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Carol H Tucker
Passionate about knowledge management and organizational development, expert in loan servicing, virtual world denizen and community facilitator, and a DISNEY fan
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beladona Memorial
Be warned:in this very rich environment where you can immerse yourself so completely, your emotions will become engaged -- and not everyone is cognizant of that. Among the many excellent features of SL, there is no auto-return on hearts, so be wary of where your's wanders...
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I have a 2nd Life
Bela is 12 years old today.
Yes beladona Memorial is the first avatar that I created in a virtual world. This, however, was not the first time that I had ventured into Second Life – the first time had been over a year earlier and it was a totally different type of experience as I rezzed into a corral with people sitting on the fence cheering. I couldn’t figure out what to do next, but the real issue was that I was trying to navigate while on a dial-up connection and I eventually abandoned the avatar and logged out leaving the original beladona stuck in a bush. I created the second beladona as a result of a conversation thread in Howard Rheingold’s Brainstorms community – he was going to do a presentation in world and was encouraging us all to come in and join him. By then I had a more robust line/connection but it was far from broadband and it was still pretty full of hiccups and glitches. I could move about, but I had trouble controlling the avatar and at one point I ended up flying up on the stage and had the devil’s own time figuring out how to get off. I didn’t stay for the entire lecture and certainly didn’t get much from it.
To my surprise, I found out that both of my kids were in world – Tasha Polecat and Madison Carnot – and in the early spring I ventured back. For a time I wandered about as a tiny pig. Then I switched to the persona that I kept for several months; from the get-go beladona was short and plumb with glasses and freckles, wandering about in jeans and a Bucket t-shirt, sandals, an Irish cap over bright red hair, and a backpack. The eyes changed a bit from brown to bright purple before settling on a clear green, but I never bought a shape. I remember a shape-creator ran a class for newbies on one of the education sims when I had been in world for about a year, and I went to see if I could get some tips about keeping the proportions right – she was very helpful [and actually rather complimentary about what I had done so far]. At that point I didn’t know how to edit prims, so when I bought a top that I couldn’t fit into, beladona had to slim down to fit into it. And I didn’t know how to adjust pose balls, so she ended up getting taller as well, although she still is short by SL standards at least she wasn’t in danger of being taken as a child anymore. After about eight months, she definitely had her own look
So many tales of learning how to navigate in world! I used to change clothes under the deck of the Bucket club, not realizing that folks could cam down and not understanding that I didn’t have to completely undress to change outfits. The entire program freezing solid because there were over 15K in world. Die-ins becaue LL shut the world down for an entire day to “bank on the pipes” – if you tried to log in while that was going on you got a screen that showed a gorilla with a wrench banging on pipes too. The days that I remember best are filled with friends, family and music. beladona’s beach has existed for over a decade now and has always had a pier on which folks could sit and talk and watch the sunset. In the past 12 years I have met so many people from different cultures, learned about different lifestyles, fallen in and out of love, been partnered , been married, made friends that moved into RL, and experienced loss as some just stopped logging in without us knowing what happened to them and some logged out of their real life. I would totally do it again – my only regret is that I didn’t spring for a lifetime membership when that was being offered for $10!
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CEOExpress
