I communicate with Lindens and order an island. And upgrade to Premium

Islands ordered: 1 (v. good); Emails sent to Lindens: 1 (OK); Emails received from Lindens: 2 (good); Upgrades to account: 1 (pointless)

Cannot remember if mentioned previously that have been granted money by Centre for Inquiry based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences (CILASS) to buy island (!!!) and pay island fees for a year. In fact also tried to get money to cover a bit of colleagues' time, but no go. However colleagues still up for it so am going ahead with bit less teaching than hoped for.

Order form short but puzzling, namely it asks for Tax ID no. to prove nonprofit status (there being 50% discount for same) and not sure what to put there, since am not in USA. Ask our Finance office and they suggest Charitable Status Reference number. Decide that should ask Linden Labs in advance if this OK.

There starts my quest since SL site cunningly devoid of email addresses and before get to query form on website have to navigate through one of those multiple choice thingies where none of the choices are actually what you want to ask and they don't even provide an "other".

Anyway, negotiate form, fill in to best of ability, click send and hope for speedy reply. Reply indeed speedy, taking form of email telling me to bog off as only a Basic resident and thus only entitled to ask q.s if avatar vanishes off face of SL or similar dire circumstance. Of course email does not actually say "bog off".

Somewhat cross. Decide to try and contact a British Linden (i.e. British employee of Linden Labs, they are all called Linden, cute or what). Had heard him speak at Eduserv conf and finally track down correct email at end of his ppt slide. Send off cogent yet slightly tetchy email.

Result! British Linden does not reply, but had evidently circulated it efficiently round Lindenplex as receive replies separately from Claudia and Jay Linden apologising for difficulties and saying that can ignore Tax ID field if from UK. Can give them constructive feedback in return i.e. in that case why doesn't it say so.

Am so bedazzled by this Linden response immediately sign up for Premium account. If had done this first would have not had this bother since now I am entitled to speak to live human being. Anyway, trying not to brood too much on my irrational behaviour, fill in various pages of island order form and finally receive emails confirming that Sheila Webber of University of Sheffield, 211 Portobello Street (that's me in RL) will take delivery of 1 island of 64K square meters in due course. Gosh. Undoubtedly first time have purchased island in any Life.

Have selected Island Shape 4, if anyone is interested.

1st 2 photos show me on other parts of Eduserv island: looking at poster for RL event which will be attending on 20 Sept, and with an art installation "Do Androids dream of electric sheep". Last pic shows me at poster session of SLCC of which more anon.

Garment Making

Garments created successfully: 6 (good); Garments created unsuccessfully and deleted: 5 (bad)

Decided that must follow custom and create freebie clothing to publicise Centre for Information Literacy Research. Have decided that if create clothes of any merit will offer them free as incentive to visit office.

In RL never wear t-shirts with round necks or t-shirts with logos and have felt no need to start in SL either, however seems de rigeur to offer logo t-shirt. Therefore sought out info on how to do this.

Found good powerpoint on how to make a customized t-shirt on that excellent resource Slideshire, namely http://www.slideshare.net/trottahe/making-a-tshirt-in-second-life by Heidi TeeCee and Corwin Carillon.

This led to link to their v. good "Hit the ground running" page http://sl.nmc.org/wiki/NMC2007_Hit_The_Ground_Running which will bookmark for use by students & colleagues. Includes link to template of a shirt (for use in Photoshop) http://www.heiditrotta.com/second_life/rswt_shirt.psd and also Robin Wood's Second Life tutorials site (template is his) http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/SL-Tuts/SLTutSet.html

Followed through Wood's tutorial for creating t-shirt with logo in Adobe Photoshop. Already use Photoshop a lot, but only in elementary way e.g. had never really bothered with Layers. Found tutorial v. good and easy to follow. Would recommend it.

Had not previously realised that if don't want garments to look strange swirly mess have to use templates which have garment elements on them. Having created the template with patterns and colours of choice in RL, then import image to SL and use it as Texture when creating garment.

There is the SL official collection of templates http://secondlife.com/community/templates.php, their Texture Templates http://secondlife.com/community/textures.php and Chip Midnight's templates http://goodies.onrez.com/shop/chipmidnight/ Also useful areTexturing Tips forum http://forums.secondlife.com/forumdisplay.php?f=109

Made some mistakes e.g.
- When using Linden Labs template forgot to hide background layer initially which led to garments all having strange lines on them. Photoshop Layers were in fact mystery to me before now and still have not quite got hang of them.
- Still can't work out where different parts of the sleeve end up (front, back or side of arm)
However, reasonably satisfied with first efforts. Pictured here are:
1) A Nigl Forder t-shirt (Nigl is one of my colleagues). There is also a Sheila Yoshikawa t-shirt.

2) Centre for Information Literacy Research t-shirt. This is female version (as with Nigl t-shirt - men's versions have higher necks and are longer)

3) Black Dept of Info Studies outfit. LL provide a black leather jacket template, which customised with Sheffield University logo on lapel, name of Dept on back of the jacket (not seen), Information Managers written on sleeve (not quite in position intended) and Information Managers down side of trousers. Also made clumpy black leather shoes.

4) and 5) Patterned shirt with no logos on (me lounging by the pool in Bedfordia, as in pic 2) It is worn with White Lily trousers, a white camisole from an ICING dress set (just seen, as they say in women's magazines), and some of the Earthtones jewels that I bought in their sale.

Search within Second Life: challenge or disaster?

Meetings held: 1 (good); Computer crashes: zero (v. good)

Held 2nd discussion session in Centre for Information Literacy Research ( Eduserv Island 200 240 43 – the SLURL is http://tinyurl.com/28ef2t ) Search within Second Life: challenge or disaster? Decided not to publicise meeting too much, as still learning about facilitating discussions in SL, also only just back from a few days on RL holiday. Meeting was at 9pm UK time, and had brief panic when took ages to login via computer in student lab which has better graphics than mine (sigh).

Attended by 3 people from UK, one from USA and one from France. Had prepared notecard with questions for discussion and put notecard in Butterfly picture for people to retrieve.

BTW if you want to read no further we agreed the answer to question posed by title was "disaster", point proved by fact that inworld search function was mostly down during our session. Have posted discussion, with permission of participants, on web at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=70. This is using a nice publishing tool created by someone at Leeds Metropolitan University.

Blurb and questions in notecard were as follows:
1. What are the strong and weak points of the inbuilt search function in SL?
2. What are the types of search where it is invaluable?
3. Are there good inworld search services developed by others?
4. Are there types of search where you always have to go outside?
5. Are there search engines on the web that people turn to repeatedly?
6. How could Search in SL be improved?
7. How can residents be encouraged to search effectively?

As can see from chat transcript, we identified a few strengths in inbuilt SL search e.g. that can do different types of search with tabs, and no. of visitors does give some indication of sites worth visiting. However, identified more weaknesses e.g. that search very crude, can't refine search, a good number of "stop" words that can't search on (which is not obvious), also people not always good at putting meaningful words in titles and description thus making stuff harder to find.

No-one had tried any of the inworld-type search options created by others except that Ishbel had tried second411 (see URL below) and at that time it didn't function. Old friend Google, and (in particular) using other people, in world and in RL, was more useful. Ishbel mentioned a specialist search site created by chemists to find molecular structures in SL (web address given in chat transcript).

Since we didn't know of a good place to go for advice on SL searching, the official help site being generally agreed to be rubbish, have decided will try to set something up e.g. a wiki. Don't want to duplicate others' work so will do a few checks first.

Also in notecard (which can be obtained in CILR office) were links to pages on the web, as follows:

Second Life Resident Resources (links, with descriptions supplied by suppliers): Search tools: http://secondlife.com/community/resident_resource.php?category=6
Second411: http://second411.com/ - search on the web and inworld using the search HUD (Ishbel had tried this but it wasn't functioning)
Second life search toolbar: http://secondlifesearch.ourtoolbar.com/ (I just downloaded this, will report on its utility)
Second life search blog: http://secondlifesearch.blogspot.com/
Sloog: http://www.sloog.org/ - can add tags (keywords) to sites etc that you have found
SLquery http://www.slquery.com./
An article on search engine optimization in SL: it's interesting to see things from the seller’s perspective: Berkowitz, D. (2006) Second Life optimization. October 24th. http://blogs.mediapost.com/search_insider/?p=387

Forgot to take photos til near the end of the discussion, so grateful to Harumi W for 1st photo. Last photo was taken after the meeting when was overrun by cats having discovered had 3 living and one deceased in inventory (Mitsy usually ends up falling out of the office to the ground below and being returned to my Lost and Found Inventory). One Mitsy is quite enough, frankly.

Earthtones sale

Bracelet sets bought: 1 (good); Money saved in sale: lots (good); Necklaces bought: 4 (bad, but in a good way)

Earthtones is favourite jewellry store, so must mention that there is sale on, lots of items lined up outside store with 50% off. Had gone there to pick up necklace to match new clothes that had made (will save that for later post) and discovered sale.

Of course this is invitation to consume madly so clicked happily until inventory weighed down with 2 Maya necklace/ earring sets, matching bracelets for one Maya necklace, multicoloured crescent necklace & more modest jewel pendant with changing colour stones. Wheee!

First pic shows me wearing one of Maya necklaces with granny shrug plus dress from ICING. Second pic shows me in Boho wooden necklace unfortunately not in sale, had bought this on previous visit. Am also wearing earrings in both pictures but earrings mostly waste of money with my new hair since it covers them up. Earthtones sale is on til 23rd August, http://earthtonesboutique.blogspot.com/ coordinates in SL Bushido Bay (76, 236, 24).

PS am not being given any free stuff for this advert.

Unfortunately.

First Information Literacy Meeting!

Discussions held: 1 (good); People attending: 3 (good); Percentage of conversation contributed by self: 85 (bad, and that’s counting lines not words)

Yesterday held first Information Literacy (IL) discussion in office. Not publicised much at all so no surprise that v. few people turned up but was what wanted really as enabled it to be Learning Experience though also hopefully not waste of time for others.

Was based on IL research map created for RL conference earlier in year. Map is on wall in office and can also download it from http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/
Had created v. large version of map in advance and positioned it under office so could slide it up around to highlight bits was talking about. Had wondered about positioning it in air above office, but wondered if this might be too difficult for others flying about it. Think will try this out with colleague Yuxuan who was one of those to attend, to see which he thinks is best.
Was question early on about Delphi study (is type of survey, used when you want to get expert consensus, 3 pairs of students have done studies quoted on poster) so actually spent lot of time explaining that. Will put up extract from the explanation when get back to office, am currently away) On going back see that Yuxuan actually picked up on a particular point on the poster and I just steamed on regardless. Note to self: need to improve “SL listening skills”.
One question that came up was IL research and Continuing Professional Development for practitioners. At legal librarians conference that spoke at in June, when talked about legal librarians’ ideas of priorities for IL, a couple of people said that the Delphi method sounded interesting & they might use it. Thought this was encouraging in showing that learning about research methods can be interesting to professionals, when can see application in their own RL.
Also raised was whole issue of literacies. Yuxuan (shown in final photo) said “I think there is a danger in presenting literacies (e.g. computer literacy, e-literacy ... even information literacy) as if they exist in some objectivist way. It seems to me that [ultimately] everyone has their conception of a particular literacy, although there seems to be more agreement about some literacies (e.g. information literacy).” Also later Tiana mentioned SL as vehicle for literacy and possible interest in looking at overlap between IL and ICT literacy. Apart from twisting Yuxuan’s arm to lead a discussion in future, also thought that having session(s) on “literacies” might be interesting crossover event IL/education/ICT people.

Event v. useful in thinking how could do things better. Obviously can ask people to look at notecard or outside-world item like pdf or ppt, but not everyone wants to do “homework” before an event. This one was actually flagged up as me explaining, so think it was OK me saying a fair bit. Am thinking about ways to make next one more interactive, though also some people just like to listen and shouldn’t be forced.
One thing I thought was that could identify some colleague in group to IM with questions about SL basics e.g. for people who aren’t sure about moving round or touching things so can ask privately. First photo shows Tiana, Kristina (typing), Yuxuan and me (standing up)
On a more serious note, as you will see, wore almost same outfit as to CITASA conference. Different black top had shorter sleeves, exposing wrists and neccessitating trip to EARTHONES store to get bracelets matching necklace.

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.

Shoe success

Pairs of shoes worn straight from box: 1 (good, but men's); Pairs of shoes modified successfully to fit: 1 (v. good)

Have managed to buy pair of shoes which successfully modified (i.e. stretched) after purchase.

Had initially thought was doomed to life of slippers and men's shoes (see first pic) which are actually OK for some outfits but lacking in certain delicacy.

However managed to buy pair of flattish shoes which even go with outfit and have cute dragonflies on which stretched to fit nicely.



Bought same style in red. Name of maker is IDENTITY and there is actually a dress to go with shoes, but decided against purchase.

Alarming event

Virtual cat corpses discovered: 1 (bad); Virtual live cats discovered in inventory: 1 (good)

Made alarming discovery when walking round under office by Art's secret cave, namely what appeared to be Mitsy on her side stiff and motionless.

She had evidently fallen out of office and used up all 9 lives in one go. As can see from second pic her eyes had strange glazed look, but to be honest she always looks like that. Stared at her for a while and appeared to discern movement so took her into inventory, moved to office and them placed her on floor. However she remained inert.

Panic over when discovered have another copy of Mitsy in inventory and when place HER she scurries around in normal random and wilful fashion. Phew!

Live Mitsy has scant respect for motionless twin, pushing her around just like she does everything else.

Took twin back into inventory. Seems disrespectful just to DELETE her.

Feet; First shrug

Time spent editing feet: 30 mins (good); No. of pairs of shoes bought which still don't fit: All, except a pair of white slippers (bad); Time wasted trying to discover where bought these slippers: 1 hour (bad)

Have realised that have serious problem with feet, namely are so large that shoes disappear into them. This is illustrated in first pic.

Had cherished idea that fact they looked strange was due to rubbish nature of my graphics card but now see that feet look dreadful in other people's photos too.

Now have additional access to computer loaded with SL software in students' computer lab. This has better graphics card and so spend some time editing feet (as have previously said on own computer when try to edit self or clothes it crashes at once). Make them thinner and shrink to size 38. This is smallest that can make feet without them looking weird in relation to rest of body. However, most shoes still smaller and fail miserably in attempt to try and get them to stretch. Surely must be able to unless everyone in SL immediately shrinks feet down to miniscule size.

Apart from white slippers (see pic.), when wear shoes just see odd parts of them poking through flesh which is rather disturbing. Spend some time fruitlessly searching for place where bought slippers, to get some more in different colours. Will have to seek further advice.

Meanwhile, also make first attempt at clothes. Create new jacket, shrink sleeves, make shorter and have small opening at front to create shrug effect. Use texture of cherry blossom. This is illustrated in photo. Realise that easy to make clothes, but that creating all the fabric, seam and detailing effects needs expertise, which currently lack. However, may be possible to make simple CILR promotional items.

You start to worry when...

1. Browsing for clothes in RL you think "that would look good on me in Second Life"

2. Shopping in Marks & Spencers, you have the urge to right click on a dress and select BUY

3. You have to remind yourself that in RL putting that dress in your shopping cart is not going to cost you $400 Linden dollars, but rather £50 i.e. $25,000 Linden dollars

4. You suddenly realise that you have probably spent $25,000 Linden dollars on stuff in SL in only 2 months. Mostly on clothes.

Like those in the picture. Isn't the outfit cute? And the crochet top was so cheap! Only $50 Linden. I think it tones really nicely with the skirt (and so on, and so on)

Fixing things; Visit; Fashion

Guided visits: 1 (good); Items fixed in Centre for Information Literacy Research Office: 2 (good, but could do better); Outfits bought: 1 (unless you count the leggings and shrugs in which case it's about 20)

After orgy of SL activity leading up to CILR office launch have tried to spend less time in SL and more in catching up with RL work backlog plus enjoying fact that this seems to be week in which North of England has its summer.

Was some essential SL work, namely fixing copyable bear that noone could copy and suggestions box in which noone could leave suggestions. Main prob. was issue of Permissions which appear complex and not entirely satisfactory even when know what you are doing, to judge by various posting and tutorials found.

In terms of bear have enabled people to Buy it for zero Linden Dollars which appears to work. In terms of box, have replaced Potlatch Box with simple 1 prim box in which people can drop notecards if members of Information Literacy Group. Aim is to collect suggestions on future events in Centre and MK has already suggested 2 ideas, hurrah.

Do not point out in box's instructions that can obviously join IL Group briefly in order to drop suggestion and then unjoin from IL Group once suggestion dropped. Hopefully people with constructive suggestions will work this out and spammers won't. Suppose it is rule of Life that if anything will be other way round i.e. people wanting to cause trouble will do so.

Other big SL activity since last writing was visit to meeting space (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wasp/74/31/86/) of Australian educators, with guided tour from Jokay Wollongong and Sean McDunnough. Jokay and Sean have excellent Second Life in Education wiki at http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/. AF was there too, always nice to have someone you know turn up at these events. Was amusing incident with broom in hairdressing salon, also whilst everyone sitting professionally in conference forum think outsider intruded to perform dance on stage and fart but everyone ignored politely and continued listening to Sean talking about educational approaches. Believe this behaviour called Griefing.

Event useful for learning movement and conversation skills as well as learning about education. Shown various info boards, conference hall & also sim of hairdressing salon for use by hairdressing students to learn communication skills etc. (see second photo) There are some more pics of this event by Jokay on flickr e.g. this one (that's me with the blue hair and long black skirt)

Finally could not get through last days without usual shopping excursions have found good place to buy leggings and shrugs, staples in any wardrobe, from Frustrated Inc. Discovered this place through Closet Crisis, v. good blog at http://www.closetcrisis.com/

Last photos shows self in consumption mode.

Launch, addenda

Balloons removed after launch: 12 (sad); Emails about launch from colleagues: 1 (good)

This brief post to catch up with more pics from launch. First one from flickr collection of Pete Johnston, reproduced with kind permission, as they say. All his pics (linked from last post) are good, but this is nice in showing view of whole office with people in and celebration balloons.

IH has also put up some pics, including one which displays her dress nicely and a good one of me.
Finally here are two photos taken half an hour before launch. At that point was having last minute panic about which necklace to wear and making sure that cat in place and all food and drink in order. Photos show, however, that not all guests alive with anticipation.

In first pic see guest so excited that has slumped asleep over coffee in corner (at least cat Mitsy has stayed awake).

In 2nd pic see another guest so relaxed has climbed onto coffee maker and zizzed off. Had slight hysterics when this happened, indeed colleague phoned up at this point in RL and found was almost unable to speak, fortunately colleague knows of SL obsession and was tolerant.

Launch!

Centre for Information Literacy Research launched in SL: 1 (v. good); No of people attending: 12 (v. good); Drinks consumed: lots (good); No. of times computer crashed when about to start welcoming speech: 2 (v. bad)

Am recovering from general hysteria induced by hosting first virtual gathering. Generally counted a success and already some nice coverage of event. Art Fossett blogged about event here on his blog and there are excellent photos from Peregrine Juneau here on flickr

Have prepared press release and since have not said on this blog what Centre actually IS , here is the link to the Centre's website: http://www.shef.ac.uk/is/cilr/ . Centre also launched in RL this week and hasn't physical office, is more a focus for information literacy activity & liaising with other researchers. So to have SL office is v. nice as well as giving justification for designing roof gardens and buying launch-party outfits (although as see in pics in end am wearing old butterfly skirt, though with newish top and latest batch of jewellry).
Good things were that 4 other people from my Department attended, plus Maggie Kohime from the library. 2 people (Art and Peregrine) attended from Eduserv (who donated office space). Also were 4 people from outside including IH. Managed to give speech welcoming people (more on that in a moment), Art gave v. elegant speech and I presented gift box. Then were some interesting conversations. Party lasted about 1 hour which is longer than had thought.

Will talk in future posts about various features that installed in office last night in flurry of activity. One of these was the bear poster (Pegegrine has good photo on flickr) of which was rather proud, which instructed people how to copy freebie bear. Bear (illustrated here) is blue in colour with CILR written on ears, "I love information literacy" text hovering over it and a notecard inside with basic info on the Centre plus some useful links etc. on infolit.

Half way through party when drink etc. had oiled wheels of conversation emerged that in fact must have got permissions wrong as people weren't able to copy bear, thus detracting from its cuteness. Will need to investigate this but couldn't fix immediately as bear is formed of linked objects. Lesson here about perils of tinkering with SL scripting when actually have zero idea of how it works and am merely cutting and amending in line with helpful tutorials found through googling on web.
Other major embarrassment was that computer crashed TWICE, of course waiting until was about to begin welcoming speech. Was trying to paste in lines from prepared MS Word script and machine couldn't cope with all activity on screen plus that. When got back in computer evidently had enough, since was only inworld for 3 mins before got dreaded screen of death.

Was saved by colleague who had logged in computer in lab so was able to continue from there. If am going to organise any other events will have to use that from beginning.

Anyway, have other snippets to blog including Embarrassing Photos of Colleagues, but will save that for another time. Visitors had v. good ideas for discussion topics & people kindly saved transcript of session so can pick through it in detail at leisure.

1st photo shows Ishebel, plus Nigl and Yuxuan from my Department (Nigl's photo is also on the sliddeshow behind him). The 2nd photo shows Art's speech, the 3rd photo shows the bear and the fourth the conversation after the launch.

Preparing to launch

Colleagues guided into SL: 1 (good); Bears created: 1 (good); Photo panel prepared: 1 (good); New hair ornaments purchased: 6 (bad); Wedding dresses bought: 1 (v. bad); No. of times disappeared completely in limbo: 1 (v. v. bad)

Frantic preparations in train for launch of Centre for Information Literacy Research at 5.30 SL time (1.30 pm UK time). The location of CILR office is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduserv%20Island/
200/240/43/?title=CILR%20Office i.e. Eduserv Island 200 240 43 - so feel free to come along and join the jollifications.

AF should be there to receive thanks, also several colleagues promise to be inworld and IH & CH. Have Modified virtual teddy bear found in gianormous gift pack so now is different colour and with cute ears (IMHO). Anyway, will reveal all at opening. Also have found script for getting photos to cycle through in a frame so have loaded that with pics of me & 2 colleagues. V. arty I think.

Have put up loads of balloons, apologised to AF for excess prims, prepared extra food and drink, updated notecards.... so hope is not disaster e.g. completely mistaking time. Have last minute dither about what to wear to launch and made v. bad purchase of what is actually wedding dress and although v. lovely is not v. suitable in particular because so huge & fluffy scarcely any room for other avatars in office. Current choice is therefore butterfly dress.

Worst experience of evening was when shopping and suddenly found self in inky limbo (see first pic.) unable to move and then UNABLE TO SEE SELF at all. Was as though avatar completely vanished, not at all what you want when about to have major professional event, so was v. relieved when self reappeared after logging out and back in. 2nd photo show self in short skirted outfit that have decided not to wear to launch.

Freebies 2

Helicopters found in gift bag: 1 (v.good); Fireplaces found in gift bag: 1 (OK); Friendship bears found in gift bag: 1 (v. useful); Fig trees found in gift bag: 1 (v.good) (and so it goes on)

Main part of this entry will highlight some of the more unusual gifts found in a SL educator's gift bag. First, however, will mention 1st pic which features dress free from Vicious (SL nightclub) exhibition stand at Blogher. The photo was taken in quaintly picturesque Amacitia.

It is worn with burgandy mesh jacket from another suit, and a recent purchase, namely smart briefcase. Latter is of course completely and utterly pointless since all items actually carried in Inventory, but decided that makes the short skirt look businesslike rather than come-hither. In this photo that endeavour undermined somewhat by glimpse of stocking top, so have now removed those leaving only more sedate footless tights.

So on to the mega-freebie giftbag that picked up at the CHSS Instructor Resource Center. Was evidently given out at SL Best practices in Education conference and am seen standing next to it in 2nd pic. There is also some more free stuff including copies of the Jack and Jill boxes that have clothes etc. of use to newbies. As am bona fide educator and intend educating in SL feel that legitimate in picking up bag, through truth to tell has no. of things v. useful to others e.g.
White marble fireplace with flickering fire
Bookcase
Fig tree
Bluebells
Assortment of shirts and trousers
Balloons
Large picture of Shakespeare with embedded sonnet (every home should have one)
Lots of things the use of which have not yet worked out

Most immediately exciting was working helicopter . Got in and zoom off we go at rather alarming rate in that controls work (perhaps) in helicopter like way and am hopeless at straightening up. Before know it am lost in vast horizon and takes while to spot Home and set course back.

So now have helicopter in inventory. Cool.

BTW you will notice broadness and emptyness of horizon. This is because lively Imagination Island which was next door has DIASAPPEARED. Was puzzled abou this until read Art Fossett's blog in which he complains about noise and disruption and had put in request to LL to get Eduserv Island moved somewhere quieter. If only RL were that simple.

Freebies: 1

Freebie hats tried on: 4 (good); Freebie suits: 3 (good: except I can't find what I did with one of them); Freebie T-shirts: 2 (OK, if you like t-shirts)

During the BlogHer conference did tour of associated exhibition. Intriguing assortment of stands e.g. makeovers, charities, water features (!), fashion.

Have already published pic of me with free bunch of flowers, though what couldn't see in pic. was that had some advertising text hanging over it thus rendering it useless as ornament or gift.

Anyway, have always been interested in exhibition freebiews. In RL was instigator of the Inform Golden Daffodil Award for the best freebie at the Online Exhibition (n.b. this is true).

At the time was Editor of Inform (now defunct newsletter of the now defunct Institute of Information Scientists). First award was plastic daffodil sprayed gold, won by the Datastar clickers if I recall, and for a few fleeting years it became quite a cult thing for the online content producers to try and win it.

Also have cultivated technique for gliding round exhibition swiping freebies when exhibitors are otherwise occupied. However in RL these freebies generally consist of mousemats, pens, flimsy cotton bags and useless novelty items with with logos on.
In contrast at SL at BlogHer exhibition they consisted of entire trouser suits and giant picture hats. In fact suits were not completely free, but cost of $10 Linden equates to 2 pence which I think amounts to same thing.

In these pictures I have mostly chosen to model the hats, free from Ohio State University. In fact when took them assumed that because they were called suffragist hats were going to have suffragette mottos on. However they just seem to be large hats as possibly worn by suffragettes.

If ever attend a wedding or race meeting, they will be just the thing. (Although, what with Emily Davison and all perhaps should forget about race meetings) In fact, could wear one to official opening of Centre, would certainly be talking point.

The second picture is of one of the suits swiped for $10 Linden from Gidge Uriza's stand. As she was also the generous person who gave me $500 Linden at the disco she merits a special mention and indeed a link: http://livefromthewangofamerica.blogspot.com/

Other freebies included BlogHer t-shirts. However, as in RL, don't find short sleeved t-shirts that flattering, so doubt whether they will get much of an outing. Oh also got: free tiara (courtesy of Queen of Spain blog); and whilst having a look round exhibition at night when thought all would be clear was waylaid by VB of Vicious nightclub who tried to lure self to his stand with offers of free clothes. Will include pics of booty from there in next post, which will also mention the most gianormous gift bag ever (we are talking HELICOPTERS....]