Sakura

Sakura bonsai bought: 1 (v. good); potted sakura hauled from inventory: 1 (good); sakura petal emitters removed from shop: none (bad)
Today went windsurfing in Bora Bora (for this photoshoot) and ended up browsing round the tikis. Discovered quite a bit of new stuff, including a whole gardening area that was new to me.
Included v. cute display of bonsai (see second picture), and could not resist cherry tree bonsai, which took home and positioned in entrance hall of the chinese house that is tucked on the hillside at Noyo.
From the start in 2007, have named my home land "Sakura" (Japanese for cherry blossom/ tree). So my first plot was called Sakura (as you can see here) and so was the land I have just given up and am still trying to sell ;-(( and now this new land in Noyo has been renamed. Have also kept in part of the original name, Urtahra (see here, Noyo was originally part of the Kahruvel Forest). I always have actual Sakura on my land, and you can see some of them outside in the first picture, a big pink tree near the entrance and some white blossom further off. I am lying on the rocky ground outside, listening to Ishbel's windchime and enjoying the view.
Also did a little bit of tinkering in the room next to the entrance hall, where have put some of my pictures (ex shop), a small sakura in a bamboo pot, an information literacy calendar, and a teleporter to infolit locations.
Have been meaning to put in more information literacy stuff, but so far that and Woolley the Sheep are it. Am wondering about putting Woolley (who contains definitions of information literacy and bleats) with the Heidi House sheep, but he might get an inferiority complex as they are infinitely better made. Well not infinitely, but a good deal.

Have also changed exhibition in my shop. Theme is now Glasgow Botanic Gardens, which visited last week in RL. Am v. fond of it: when lived in Glasgow, Botanics were only 10 minutes walk away. Background photos on walls and floor are of Kibble Palace (which houses national tree fern collection) and there are some photoshopped pictures of the carniverous plant displays plus some pics from a park in Prague. A stone dragon creature creaks and turns head to face you: have been meaning to find somewhere to use him for a while.
Display also includes falling sakura petals. This was not intention. Petals were part of previous display and spent at least 20 minutes trying to find out where the **** the petal emitter was. Tried CTRL ATL T to see invisible prims, cammed all over the shop from various angles and so forth, but thing is nowhere to be found. Anyway, falling petals not wholly inappropriate to this exhibition so in the end gave up.

Manifestations

Publication-related things: 3 (good)

1) Response to the 9th Virtual World Watch snapshot on use of virtual worlds in UK tertiary education: Silversprite decided to put it in full on his blog http://virtualworldwatch.net/2010/07/01/sheila-webber-responds-to-snapshot-9/

2) Paper by me and Adra Letov (or Sheila Webber and Diane Nahl, as we are known outside SL), which am going to present at the World Library and Information Conference in August in Sweden, and which is full text on the IFLA website: Sustaining learning for LIS through use of a virtual world at http://www.ifla.org/files/hq/papers/ifla76/123-webber-en.pdf

3) Was asked permission for reproduction of pic from Flickr, to go in a forthcoming book on digital literacies.

Picture (not the one that is going in the book, BTW) shows me taking some welcome morning coffee, from my new expresso maker. However, am thinking of asking for money back, since (as can be seen) coffee is quite plainly NOT expresso, but (at best) machiatto, and appears to be alarmly thick, given how far am tipping cup without anything dribbling out.

Cute

No. of poses in deer: 13 (unlucky for some?)
After last post decided should actually show cute hair from Exile (have already forgotten name of hair and can't be bothered to log back in and find out. Think it began with a K. Karen? Kerry? Something like that).
Since deer on mountain automatically = cuteness, decided to choose one of the dozen poses available when you sit on deer. Was intending to use Hug Deer pose, but turned out that this meant that ends of hair were poking out of deer's nose which ruined effect rather. Am not 100% sure about this pose, though. Is it cute, or is it just a bit weird?

For second attempt at cuteness posed in new cherry blossom hillside path that leads up from watermelon shop to shrine-y building that just put in, halfway up mountain. Surely can't go wrong with cherry blossom. Think this is probably more straighforwardly charming, but slightly vacuous.

Vacuous or whacky, which is cuter? You decide.

Trying it on

Hair bought: 2 (good)
Today visited Kin, which is shop where bought first proper hair, Kin's Ryuzaki. Rereading that 2007 post, note that at time thought hair might be "too cute". However, compared with some of the stuff have been wearing recently is relatively low on the too-cute scale. Realise that worry about being too-cute has been with me from start, but think that gradually cuteness threshold has risen.

Kin has now gone in for sculpted hair, which as always can be a bit alarming whilst it is rezzing (see first pic.).

However got. v. excited when realised that some of the demo hair at Kin is actually in MY COLOUR i.e. blue, which is something of a first. Normally demo hairs are in some random "normal" colour, and require some hope and imagination to visualise what will look like in blue.

Therefore could not resist buying a new Kin hair (see 2nd pic), which is actually a bit like Ryuzaki, but sculpted, so does not wave around in breeze so much.

Scoured walls to see whether Ryuzaki is still on sale, which it is, and was cheered by that. For months was really the only hair I wore and ended up buying it twice, since the first time around did not know about how you should COPY your hair before stretching it around (for a back up), so first Ryuzaki had to be abandoned in the end as it got somewhat malformed, with strange giant strands. Happy days.

Second hair, BTW, is a newish one from Exile (which does some nice blues). Is another "turning into me" kind of hair, since is long and straight, with a windblown effect. Evidently have learnt little from past experience since couldn't be bothered to copy it and instead started editing and stretching it straight away to try and get rid of bald patches. It still looks cute. Think the new Kin hair is more SL-me, though.

More stuff

Beach huts bought: 1 (patriotic); Weeping willows bought: 1 (pretty but superfluous); Fawn with 13 poses bought: 1 (v. good); Set of scuplted stone and garden stuff bought: 1 (good); Hot springs installed: 1 (v.v. good since was already in inventory)
Despite fact that already have 34,000 items, new land has stimulated consumption lobes, even more so since have actually sold one chunk of land (which is now on sale again at higher price, but would say likelihood of resale is correspondingly smaller). Thus have linden burning holes in virtual pocket.
Have created willowy waterside area, with variety of willows (i.e. willows made by 3 different designers) and decided that needed beach hut to complete this area. By happy chance, one of the offerings for Spruce Up Your Space this weekend was an English beach hut, complete with Union Jack details (actually to be ENGLISH should really just be St George's flag, as currently being torn off a zillion car aerials following the mollocking of England by the Germans in the world cup) (and what's with the blue union jack? perhaps it indeed symbolises the spirit of the nation following defeat).
Anyway, spent happy hour setting hut up and furnishing it with some items from the Bloggers Hut that was a previous SUYS buy, plus a couple of sculpty shells and one of my own pictures (duck on boat in canal, appropriate I thought). Also put in Antique Typewriter that bought ages ago, which tells people whether Sheila Yoshikawa is online and allows them to send me IMs. Obviously am hoping that these will be IMs complimenting me on exquisite taste and hopefully not complaints about blocking sea views or polluting riverside with excessive willow leaves.

I hope that Goggles settles in

Here is Goggles in my repositioned home. Am a bit worried. If he tries to walk back to Harms Way, most he can hope for is a return to my Lost and Found. Not sure he realises he is only made of prims.

Moving

Land set to sale: all in Harm's Way (Moving. But not as moving as had anticipated, actually)
It's my tier date soon, so I decided I really must clear out my land in Harm's Way and at least try to sell it. Know that mainland plots are v. hard to sell at the moment, so set it at about 2000 Linden per 512 and will hope for best. In fact should have split it up into smaller plots, rather than one lump, perhaps will do that tomorrow. If it comes to it, will abandon it, since in the end that might be cheaper than continuing to pay huge tier.

Had only intended to move my new skybox home + its contents(which proved quite easy to do, except there is always SOMETHING you leave behind, can see in first pic that it was a shadow and a rug in this case, also a couple of the potted plants and a saucer). Then started taking & deleting at ground level and decided in the end was better to get whole thing over at once.
Have had some kind of plot on Harm's Way since summer 2007, and had this particular part of it since November 2007, so may be a shock to the remaining neighbour who has been there as long as me. Managed to go all that time without exchanging a word, I think.
It is a pleasant place, with a sloping grassy hillside ending in beach and water, which is obviously why I liked it. However have just not been spending enough time there, since the views are not nearly as pleasant as when first moved in, and have mentioned lag issues.
Thought would feel quite moved by all this deletion (even more final than RL moving, since in RL one does not actually root out garden and demolish house once have removed furniture, normally). But think must have mentally said goodbye already, or something.

As final act, sat under spreading cherry tree and listened to windchime. This was a present from Ishbel when I got my first home and it has become a sort of ritual to move that last.
It is installed in my new land, so it definitely is home now.

Digital designing

Venues retextured for event: 1 (good); No. of items of clothing created: 7 (or 9 if you count all the bits of shoe separately) (good); Neon cherry blossom balloon dispensers deployed: 1 (good); Notecards created: 1 (good); Magic bottle created: 1 (good, if accidental); Quantity of floor mysteriously disappearing: half (bad)

In fact did all the above yesterday: today was digital literacies seminar that advertised a few days ago, where was being Chair and organising venue. Am now in brief post-event Euphoria, and chief desire is to zoom round SL acquiring new clothes and getting new Home to rights (in fact am going to have to do Emergency Marking even if it IS a Saturday night, v. depressing)
May or may not write more about the event on this blog: can legitimately put something on Serious Blog about content. Therefore on this one will mainly concentrate on fripperies i.e. clothes and decoration.
Had already retextured the venue used for ESRC conference in March, picking up colours from cute poster. Decided to push out boat with seminar memorabilia, starting with a skirt using semi-transparent textures of the poster, then to get a bit more creative did t-shirt (the well-worn template from Robin somethingorother) and Jeans (a template on some LL site), using the bluebird from the poster to create patches. Reused bolero template (bought for last event) putting said cute bluebird on the chest knot. Also found some sculpty full perm shoes on xstreetsl (I hope legit, they didn't look good enough quality to be ripoffs) and made blue shoes and stockings to match.
In fact for first time decided that could bear wearing my customised clothing for the event, though with some Shiny Things flats rather than my shoes. The Infolit Week in SL necklace and earrings rounded out the look, and also a small bluebird on my shoulder.
Before this had tinkered around with other sculpties, to make some kind of artifact to put in the pack. Ended up by stretching bottle sculpty, putting a sort of label on it with the seminar banner and "sit on me" and when you sit on it it disappears and you are sitting in a meditation pose in mid air.
This was not altogether deliberate. I WAS intending to put the pose in the bottle, and I was able to change some of the parameters, but I didn't know it was going to disappear when you sat on it (think the script must be assuming it is a pose ball, that you would want to disappear). Didn't work out how to rotate the sitter round 90 degrees either, but in the end thought it was quirky enough to pass muster. You could have a circle of them as seating, then when you all sat you would be suspended in air. Cool or what (don't answer that one)
Other disappearing thing that will mention was the floor. The venue floor is taken from the "Cercle" build that used as HQ from Infolit week in SL, rather a nice stone round. When standing about chatting afterwards noticed that half of this had vanished. Also could no longer see a variety of other things e.g. posters, Farradane Centre, half of Hobbiton. Had had a couple of people in the event who dashed around fruitlessly for most of the afternoon (and continued to do so as we stood and talked) so worried that had been griefed. Going back in later, it seems that the buildings are ok, and the posters are back, but the floor isn't. Did I delete it by mistake?

No pollen in SL

Hay fever suffering in RL: great (v. bad); Hay fever suffering in SL: zero (good)
In RL am v. miserable with streaming eyes, sneezing etc etc since hay fever season is in full swing. Over many years have tried various pills, sprays drops etc. but these have zero effect (apart from adverse effect on purse) so main therapy is staying indoors with doors and windows closed, a rather stuffy remedy which is not favourite with nearest and dearest. Am allergic to common grass pollen, therefore, since said grass is, understandably, common, am international hay fever sufferer, and if were very rich masochist would be possible to be suffering from hay fever all year round by following the pollen season around the globe e.g. was unpleasantly surprised when visited Melbourne in November (their early summer) a few years ago to find that Australian pollen was as irritating as British pollen.
Anyway, here I am in SL, enjoying the virtual grass with no side effects whatsoever, hah, take that, hay fever.

Children's and young people's digital literacies in virtual online spaces

On 19th June in Second Life, is the second half of the final meeting in a seminar series funded by the Economic and Social Science Research Council (ESRC): Children's and young people's digital literacies in virtual online spaces. The first half of the conference takes place in Sheffield, UK, and the conference continues with a free event in Second Life. The aim of this seminar series is to consider the digital literacy practices which take place in virtual online spaces and to explore potentialities for literacy educators. In this final conference, speakers will consider the nature of literacy in virtual worlds and Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs)

The start time is 6am Second Life time (2pm UK time, for start times in other countries see http://tinyurl.com/39vvq6q ). The location is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/169/173/22 The Second Life schedule is as follows.
- 6am (SL time) Sheila Webber (Sheila Yoshikawa in SL), University of Sheffield, host in SL - introduction
- 6.10-6.50am Peggy Sheehy (Maggie Marat in SL), I'm not good at Math but my avatar is
- 7am – 7.40am Rebecca Black, University of California (Irvine)
- 7.50 – 8.20am Constance Steinkuehler, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Virtual worlds at the nexus of a constellation of literacy practice.
- 8.30am SL time Wrap up from Julia Gillen, Lancaster University

Information on the whole day's event is at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/digital-literacies/events/conference.htm and on the complete seminar series at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/digital-literacies/index.htm

In transit

Linden spent on new land: Too many (bad); Plots bought overlooking Cowell and Forest of Kahruvel: 1 (v.v. exciting)
Have had itchy feet for ages, since although like many things about current personal land-holding, it has become laggier and laggier, which is why last addition was (as noted in previous post) put right up in sky above it. However, since favourite occupation is landscaping, seems a bit pointless to have land that is no fun landscaping, because of lag. Also views have become less and less attractive with fewer green areas and more high walls and nightclubby stuff.
Recently noticed land on Mare that was for sale, but ridiculously priced. However, last week was in land-hopping mood, so zoomed out Map a bit and started to teleport, starting at Mare, from yellow (for sale) area to yellow area until suddenly found self in very pleasant steep hillside area, with river on 2 sides. Then realised with excitement that was right next to seaside village of Cowell.

Now, had discovered Cowell very early on: it is part of the Phyneas Jack Memorial Trust land and had thought at time would love to live there (except noone lives there, my guess is that (being quite elderly in SL terms) the actual village is quite primmy, so wouldn't be room to have extra stuff from tenants). Anyway, have visited it every now and then, and still find it charming.
From website (linked above) discovered that area for sale was previously part of the estate but was now being sold off. Price was not dirt cheap, but really very reasonable for something with such a good prospect. Area for sale was the same size as current land ... so dithered for whole hour, but really it was foregone conclusion that before long would be hearing mega tinkle tinkle of Linden as claimed the land. Should really have waited to sell/abandon current land, pass tier date and THEN buy, but having a short dual period means can shift treasured material bit by bit.

In fact the first area that worked on had (another) new house, namely the Heidi house, which is quite plainly modelled on the one in the Miyazaki Heidi anime series. Am about halfway through this series, and actually the view from the cute circular window in the upstairs loft (where Heidi has her straw bed) is v. similar in SL and in the anime (you can see the hut on that Japanese site).
Should really be goats (rather than sheep), but had to delete goat shed to fit nicely on mountain top, also had no goats in inventory but did have some v. cute sheep, one of which have named Heidi, and one of which have named Hercule after Heidi's grandfather's dog (in the French language dub of the anime, am watching it in French since there is no available English dub).

2nd area for development was right at the other end of my new estate, where installed the Frida home from Mudshake, complete with all the stuff had put in it on previous land. Shown here is the view over an inland pond, with the Frida home to the right(barely seen) and Cowell village and Abotts Aerodrome in view over the water.

The day is done

Events organised: 4 (good); Events taking place: 4 (good); No. of lines types into ISTE IM rather than local chat: 12 (approx) (bad)

Had long day in SL, since today was the information literacy mini-festival. List of things done includes:

- Presentation slides converted into jpegs, renamed, uploaded to SL and copied into presenter: 26 (actually uploaded them twice, so is 2x26, since first time forgot to make thge jpgs full perms and this was quicker than changing 26 permissions by hand)
- Customised teleporters created (with links to 4 venues and 1 tour site): 1
- Boards with notecard containing programme: 1
- Customised teleporters and notecard boards placed: 6 of each, at actual venues, and 2 key landing points
- Notecards created for own presentations: 2
- Posters created with weblinks: 2
- No. of notices and IMs sent out advertising events: lots

- Time spent deciding on conference outfit: suprisingly little, which is perhaps why ended up with something of a Scottish Widows look.

Anyway all was ready by 7am SL time which is when own presentation on "Information Literacy for 21st century Life" started. Had also had nice conversation with someone who was at the INFORUM conference but who hadn't talked to in RL. Audience included people from good number of countries including Italy, Poland, USA, UK and Czech Republic.

Low point was start. Whereas in RL when giving presentation have some moments to gather thoughts and ready self for speech, in this case was worrying til last moment about whether everyone had found the venue, could get notecard etc. etc. Anyway, introduced self and mini-conference in text chat, but had been rattling on for some time when had gentle IM which alerted me to fact that had been typing away into the ISTE group chat, rather than local chat. Mortification. ISTE has about 5000 members so that is a lot of potential spam, although at least at that time of day there are fewer people inworld.

Anyway, things could only brighten up after that. Was basically giving this presentation, minus a few slides to make sure it was within time, and it seemed to go ok. Afterwards some people continued on to Sakura House where talked about some other sessions at the 2 RL conferences had been at.

Pi Illios' health literacy sessions (in Spanish at 9am and in English at noon) were successes: I joined in the English language one only, since my Spanish is confined to words like "Hola" "Gracias" and "Merluza a la plancha" (grilled hake), though I also know the Spanish for information literacy.

Relaxed at end of day by sitting in my 60s home, buying some parasols (from a gatcha, so cheap) and posing in one of AM Radio's installations. Finally did some tidying up on Infolit and changed the advertising board for the next multi-event, on 19 June. So soon will be hey ho for another round of advertising and goody bags. Have already collected something that gives you a wearable balloon in the shape of a cherry blossom, sure that will go down a treat with delegates.

Information & health literacy events

When: Thursday June 3rd, Where; Infolit iSchool (& tour to Tseshkovsky); in Second Life, the virtual world
- 7 am Second Life time, presentation Information Literacy for 21st Century Life
- 8 am SL time reports and discussion on recent conferences; plus at
- 9am SLT (en Espanol) and 12 noon SLT (in English): repeat event: Pi Illios (Universidad Puerto Rico) Literacia en Salud en Second Life (en Espanol, 9am) / Health Literacy in Second Life (in English, noon)

* 7am SL time (see http://tinyurl.com/38755tv for time in other countries): presentation from Sheila Yoshikawa (Sheila Webber in RL, University of Sheffield) on Information Literacy for 21st Century Life (as presented at the Oeiras a Ler conference in Lisbon, Portugal, in May, with some amendment).
Venue: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/147/170/21
In this presentation Sheila will elaborate a definition of information literacy and give examples of what information, and information literacy, mean in a number of contexts (e.g. in computer gaming, in a workplace, for "tweens") and sum up key messages about IL in the 21st Century.

* 8 am SL time (see http://tinyurl.com/2vlrgup for times in other countries): Report back from recent conferences (Oeiras a Ler, Informa 2010, and any others participants have been to recently!) Venue: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/43/203/22/

* 9am SL time (see http://tinyurl.com/3aznlgt for times in other countries) Literacia en Salud en Second Life ( en Espanol: Pi Illios, University of Puerto Rico)
Venue: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/190/215/749/
La Biblioteca Conrado F. Asenjo en el Recinto de Ciencias Médicas de la Universidad de Puerto Rico lleva a cabo un proyecto de Literacia y alfabetización en salud dirigido a hispnos que residen en Second Life .
La literatura profesional señala que el 31,5% de los pacientes de habla inglesa y el 61,7% de habla española presentan una inadecuada o marginal alfabetización funcional en salud.
La plataforma virtual Second Life tiene una población considerable de hispanosparlantes (alrededor de un 11.8 %) que residen en en este mundo virtual por infinidad de razones. Nuestro objetivo es enseñar y orientar al residente hispano en SL a encontrar información de salud confiable, actualizada y adecuada a sus necesidades; see https://sites.google.com/a/upr.edu/tusaludbuscadistingueaprende/?AuthEventSource=SSO

* 12 noon SL time (see http://tinyurl.com/369bq3u for times in other countries) "Health Literacy in Second Life" (talk and tour; in English: Pi Illios, University of Puerto Rico)
Venue: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/129/242/22/
The Conrado F. Asenjo health library of the University of Puerto Rico has created a prototype for health literacy to help Hispanic residents in Second Life. This is responding to the factthat surveys have shown that people have poor health literacy (31.5% of English speakers and 61.7 Spanish speakers). They have used the platform of Second Life to create a prototype informative build. Pi Illios with introduce their work, and then take people on a tour of the build on Tseshkovsky; see this page

VWER, SL/RL

Meetings attended from exotic RL locations: 1 (good); Windchimes bought: 1 (superfluous to requirements); SL Czechs met in RL: 1 (good)
In RL am in Prague to give talk (well in fact gave it earlier today), which is obviously not exotic for people who live in Prague, but it is for me. However the city has decided to make me feel at home by providing British weather ie sun and showers (or now and then, downpours).
Today at the conference met Zdenek (SL name) who attended some of the "Information Literacy in SL" events. He interviewed me for student radio after my talk which was v. exciting. Was able to take pic of him beside a laptop showing his avatar (cool): you can see it on my serious blog here http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/2010/05/inforum-2010.html.
Am unusually well off for broadband, there is *free* broadband in the hotel, and free wifi at the conference venue. So took advantage of this by buying random SL item (new windchimes, like I need more windchimes), and attending Virtual Worlds Educators Round Table. Topic was teaching large groups. Olivia IMed me at the start to ask if I could take pics, and have already uploaded them to VWER pool http://www.flickr.com/groups/vwer/pool/ Most amusing is shown here. What did I do to annoy Profdan? 1st pic was of me contemplating windchimes and pretending they weren't a sad impulse purchase.

Screenr. Still cool.

No. of additional screencasts made: 1 (stop! stop!)
So, here is screencast about new home, as featured a couple of posts ago. Have decided sound bit too much like Queen showing plebs round Windsor Castle.

P.S. Have uploaded it to Flickr too. Sigh

Screenr. Cool

Screencasts made using Screenr: 2 (good)
Today noticed a Torley video about screencasts, watched it and by half way through had zipped out and started a screencast. Seems to be eastpeasy way of making machinima of SL. Yipee!
Now at present should be:
- Marking, or:
- Emailing RL people who proposed abstracts for a RL conference to tell them whether or not they are IN, or;
- Doing the ppt for the presentation am giving in RL in Prague next week, or;
- Getting some sleep.
However, of course am instead recording screencasts, twittering them and publishing to Youtube. And now am blogging it. Suppose next thing would be uploading them to Flickr, or perhaps emailing them all my friends, however will stick with Screenr, Twitter, Youtube and Blogger for new.
According to Torley can't get ambient noise from SL, which is a shame (and if Torley can't work out how to, sure I can't) however, is v. good for doing voice overs. Considering that spent whole nanoseconds working out what to say beforehand don't think did too badly. Well, in fact with one on Information/literacy exhibition did actually reject two partial takes. Also is what will now call deliberate mistake when say that will not show full quotation, and then do.
Can only record 5 minutes but that is actually a plus since after 5 mins most people get bored with videos IMHO.
Hmm, perhaps can turn this to good effect and create some sort of screencast as part of Prague talk.

More homemaking

Houses deleted: 1 (slow process); Houses rezzed: 1 (v. good); Houses disappearing: 1 (odd)
After the Infolit session on Thursday when Brielle did her excellent presentation, decided to have some r&r in SL after hard day in both worlds by finally setting up new home from "Y's" on my land. Had already decided to demolish the Ingrid Ingersoll Town House, which still like, but didn't really spend much time there and bedroom was frankly bit of a mess.
Took longer to demolish than had anticipated, since must at some point have UNLINKED everything and so had to delete prim by prim, v. tedious. Had originally intended to set up new house in roughly same place i.e. overlooking beach, but is SO laggy at ground level in the end made the new house a skybox.
Spent happy time filling it with some stuff from old house and some stuff had been saving up.
Key items for display were various objects with butterflies, and artwork. To start with put these in central courtyard, but in the end have created one room with butterflies/art and put bed in courtyard. Remaining room is kitchen/living/music room and has ended up rather cosy.

Will delight readers with some proper pics, but in meantime these ones show rather curious effect when last went in (to install a few cute items that had just bought in Kloka, namely teapot, box of tissues, tea set and comfy chair) and found that everything was there ---- except the actual house. Am sure house in fact IS there, since do not fall through space, and meet resistance if try to go through places-where-walls-were.
So did not panic, but took opportunity to take interesting pics of inside of house. Think I like it almost as much without walls, as with.

Creatures on Infolit iSchool: part 1

Creatures on Infolit iSchool: quite a few (good); Average age of creatures: 2 years (approx) (bad)
Instead of doing anything vaguely useful, have decided to create a record of creatures on Infolit iSchool. Was prompted by squirrel encounter last week, thinking how the creatures are all getting on a bit and perhaps some of them ought to be sent the way of the really STRANGE deformed rabbit that lived on the hill behind Hobbiton, and which I quietly put out of its misery last autumn. On the other hand, some of them are still cute. Or are they just cute to me? You decide
First up is Mitsy the cat. Mitsy is definitely showing her age, and you only have to search on Mitsy (on this blog) to see that she has a history, mostly a history of getting trapped under buildings and disintegrating in the sea. However - she is named after a RL cat who is no more. In fact she is about the only SL creature I own that HAS a name (apart from some one-prim goldfish that arrived with names). So, Mitsy is likely to stay, even though she is the size of a small pony and regularly roams away to her doom.


In these next two pictures you see an orange parrot: it roosts, it flies, it screeches. The screeching is actually quite lifelike, and when it swoops around (see small orange blur in top left of 2nd pic) it looks moderately convincing. However, when it roosts, you can see it is just made of prims. Fortunately it spends a lot more time swooping than roosting. I got this bird in some closing down sale, and I have similarly retro crows and seagulls in my inventory from the same source.

Am not sure whether the cat and the dog in the 2nd pic count as creatures, since they each have springs instead of legs. On the other hand, the cat one probably looks as much like a cat as does (for example) Mitsy. Anyway, these are functional creatures since you can sit on them and wobble around to your heart's content. Like the parrot, they are in the Sure Thing cafe on the sea shore.
The parrot seemed appropriate since the Sure Thing is named after a RL cafe of the same name in Queensland, Australia. The RL rainbow lorikeets, that make an apalling racket at dawn and dusk, just over from the RL Sure Thing, sound a bit like the orange parrot, only more so.

So can sit back in SL and feel nostalgic for Aussie sun and sand with right sound effects.

Am thinking I could make this into a kind of i-spy guide: find all the creatures on Infolit iSchool. Can just see the contemptuous smirk that this would elicit from students. Librarians might enjoy it, though. Which is not an insult to librarians BTW, rather the reverse, I would say. He who is tired of i-spy is tired of life. Or has more interesting things to do. One or the other.

Rez Day present

Alien space ships bought: 1 (amazing! awesome!)
Stumbled across my rez-day-present-to-me on recreational outing after the Infolit iSchool meeting today. Is Alien space craft which immediately fell in love with. Is enormous, and has inbuilt sounds and swirly coloured lights. You can also get bits of the floor to move, and it is all very organic. In fact I think it qualifies as Art.

Is also over 400 prims, and although intend to put it on my own land, need to clear out - well about 400 prims - to make room for it. So at the moment is rezzed above Infolit, which means might need to start removing trinkets from my office and cutting down on the number of bedding plants.

Because it's already so ornate, you don't really want to put too much in it. And, e.g., is not exactly the location for the shabby-chic stuff had been collecting recently. So have brought out some disquieting nursery-type items (oversized rabbit chairs, giant bluebirds etc), a few spooky items (though frankly is pretty spooky already) and the red plush afternoon tea ensemble (with a Goldberg Variation on the music stand) which has a view directly out into Space. It's made by Alex Bader BTW.

Am not sure am going to be doing any teaching here, but would making spiffing party venue (with dance ball over floor that retracts to dump you straight into the air, when you touch an Alien pod, hehe), or possibly could hold conference about angst and identity in it. Will be ready for it with depressing results currently coming in for the general election. Can just retreat to the mother ship and wave goodbye to my pension.
Anyway whilst the ship is anchored over Infolit, it is here http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/169/114/1999/

I missed my rez day

No. of rezdays in SL: 3 (good); No. of rezdays celebrated: 0.5 (sad)
Had been contemplating celebrating my rez day (3rd May) with some sort of party this year. However, turned out that was away from SL that day and realised today that had actually forgotten to celebrate it yesterday when got back in.

Was v. excited about first rez day and contemplated all sorts of celebrations. In the end bought new dress and managed to get Harumi inworld briefly to celebrate (which is the 0.5 celebration mentioned above). As can see from that 3 May 2008 blog post also went to Babylon 5 party. However, do not think actually told anyone in B5 that it WAS my rez day, so not sure that counts.

Note that did blog on 2nd rez day but, as for this year, was day when was expected to do various RL things, namely watching Kentucky Derby and 2000 Guineas (these are horse races) on TV. Another problem is that in RL and SL am sort of person who thinks that if DO organise party NO-ONE MIGHT TURN UP. In SL is partly because most friends are from work-type connections, which makes them no less friends, and certainly does not rule out virtual discos and drinking (far from it) but suppose means that am more likely to invite them to an indepth discussion of pedagogy for information literacy than simply hanging out and chilling. (In RL, BTW, friends are scattered round country, so organising anything would require more Effort than can muster)

Anyway, Now I Am Three, and am sure that some kind of philosophical reflection might be called on, however instead have simply given you a pic of me communing with the squirrel under the magic apple tree and some photos of me and Adra. I was doing a bit of wandering round checking things are ok, and realised hadn't spent any quality time with the squirrel for ages. It possibly now shows its age, but is still cute IMHO, bounding around, chirping and still generating its own nuts.

The 2 pics of Adra and me were taken to go with a paper we have written about teaching library and information science in SL. At first we tried her sitting down and me standing up (see middle pic), but it ended up looking like a still from some play about alienation ("A common room. Adra is seated. Sheila is standing. They both stare at the wall. There is the faint noise of typing. Sheila: "I'm still waiting for things to rez". Adra is silent.")

The last pic is the one we are going with, since at least we are looking at each other. And both look very stylish, I feel.