Preparing for the VC

Posters uploaded: 5 (good); PPts uploaded: 4 (tedious); No. of hours spent deciding what to wear: 1 (v. bad)
Tomorrow is RL visit of Vice Chancellor to our Dept., so detailed plan drawn up of military precision. He will be shepherded through panoply of learning and research exellence. As Director of Learning and Teaching, ahem, I had v. important task of drawing up catalogue for teaching part of exhibition, ensuring poster boards put in correct position and last but not least will be demo-ing SL. For 5 minutes.
What can one do in 5 minutes in SL?

1) Wait for the room to rez OR
2) Attempt to move from one side of the room to the other and get stuck behind a sofa OR
3) Have a conversation with an academic on the other side of the planet consisting mostly of ";-))" and "lol" OR
4) Try on 16 pairs of shoes and buy one pair by mistake OR
5) Attempt to teleport , suffer aeons of blank screen + irritating line which may or may not be moving, and then hear fatal "ping" which means you are back where you started except now you are frozen & unable to move.

Of course none of this will happen tomorrow. Instead imagine self failing to get beyond "Initializing world" as Head of Dept taps foot and looks at watch.
Or alternatively will all go swimmingly.

Have uploaded some teaching and research stuff that in end was deselected from exhibition (on grounds that we shouldn't be setting VC speed reading test and therefore less was more).
One student kept sending new versions of poster, so seemed never ending task. Also (finally) uploaded remaining "Is SL dangerous" ppts produced by first years - now full set of 6 is in display in main building. Should really blog about these as others might find them interesting.
Contacted a few Friends to ask if they could come along and say "Hi Vice Chancellor I'm X from Y, and gosh it's Z am/pm here" though latter bit will not be v. impressive if they are all from UK. Also considered putting up "Welcome to the VC" banner, but island probably looks too much like a kiddies playground already.

Most importantly spent considerable time deciding what to wear. In end (you will be fascinated to know) opted for favourite skirt from Material Squirrel, with stripey top from SySy and new necklace from Earthstones, plus natty shoes from Maitreya. Hair is style called "Sheila" which is really a bit Big & Fluffy, but apart from having same name as me, looks v. good from back, which is part of me likely to be most on view. NB hair name is, I assume, marketing ploy, in that every hair with a woman's name must be guaranteed sales to people with same name. Wonder if they have done research on this?

Reach out

Reach out
Originally uploaded by Sheila Webber

Cheesy motivational posters created: 1 (bad)
Whilst procrastinating tonight I picked up a link to the Automotivator site where can create American-style "motivational" posters. Proves horribly easy to do and worst of it is,am now thinking "Hmmm, perhaps this poster isn't so bad after all". Also wasted further time in learning how to upload photos straight from Flickr to this blog. No end to the useless web 2.0 skills am acquiring.

Office, panels, and the curse of the butterflies

Panels mounted: 8 (good); Noteboard skills learnt: 2 (v. good); Butterflies bought: 1 set (bad); Outfits bought: 2 (bad)

Have arranged to meet Art Fossett in Eduserv in order to find out why can't Build things there any more. Turns out that in order to Build need to have Eduserv Group Active (rather than, as currently the case, B5 Fan). Go to Group function and make Eduserv Group Active and lo, can once more Edit and Build. Feel v. foolish.

While AF is there ask how can fix panel (advertising Centre for information Literacy Research) to wall. He says to layer it. This in fact means Editing panel, then using Rotate and Position functions to get it parallel to wall and then flat against it. Feel v. proud when manage this.

Have already Created Notecard (in Inventory) with text about Centre and dropped it into Content bit of panel (in Edit mode) (I hope you are following this).

Google notecard object make. Find useful page (http://www.exo.net/~pauld/secondlife/build_pi_glass.htm) in which one Paul Docherty explains how to Build object and make it deliver up notecard when someone touches it. Am able to amend "give notecard" script appropriately, and lo (again) my panel delivers a notecard when anyone right clicks and selects "Touch". Feel even prouder, so spend some time touching panel and getting notecards.

Place cat who I name Mitsy (after cat belonging to favourite aunt). Put out mat for cat.

Get panel/notecard fever and create a) panel with map of information literacy research to put on opposite wall; b) stretched and repositioned copy of same as carpet; c) 3 panels with different photographs on as decoration in smaller of 2 office rooms; d) explanatory small panel saying what's in photos; e) plain panels in tasteful blue to cover up purple wall.

And now comes fatal error. Suffering from interior design euphoria shop for tropical plant to place near artful photo panel. Am instead betwitched by two blue butterflies ("1 prim") fluttering decoratively. For $199 Linden they are mine. Whisk back to Eduserv Island Office. Place.

A million zillion giant butterflies immediately zoom out of wall. For 30 seconds they look v. pretty. Then I think "enough already". BUT I CANNOT STOP THEM.

Click desperately all over area with butterflies to no avail. Seek out all butterfly-related objects in inventory and delete. And still they come. Log out and log back in. Butterflies greet me cheerfully as I arrive. In end IM vendor and ask how to stop them. Argh.

Last photo shows me perched on wall, looking down on butterflies in doomed fascination.