Like, awesome, man

Parties attended: 1 (good); No. of bottles of vodka consumed: 1 (virtual, curiously non-alcoholic); Nights danced away: 1 (good)(but will regret it in the morning)

Tonight attended UK educators' party in which Usual Suspects met pleasantly together on Bluesky's island. Initial impressions were mixed as appeared we were going to spend party sitting round mystitool table, which is not my idea of rollicking abandon. However soon emerged that actual party was at beach bar complete with barstools, louche poses, glitter dance ball and soulful palm trees.

Had dressed up for occasion in what turned out as a sort of Helena Bonham Carter ensemble, lace and freaky hair, and felt that party had enjoyably retro 70s feel, but that is probably because the 70s was when was at uni, and just getting nostalgic flashback.

Bar dispensed bottles of Jack Daniels (always a fave, never tire of that drunken collapse animation you get after 3 sips), beer (my first tipple of the evening) and vodka (bottle or glass, obviously went for the whole bottle). Not that drank vodka in RL, in 70s or now, if going to knock back RL alcohol, it should at least have a proper taste (pref. of fine wine or malt whisky).

Kattan and Plymouth led way in disco dancing, at some point people started doing fairy dances (where you leap up and twirl round), and the chat seemed v. amusing at the time. Added later During banter, someone made joking remark, which remark I alluded to in earlier version of this post, as if it had not been a joke. If had allowed brain to intervene between self and keyboard would have realised that could not possibly be true. Consequence was offending someone that certainly would not want to offend, and having a general lord-I'm-useless freaking-out moment. Many lessons to be learned here, including 1) think before blogging, especially about friends; 2) don't blog at 1am when v. tired and therefore not firing on all mental cylinders. Just sort of thing I might tell to my students. Oh dear.

Meetings, Art, Clothes

Education discussions attended: 2 (good); Education discussions missed: 2 (bad); Artistic experiences: 2 (v.v. good); Items of clothing purchased: 4 (bad); Free items of clothing acquired: 7 (at least; good)
Still catching up, as usual. Last week attended 2 education discussions: 1 in Black Library and 1 at Montclair. Also just missed (today) one of the Metanomics series sessions - arrived just as people were having post-session chat. Last week came in just as a research discussion about avatar image was ending (had mistaken finish time for start time, oops) Oh well.
Focus for Montclair discussion was libraries in SL, and was large turnout i.e. about 40 people. Think they were mostly from North America, but sprinkling of people from other regions, including librarian from Scotland who I was able to lure into the Information Literacy Group.
Lots of lively discussion, with particular focus on getting 24/7/365 reference desk coverage in SL. Felt that would be nice to get more discussion of other issues, since, although reference is admirable and helps lots of people, is not most exhilarating topic inworld or indeed out of it... if I were convincing someone of the dynamic role of the information professional to say "and they are working towards assuring a 24/7 duty rota in SL" would just confirm some librarian stereotypes (i.e. harmless/ useful/ dull).On less frivolous level it would be good to see more librarians taking leadership roles in areas of information management, I think there is a danger that librarians might be pigeonholing themselves in traditional roles more than they need to. On the other hand there are the huge pigeonholing pressures from RL - RL managers and senior officers etc. requiring justification for library activities in traditional and quantitative ways. And a couple of people said that if they could say there was 24/7/365 reference service in SL this would be a lure for their managers. Hey ho.
As usual, were people telling each other they rock. This is obviously something I don’t do enough of, as does not seem to come naturally, but do feel that “awesome” does spring from lips more easily than used to (which wouldn’t be hard, since a year ago would not ever have used it except to apply to e.g. spectacular dawn over the Pacific. No, actually; wouldn’t have even said it even then). And someone at the meeting said that Infolit iSchool was awesome (AWESOME even), so I am just a curmugeonly old Yoshikawa.Anyway upshot of this discussion was another meeting ... no that is curmugeonly again; number of ideas came up and should be some follow up & obviously am reflecting on how I contribute.
A particular highlight last week was a visit to a temporary artwork (a huge flower - tower) by Eshi Otawara, which Zotarah told me about at the end of the Black Library discussion. Was v. grateful as was ... ahem ... awesome, and lots of fun to flit round it and take pics in different lightings. IMed Robin and Jackie who happened to be online to alert them.
Previously had visited Black Swan sim, which had gone to months ago when was called something else (can't remember what) - anyway it is a dramatic venue with some interesting artworks (one pictured here is in the air) and also something for consumers i.e. dresses by various designers, with black swan theme.Have tried to reign back on purchases and have resisted black swan dresses (so far) partly because there have been some v.nice freebies around lately. Still managed to buy the odd piece here and there - but, such is my ditzy shopping brain, one week later can't exactly remember which items they were (think another pair of Armidi Vinianis featured somewhere ...)