travels at that point so will not be able to join discussion in Pit or party afterwards as promisied.

Am obviously failing to get into information loop as notice that was discussion in Bloggers Cafe 2 nights ago that looked v. interesting but did not know. As information literate person (allegedly) is naturally v. distressing and must rectify.

Decide to sus out Blogher venue. Travel to Hyperstring Island and pick up exhibition freebies, namely bunch of flowers (see pic) and also 2 business suits for $10 each. Bunch of flowers does not go with outfit. Pity.