What do you think of me?

I asked my friends to give me words and items that they think describes me best. I thought this could help me to decided what my character could look like.

words:
fun loving, loyal, crazy, double minded, sweet, short, intresting, understanding, honest, lazy

objects:
butterflies, bed, perfume, fizzy drinks, JD, roller skates, rose, sweets, junk food

these are few words and now all I have to do is to visually show some of them through my Avatar.

mood boards

I created few mood boards on photoshop to show possible themes for my own Avatar. I did a couple because I feel theres alot of sides to me and it would be hard to represent every aspect of me in one Avatar.

Second Life environments

There are loads of insprational places on SL that I thought would help me with my research and help me develop my own ideas. Here are few of the intrestings ones I liked and inspired me:

Second Life 5

I have been on SL for about 4 weeks now and to be honest I'm getting a little bored of it, its good if you have money to spend on it but i refuse to do surveys because they send you posts and emails in RL. I did however make a friend whos got a house in SL and I helped him decorate it which was quite fun. I have also started to explore new places to get ideas for settings fot my avatar I have to make. some of them are very pretty and intresting, its amazing what you can bulid on SL. I got chatting to this 22 year old from New Jersey which makes a change from the 35 year olds that seem to have taken over SL. He was very helpful ad filled me in about being married in SL and how getting a baby on it works, which was intresting to see how realistic you can make a virtual world. He also said he might be starting a t-shirt business and I could work with him on that.

Second Life 4

And here I am again on SL its a new day and I think I shall allow finding a job in the virtual world. So I'm walking and teleporting all over the place, lol and this guy startes up a conversation. I find out that his from the States from a place I have never heard of and we have a standard convo about weather and genral stuff and then I decided to ask his age. Now his chracter looked about 20, but I should have known better because my avater don't look anything like me ( I don't have winge in RL ) so yh I asked him his age and nearly fell of my chair when he told me he was 50! like I'm all for older people using technology and that but I did'nt expect someone of his age to be on there. It just shows thats theres a major diffrence on what people look like in real life and what they would want to be like.

Second Life 3

I have to say that this can get a little addictive. lol, but that don't mean I'm on there 24 hours. I decided to go try find a job today, I'm trying to lead a "normal life" in the virtual world. I asked few people about how I would get one. There was this one person who was helpful and informed me that the only avaliable jobs are either as a escort, stripper or something along those lines. Now thats something I would never consider but I thought my avater can be a bit of a wild child so I went to this club, where the manager ( or the more correct term would be a pimp) said I would have to be on the site atleast a month before anyone hires me and I should convert real money to the currency in SL. She said this would allow me to get better hair, skin and cloths. I can't actully believe that people would actully do that. I rather spend my money in RL :-D

Second Life 2

OMG! this sites a little weird, I was not quite expecting this. Someone decided to teleport me to a club so I thought that would be fun and accepted it. When I got there I started to chat to some who said they were from Mexico aged 22. That was fine until we decided to explor the place upstairs and realised they had adult material stuff there. I found it weird that people would actully be intrested in looking at thier avaters having sexual contact :-s

I realised that people let go of thier morals in the virtual world as there are no consiquences for thier actions and its also a place where ordinary people obviously feel they can let there fantasies run wild without anyone judging them.

Second Life

AFTER

BEFORE

I decided to start the new peice of coursework nice and early. :-D I signed up to Second Life which was easy to do and installed what ever I had to, to use the program. I called my character Italia and chose the second name from a list. First time I singed in I thought that it looked really cool and was quite impressed. I started of on the island where you can try tutorials which teaches you the basics such as how to chat, drive, fly and make changes to you character. I also started to read little notes that get sent but soon found out that its easier to ignor them as I learn better when I explor the things myself.

I started to change my chracters apperance. Its cool how you can change every aspect of it. I first thought about making it look similar to myself but then thought I got a chance to be anyone I want so i want for it giving her long dark hair, green eyes and I made her taller because I feel short in real life.lol

Once I had compleated my character and dressed her I decided to go and get talking to peopel. I found this was the best way to learn about this place and most people are more then willing to help out. I also added someone as a friend as she said I could ask her for help in the future.

New Year, New Start

So 2008 finaly here and I'v decided to work much harder this term and give it my full attention. I have to admit evan tho I did try my best in my last coursework I could have done better. I think it was all a bit weird trying to adjust to a new place and there are'nt as many boundries so you have to be responsable of how you spend your time. I'm much more settled now and feel that I can concentrate better on my work.