Waiting; Tolerating; Curating

Years since last blog post: 1 (bad); Exquisite outfits bought since last post: innumerable (good); New rentals since last post: none (good).

Had "can't remember when last blogged, hope not so long ago blog disappears" moment. Turns out was a year ago and evidently at that point had grand plans to post detailed account of moving in to Ahiru. Well, moved in and have moving-in pics somewhere but probably on other computer so moving on. 

Was on VWEC duty today which involves standing or sitting about on the VWEC welcome platform (see pics 1 and 2), and then if anyone appears offering to help induct them into the wonderful educator's paradise that is Second Life. Have chosen slot at 9am Friday my time, which is 1am SL time, and after ??? months of duty only meaningful interaction has been with European educator I already know, who happened to have a holiday and so was mooching around in SL, as you do.

 Nearest apart from that was someone who rezzed and stood motionless for half an hour or so not responding to helpful chat and IM, turns out they were waiting for someone, so had to mean they already had communication and wayfinding skills but hadn't learned how to turn on BUSY so they could block out irritating IMs from busybodies "trying to help".

Will see that in 1st pic am wearing cute Chinese outfit, which spotted on Spectacledchic's Flickr feed and snapped up as soon as Kustom9 opened. Oodles of colour options for different bits, but ended up with blue, because, blue is best, and then homed in on these great boots when finally got into Fameshed. Fameshed was delayed by about a day as SL was having a Moment, or rather a moment lasting several hours whilst its servers fell over and they had to Roll Back to Previous Version a couple of times which meant the work people had done in setting up their booths had disappeared. 

Wasn't all the servers, and in fact the point at which realised that it wasn't just me not able to get to the sims I wanted was when saw chat on the Fameshed group inworld with people complaining they'd been waiting 3 hours for event to open and Fameshed people explaining the situation. As sidenote, is annoying when the place you want to loginto is vapour, and it sends you to one of the ghastly Welcome Hubs instead. With  mesh bodies, you just get used to lots of people initially rezzing naked before all the clothing bits cludge together. However if you happen to have been rezzed at an adult Hub, the point comes where you realise I AM IN FACT SURROUNDED BY PEOPLE WITH NO OR SCANTY CLOTHES THERE IS NO MORE TO REZ think they are aiming at the target market of those who have read media slurs about SL being all about sex. 

Hope don't have this happen when am doing demo for colleagues about SL, as would feed into stereotype, though of course last paragraph demonstrates that stereotype has some foundation. Am putting together lovingly curated link of annotated links about life in SL for this demo, though is possible that only person who'll read them all is me. Always have to remember although think SL and all its paratexts are entrancing, awesome, rich, creative etc. etc. etc. for some it is dull / weird/ childish etc etc.  

One of things am entranced by is self so here to finish is a pic of me in the Ahiru home, worshipping my otaku-themed PC, snug in the kotatsu. So much cuteness! I could look at it for hours.

Discover am Creative with small c

Mentions in PhD student's talk: too many to (disconcerting)

Decided to follow disconcerted theme, by recalling talk given by student at last week's Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference. Presentation was on creativity in SL teaching and several slides devoted to showing creative development of Sheila Yoshikawa. Used framework of different kinds of creativity, suffice it to say that this blog was given as example of pro-c which came as surprise as is vying for Least-Professional-Output-of-Sheila prize. However, was v. flattering and will take compliments where can get them.

Here is Ridvan showing pics of SY over time. Actually think all of them look v. good. That jacket in first pick is vintage Last Call.  Enough said. Am always happy to look at pictures of self, but felt should be expressing embarrassment in some way. However, is limit to number of times can say lol in text chat without looking idiot. Suffice it to say was glad that was exquisitely dressed in mori girl outfit that had gathered praise from all and sundry (i.e. a couple of people had said cute avi).

Am now pondering how can achieve big C creativity, meaning genius "reserved for the eminent and great".  Am sure that cannot be beyond one's reach in SL. "Your imagination, your world" eh?

Meeting, meeting, winter warmer

No of meetings attended: 2 (good); No. of trees felled: 8 (good); No of trees planted: 7 (good); No. of times have tagged a blog entry with the word "chocolate": 0 until today (surprising: in RL would probably have to tag every day "chocolate")
Invigorated by RL train journey through Peak District (from Manchester to Sheffield; trees and snow look amazing) attended UK SL educators "Second Tuesday" meeting. There were what might be called Usual Suspects in attendance and chat was pleasing mix of banter (new year resolutions; cats; feather costumes; that kind of thing) and useful convo re education. UK educator meetings seems to have higher banter-to-Serious-Stuff ratio which is OK by me. Had not visited Bangor sim (the venue) before so that also interesting.

Couple of hours later was the SL educators roundtable, now renamed in 21st century fashion "Virtual Worlds Educators Roundtable", since meetings also take place in other virtual worlds. Was load of people there and lots of discussion (loosely) around points that one of the Linden's had made in a sort of "state of the grid" blog post. Did not make much contribution and at one point inadvertantly turned Voice Chat on (when checking to see whether someone else had an open microphone, ironic really) and AJ IMed me about it, which is shaming. However, did not have any microphone device plugged in so do not think will have been making much noise, unless laptop was providing own conversational contributions without my knowledge.

Following this checked up on some of my homes; renewing rent on Babylon 5 room, returning a suspicious looking item to its owner from my main home, and also having a look at the African sim where Graham is renting some land. All the African heat reminded me that was intending to make Infolit even more wintery, so tp-ed back, adjusted the ground textures a bit to get full snow in NE corner of Infolit iSchool, and changed trees around greenhouse to wintery ones. Also added an extra winter deer and suddenly remembered had Hot Chocolate Hut in inventory, and put that in too. If you click the cups or dispensor you get mug of warming chocolate with usual drinking animation that throws beverage in rough direction of face. Can then go and bother the deer. No dogs though, please.

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.

Cautionary tales

No. of presentations on SL given to librarians: 2 (good); No. of times that was assured that SL would be installed and it wasn't: 2 (bad); No of people stumbling into SL demo who turn out to be audience members: 1 (bad)

Gave quite a lot of talks at conferences during the last month or so, including some on SL. Two that were just about SL provided some lessons for the future:
1) Lesson 1: When people say SL has been installed, do not believe them.
In both cases we had said that "You will need to install the Second Life browser (at the venue) and you need to test out SL to make sure it works". Have decided that people interpreted this as "You need to make sure that you can go to www.secondlife.com and log in".
Time line for first talk was:
- zero hour minus 2 hours: arrive at venue, am greeted warmly, escorted up to room. Am not able to get into networked PC since greeter does not have password to login. She disappears saying techie will be sent.
- zero hour minus 1 hour 40 mins. 2 other conference speakers have put heads round door and said they are lost and can I help them. I have established that own laptop will sort of do SL with my mobile 3G stick in a laggy kind of way, and plug into the data projector. Co-presenter (Ishbel) arrives.
- zero hour minus 1 hour 20 mins. Ishbel establishes that her laptop works with her mobile stick. Then both our mobile sticks lose signal and SL goes phut. Someone arrives with password for networked PC. We establish that it does not have SL anywhere on it and we cannot install SL since we are not admins. Ishbel phones techie help desk several times and finds that techie has gone to tea; also confirms that that network cable is too short to fix to my laptop. 2nd co-presenter (Lulu) arrives. She does not have a mobile stick, not that this matters, since we have a superfluity of non-functioning mobile sticks.
- zero hour minus 1 hour. Someone arrives with a cable. It is the wrong cable. Finally techie arrives with correct cable, joins network to laptop and We Have Liftoff.

Similar experience with 2nd talk, but in more concentrated form. Networked PC was already switched on, so was quicker job to identify that SL was completely absent from it, and also work of moment to plug my laptop into network and data projector. Also it picked up strong Eduroam wifi signal. Thus seemed all roses at point at which techie arrived: however fraught 20 mins followed as both of us completely failed to get an internet connection, even though laptop insisted it was connected. Breakthrough came 5 mins before zero hour, when one of the audience (who had seen our fumblings via the data projection) gently told us that she had noticed that the WORK OFFLINE box had been ticked. oops.

2) Lesson 2: Do not make fun of avatars.

With 2nd presentation, done jointly with Kitty Mumfuzz (a recruitment specialist in RL), had not prearranged to meet anyone in SL during the SL demo. Have got to point where there are always a couple of Friends online, so thought could probably tp someone in to show there is Life in SL etc. However, this proved needless, since when rezzed, saw that someone was already on Infolit (unknown to me, but think he was from Open University) so was able to say Please Say Hi To A Roomful of Librarians and so forth.
Then yet another person turned up. Thought name was familiar, but couldn't exactly place it. Went through the Say Hi To The Librarians bit, and then went on to do a tour of Infolit. However, the 2nd avatar kept following on behind, which was Ok, but felt a bit awkward since felt I needed to explain what I was saying in RL, but really couldn't do that AND attend to the RL audience.

Thus I resorted to cheap laughs in terms of "Oh dear, here's XXX yet again!" and generally the whole talk seemed to go pretty well and the audience went away smiling. Except that is for the person who approached us at the end and revealed himself as - the 2nd avatar. He had meant to say who he was earlier, but once I started treating him like a joke stalker he felt too embarrassed.

Obviously, felt v. embarrassed myself and was feverishly trying to remember if had said anything really rude about his avi. Was also reminded that had met avi more than once, which heightened embarrassment.

Anyway is certainly something which will bear in mind in future. So, if you happen to meet me and I tell you to Say Hello To The Librarians you can rest assured I will not be mocking your clothes, profile or demeanour, for fear that you are lurking in the audience.
Photos: I didn't take any pics of these experiences. Instead:
The first pic shows the self-affirmation bear. You click him and he gives you random self-affirming thoughts, of varying degrees of humour. I liked: You have a beautiful smile animation. Secondly you see a dance I attended at Cafe Ristretto last Thursday, with live music and benefit to supporting HIV/AIDS awareness. Finally we have a pic of the SL Educators Roundtable that took place last night.

Triumph and embarrassment

SL demos given: 3 (v. good); Vice Chancellors kowtowed to: 1 (good); Tiki spa & pool combos bought: 1 (good, but bad); Strange pants glitches encountered 1 (v.v.bad)
Demo to VC seemed to go pretty well. Schedule was that colleagues started off with Wimba demo, then he was shepherded off to see student multimedia, during which time I swapped SL onto the big screen. Some mild panic since 1) he zipped through our exhibits faster than expected and 2) I spent some time fiddling with connection to data projector before it and my laptop would consent to collaborate.

However, got it sorted out in time and plus side of him getting ahead was that I had nearly 15 mins in SL rather than expected 5. Maggie, Pancha, Graham and Lulu appeared to say Hi and prove that there is Life in SL. He asked some sensible questions and I managed to get in bit about students not having adequate access in the central labs, so hey ho will have to see whether anything comes of this in long run.

Other 2 SL demos were to new batch of Educational Informatics students on Friday, and as quick prelude to talk given this evening as part of CILASS programme. Was wittering on about Inquiry Based Learning in SL, trotting out rather too many research frameworks for learning & teaching and ruminating on how they applied to SL. However, am getting some thoughts together about disciplinarity and SL and if only could apply self to these thoughts with same enthusiasm as that which is employed in shopping, then sure that great educational leaps forward would be made.
On shopping front, decided to splurge on prefab poolside complex, which have arranged at one end of Educational Informatics village. First picture shows me on the Bubble Chair circle, which have installed in one of the pools. Second picture shows me encountering a student in the CILR at the weekend.

Also have (of course) bought more clothes, but most notable clothing incident was embarrassing one of realising that all textures had disappeared from lower half. This meant that underpants, pants, socks and skin on lower half were not showing, so was just white and featureless. This was actually less embarrassing than if skin had remained, since being totally white and featureless made it less Rude. Eventually discovered that this was happening because I was wearing a red Swallowtail cardigan - picture shows me WITH cardigan (and without lower textures) and WITHOUT cardigan (and thus WITH glitch pants and teal-coloured tights). I retained my skirt for modesty. Have since discovered that have same problem with red Korutsobaki cardigan which is one of my favourites and certainly this didn't used to cause problems. Odd.