Isn't it Ironic?

I have to laugh at irony.  Over the last week, I have read the first two books of the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers.  A wonderful modern day Romeo and Juliet love story between a girl, a vampire, and a werewolf.  The series is absolutely engaging and lives up to the expectations set by all my friends and students who have read and recommended it.  It is so well written, that I am in awe of Bella and Edward and Bella's desire to become part of the Cullen family.  Vampires suddenly became "cool".  I like them.

So then why was it that I was shocked and momentarily frightened when vampires moved in next to me in SL?  I raised a wall between our lots.  Then I stepped back and laughed.  Laughed that I could find vampires fascinating in my book fantasy, but frightening in my SL fantasy world.  Is it because my SL world doesn't seem as fantasy-like as a book?  If that is the case...I need to re-examine my perceptions.  Until then, I will wear garlic and a scarf around my neck.  ;-)

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Are you Addicted??

Most of you know I am a high school computer science and math teacher.  I am looking to bring my classes into Second Life on the Teen Grid and have been working with a core group of teachers in my school to bring this project to fruition by September.  

Anyway - the educators List-Serve to which I subscribe has had an interesting thread over the past couple of weeks on gaming addictions, and specifically Second Life addictions.  The two sides of the argument are that either it is addicting, as it consumes an increasing amount of your time here, frequently has negative impacts on your real life, and is difficult to leave (see also impossible - i liken it to Hotel California)  OR  it is not an addiction, as the time spent here is (for educators/builders/scriptors/scientists/?) for productive purposes even if it means being so focused that you forget to eat or sleep.  Needing to log in upon wakening didn't seem to count as a "problem behavior".

So, Tribe members, I would REALLY like to hear what you have to say about this.  Please comment with your thoughts and experiences regarding this, if you are willing to share that.  

This ought to be interesting!

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Friendship - by Kazzabee Runningbear

This post is from my dear Second Life friend, Kazzabee Runningbear, who has much to say on SL/RL friendships and requested a place to publish it.  For the record, I share her perspective, and in some cases, have bridged my SL friendships into RL.

I don’t have a blog but I do have an idea, so I’ve asked my friend Yamis if I can borrow her space. She is my friend and that’s what I want to talk about. Friendship. What is it?

Yamis lives in the good ol’ USofA and I’m a true blue died in the wool Aussie sheila, we met in SecondLife sometime in the last year. I’ve never stood in front of this lady but I consider her a very good friend. People tell me that’s an illusion. How can I be friends with someone I’ve never met. To them I say “phooey”.

How should I define my friends?

In my real life I have a variety of friends and each has a different level of importance to me. I have friends I have known for 30 years (let’s assume I met them in kindergarten ha ha). After such a long time these friendships don’t need a lot of maintenance, we’re always going to be friends. I have some new friends I’m still getting to know, they’re a bit more maintenance heavy, but it’s all new and exciting so it’s fun to do. There’s a range of people that fit inside those time brackets.

Some of my friends I see often, others I see rarely, some I talk with regularly in person or on the phone, others I haven’t spoken to for years. I have friends who live near me, friends who live far. One of my closest friends lives a 3 hour plane ride from me. My best friend lives a 2 hour drive from me, I see him 5 or 6 times a year when we meet for lunch, but we talk on the phone almost every day.

Those friends are people I met, in most cases, by being in the same physical place as them at the same time. Their priority in my life is not related to time, distance or regularity of contact.

I also have a vast range of cyber friends. Some people collect friends on facebook and myspace. Mine are from SecondLife. (Enter Yamis. J) Are these people less real to me. Absolutely not.

In SecondLife I have repeatedly heard or been told, RL and SL are separate, RL & SL don’t mix, SL friendships are not real friendships. Well to that I say poppycock (it’s a British saying).

In SecondLife as in Real Life my friends have a varying degree of importance to me. Some are special, some are fun, some are acquaintances, some are transitory, some are keepers. You see the thing is that behind the SecondLife avatar, the representative cartoon, is a real person. Just like me over on this side. If I make friends with that cartoon, and over time we share experiences, life details and develop trust, then I am building a real friendship. There is nothing artificial or superficial about it.

In SecondLife I have a friend who is: a doctor, a banker, an engineer, a postie, a philosopher, an alchemist, a financier, a horse breeder, an artist, a snake breeder, unemployed, a programmer, a lawyer, a teacher, an addict, a farmer, a childcare worker, a student, a professor, a landscaper, a nurse, a realtor, a carer, a swinger, a cantor, a musician ad infinitum. There are old people, young people, men, women and children (yes).

I have supported some of those people through major life events – relationship breakdown, reconciliation, divorce, job loss, death of a pet, terminal illness, loneliness, addiction, family issues, work issues, the list is almost as endless as the possibilities. And then there were SecondLife issues to deal with as well. Some of them have supported me back, one of them has become my career mentor.

I talk to a number of these people who I’ve never seen or touched for hours and hours each week. Others I see, irregularly or haven’t seen for months. To me they are my friends as much as any person in my so called real life.

There are people who may consider that their real life friends are more important - whether they are the ones they meet for coffee every third Thursday between 10 & 11.30 (if there wasn’t a full moon the night before and as long as the schedules don’t clash), or the person you used to go out drinking with when you were both young and you had lunch last February after you bumped into them in the shopping mall car park, or the work colleague, or the team mate - just because they have a physical presence.

To me my friends hold my heart and trust carefully and in return I treasure theirs, and that is true no matter where I met them or how we interact.

So you see if one more person says to me “SecondLife friendships aren’t real friendships, coz after all it is only a game”, then I think I will scream.

So that was my thought. Thankyou Yamis, my friend, for the space. 

Ramble on Rose

I've been falling behind on the job of maintaining current blog posts.  Partly because I just don't have enough hours in the day to put blogging on my priority list, but also because i don't know what to write.  Its not that nothing is going on...so much is going on that I don't know what to focus in on - or maybe I just can't focus in.  But thats a whole different issue.  LOL

OK, so let me share with you all the things that have been going on which are keeping me from keeping up.  The biggest time consumer is my family - for the best of reasons.  And I have been making a point of spending a little less time online and a little more time with them.  Thats been a problem for me every since I started my doctoral work in 2006.  

Which brings me to another huge time drain - work on my dissertation.  Six weeks ago I probably would have told you that i hate my doctoral research.  But at that point I made a monumentous decision to throw out my former dissertation topic - a year and a half worth of work - and start over.  It took at least three months of not working on it to make that decision.  It was the best decision I could have made.  I love my new topic - and am wholly vested in it:  the impact and effects of virtual worlds (SL) on education.  I have a new advisor who is as excited about this as I am.  Work is going well and I am doing some exciting things with my classes.  

The inservice class I am teaching in-world with my colleague and good friend, Juniper, is going great.  In between I have been sneaking in Phil and Friends shows and have an upcoming Dark Star Orchestra show to let loose at.  What else could I ask for?  Life is good!

Thanks for you patience and for listening to my ramblings.  

:)

"Love is real and not fade away" 

Hey Now

First let me say - Mean People Suck

I'm not sure why people have to be so mean to each other - especially in SL. Whats the point? If you can't have fun here - whats the point? And peace-loving hippies should know better.

Anyway - I want to share some cool pics. I'll be adding them a few at a time - so check back often.

top to bottom:
Dancing in the lot at DarkStar
Terris, Jon, and Yamis at Black Swan

GG at the piano

Welcome

Thanks for visiting my blog - I will be using this blog to share my adventures in Second Life.
I live on Ripple and have made some wonderful friends here - this will be about us!

So everyone wants to know what I do here in SL, how I got here in the first place, and why I spend so much time here.

I was introduced to SL at a Educational Technology workshop - using SL as a learning platform in schools. I went home to check it out and was hooked ever since. It took a while to not be a n00B enough to wander around and figure stuff out. Lots of sandbox time. Lots of NCI time. I've spent most of my life chasing around the Grateful Dead, so why change here? I looked around for other Deadheads and found Dark Star. This is when I started really living in SL and the people I've met there are why I stay.

Dark Star is a sim built by Starling Glitterbuck - one of SL's best builders (imho). It is entirely dead-icated to the Grateful Dead. In July I moved onto a connected sim, Ripple. It's been my home ever since.

So what do I do here? I dance! I listen to my friends play music and I dance! I play, I build (not enough) and I love to shop. ;-) I spend time with friends and smile, smile, smile.

So for all my DS/Ripple friends: ZB, TG, JL, SM, GG, KL, KR, JL, TT, JM, DW, WF, BO, CJ, SG, CN, CCM, the other GG, GS, IK, KM, QG, FD, JGB, (I hope I didn't leave anyone out) and for all my friends in the rest of SL, I LOVE YOU - YOU ARE WHAT MAKES SL SO MUCH DAMN FUN!!!!! WOOHOOO!!!!!

If you want to know more about Second Life, visit Second Life