I Thought I Was So Over Julia Hathor

Sparkly moon gardens bought: 1 (enchanting)

Although have dozens of houses in inventory, some unrezzed, was prepared to be captivated by some new residence at the Home and Gardens Expo. What had not expected was to be right-click-select-buy-ing on an item by Julia Hathor.
Now, Julia Hathor was designer of first treehouse on Infolit iSchool, in fact at one point island was positive shrine to Hathor, since also had Fairy Bridge, Magic Apple Tree Bridge and Magic Apple Tree. 2 apple tree items are still in situ, near hobbit home (even though pose on Magic Apple Tree went wonky, so you get swallowed by the tree), but tree house and bridge have gone way of all prims, i.e. deleted in favour of newer items.
Old tree house had a waterfall grove at the bottom, spiral staircases (impossible to negotiate, one of the reasons it went), elegant viewing terraces, a splashy pool halfway up the tree, and a nice patio nook with cushions at the top, plus lanterns, nature sounds and some sort of bird of prey. Have numerous pics (e.g. here) of Ishbel and I floating in the pool, Marilena posing elegantly at the poolside, teaching meetings in the top treehouse room etc. Feel quite nostalgic just writing about it.
However don't think was just nostalgia that prompted the click-buy. Products definitely seem improved, but basically as soon as entered moon garden, all with moonbeam twinkles and lush grass and meditation pads and a waterfall and a cool tree-climbing animation - it is is all just SO PRETTY and so SL that I thought - blow realistic baked-in shadows and artfuly distressed concrete - this is Magic.

Was going to replace greenhouse with moon garden, but as noted yesterday, have decided greenhouse is too cute to delete, so it was summery coast house that went. Did a fraps of the house before deleting.
With 600 prims at disposal, rezzed moon garden and set about decorating. The thing about a Hathor garden is that it is pretty much loaded with stuff already, but think sometimes you just have to go over the top, so piled on some more plants, a bird bath, a bird feeder, birds, beer, knitting, more birds, buterflies, more plants, more butterflies and a cute rabbit. I put on my fairy crown and rode my fairy steed around, for added effect.

Yesterday got Pancha to come along and lounge with me by the waterfall. Think this makes the cuteness complete.

RL/ SL /ZOMG lol

ZOMG moments: 1 (embarrassing, but sort of cool); OMG moments: 1 (v. bad); No. of La Rinascente bags collected: 7 (bad); No of free autumn leaf blowers discovered: 1 (good)

Am back from Milan now, but am recalling a ZOMG lol moment from RL. Was a special concert (for harp and stradavarius violin) put on for the conference in Milan Cathedral. As cathedral is v.v.v. big, are 2 giant video screens either side of nave so audience can actually see what is going on at the front. Was swaying along in trance like state to one of the pieces when in corner of eye caught sight of own face magnified to horrible effect on screens. Perhaps was only person in audience that seemed to be enjoying things. At any rate was rather offputting, and found myself thinking "If this was SL, would be saying ZOMG lol at this point" So, now I have.

Also had special conference event in La Scala opera house in RL and celebrated that by doing fashion shoot in the SL La Scala replica. Whilst was doing this, Heyjude asked me to test out her voice audability, and 1st pic shows that. She was going to meet Claudia Linden, posh, forgot to ask her why.

Otherwise, Milano set me pondering about RL vs. SL shopping. Am displaying in 2nd pic evidence that can shop in RL. Appear to have had subconcious urge to collect every size and style of bag available in La Rinascente. La Rinascente is similar to Liberty's in London, in that after about 10 mins everything under 100 Euros seems incredibly cheap, which is how ended up with dinky packet of pasta costing 4 Euros and chocolates costing a mere, ahem, 20.
One RL/SL difference is that in RL, esp. as was Milan, decided to wear most elegant garb for swanning round and looking at RL frocks. Similarly, when went to opera could adorn self with jewels, shoes and shawls without worrying that fashion police would be checking my Avatar Rendering Count. In other words, in SL you (or I) (or other fashion bloggers) buy lots of stuff, mainly to dress up on own or with a few close friends, and take pics of self, but cannot wear full finery at kind of events (dances, concerts, fashion shows) where would dress up in RL, because it would add to the lag. At shoe/hair/skin/clothes fairs you are even encouraged to abandon your hair.
In contrast only fashion moments in RL were officials stopping women with bare arms from going into cathedral, and ordering them to put on MORE clothes.
Today's OMG moment was less pleasant in that something is evidently wrong with home PC, since after a shortish time screen went multicoloured and then blank, and when rebooted and feverishly started running virus checkers and diagnostic stuff, in mid-check screen just froze and blanked. Oh well, will persevere with checks.
On a happier note have bought some cute landscaping stuff. Got pack for most realistic and sparkly waterfall ever (from New Trails), though also, has to be said, the most laggy. Has four layers to each part, including particles and mist, and can put together combination of waterfall, water panel, water curve and water pillows to very pleasing effect.

Also found new shop (called SHD) with tweeting 2 prim birds, stone dragon that hisses at you, nice autumn ground cover and very pretty Xmas lanterns, all at reasonable prices. Also there is a freebie instore, this leaf blower, and there are some freebie stone plants (little plants that look like stones, have seen them in RL In botanical gardens) hidden in an angel as part of - some hunt or other.

Blowing bubbles & getting the bird

Demonstrations of SL given to VIPs: 1 (good); Sets of cute tweeting and twitching birds bought: 2 (good); No. of pillars in 7 pillars of information literacy: 7 (good)

Am slowly integrating back into first life at work, though remains bit of a struggle. Was particularly busy on Thursday as our Departmental Advisory Panel (or those of them that could get through the RL snow) were visiting us. I had organised the Teaching & Learning exhibition part of the day, which included some posters about Innovative Modules and student research, some demos of multimedia objects created by students and on the Big Screen, demos of Wimba & SL. Not simultaneously, I should add. Wimba sounds like a SL name, but is online learning package used in distance learning programme.

For SL I did a broom tour of island, then zoomed over to the 7 Pillars build, tp-ed over to Liverpool Uni to see Graham's molecules, then back to highlight some cute bits like Hobbiton. Was able to dispel idea that it's all about people doing fantasy stuff for recreational purposes (though suppose that showing people bees buzzing round flowers in Hobbit home may not give right message ....)
Will be doing abbreviated repeat this week as this Friday Dept. has visit from Vice Chancellor i.e. head honcho in the university. We will be giving tightly timetabled tour of learning stuff and research stuff, so am thinking of asking some Friends to come along to look impressive and interactive at key point. Can actually kill multiple birds by putting up research and teaching posters in SL.

Talking of birds, have bought some v. cute birds from HappyMood, also hung round for ages to get free Bubble Chairs (chairs in the form of giant soap bubbles) from the HappyMood lucky chair. Have formed 14 of these into a little Bubble Chair Circle on a transluscent platform, which looks particularly cute when partially submerged or up in air (see first pic). Inevitably, since was waiting round for lucky chair on a HappyMood rocking horse, also ended up buying one of those. It is Copy, so can make Rocking Chair circle too.