Flickr photostream added to blog

Reminder to self- (the rest of you will all know this already) ..to add Flickr stream to blog – appearance / widget / Flickr .. then find the RSS feed from th Flickr photostream page (not any other pages) by right clicking on ‘latest’. I think this way my latest photos will appear … WARNING: I have loads to add!

Immersiva 2Life – a fascinating tour

After a lovely start to yesterday evening in my favourite bar with someone who has now become my favourite DJ (he picks on me, and to be fair, my naivety, slow-wittedness and puritanical appearance invite bullying… but a small tip seemed to placate him.. at least for one night …) .. and despite several computer crashes which I fear make me appear terribly ill mannered ..my Italian friends whisked me to a late-night multimedia highlight of the year! Guided by the beautifully spoken (and well-dressed) Matteus, we were led along an attractive pathway to see some fascinating representations of well known works of art. At each waystage, Matteus gave a clear explanation of the work before inviting someone to take part in its ‘interactive’ version. A real bonus for me was the ‘notecard’ which accompanied each exhibit and Claudio’s patient translation into French of key words which I did not understand. The next morning I visited alone (with distant personal coaching and moral (?) support from a helfpul self-confessed ‘drifter’, and occasionally joined by Claudio when he was not looking after his dog or his next holiday!), and I took many photos and followed the various YouTube links which provided further background to the works. You can imagine how excited I was when I met Matteus himself later in the evening; he came to inspect Claudio’s clever reproduction of St Peter’s Dome. I have uploaded some photos on my newly-created Flickr photostream…. I had to reduce the size, so I am not sure whether they are any good .. I would welcome advice on this! (And also advice on why the photos are sequence in reverse chronological order …)  Here’s the link to the stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kareliakondor/sets/72157623097588438/ and if anyone wants higher quality images, let me know.  And yes, it is this late.  Helen’s on holiday, so no-one is allowed to nag her if she chooses to spend time with me …

Season’s Greetings!

Well, it’s just turned Christmas Day, so I had better let Helen get some sleep!  I have been talking with some really good friends today .. a cool musician who thinks deeply and has interesting contacts and a wonderful shock of blond hair (I’ll check on whether he is willing to be named!) .. René, who teaches me the nuances of the French language (what’s the difference between en fait, et au fait?  well *I* know!!) .. Scottius Polke, an incredibly imaginative artist who has sent me a really fun card … my Italian friends at Grillo in Testa … MilesDavis, whose English is improving daily (just ask him to say ‘hang on  a minute’, and wait to be dead impressed!!) …. Marisolde, who always encourages me to have fun and enjoy the whole sartorial side of this life … Gizmo and Carol who patiently sort out all my techie problems and queries, and gently tell me when it is time to go to pack presents and go to bed .. and just past midnight, I made friends with a new Italian artist who is keen to share with me how she has learnt English entirely through Second Life.  And all this has been done during the time when Helen was meant to be tidying her house ….poor thing .. must be terrible not to have a neat little inventory where you can shove everything when you have visitors!  Anyway, feel free to drop in any time and admire my greetings cards and listen to my radio which I have now tuned to an Italian station.  And do try out the scrambler even if you don’t know any Italian!  You could get the top score and win … an email from me saying congratulations!

Live music from Claudio Rau!

Just had a lovely couple of hours with three enagaging Italians, listening to Claudio’s beautiful guitar playing …. a wide range of music from Elvis to Francis Cutting. Helen failed to impress anyone with her ‘cello playing. Must practise!! She also failed to impress MilesDavis with her Italian (come se dice ‘against all odds’?!!) Must get a good dictionary!! Morevover, she failed to impress MilesDavis with her film knowledge! Must watch more films!! I do hope they all return one day despite her failures as I so enjoyed their company! Soon was very forgiving and kind! At least Helen knew the names of the seven dwarves .. though I was extremely impressed that Claudio knew them in both Italian and French. These things are important.

October’s resolution

I’m determined to use this blog more to make quick notes about what I get up to .. I’ve been learning so much recently! To remind myself what  I’m going to blog about, here’s a list (and in no particular order) – Burning Life – my new hair style – changing the colour of objects I buy – installing an internet radio on the plot – being politically and ideologically stretched by Italians and French – seeing amazing works of art and meeting an extremely talented, cloaked Italian artist  - visiting a magnificent, romantic sim – thoroughly enjoying Italianiamo – introducing butterflies and a variety of static but intelligent birds onto the plot – wearing high heeled boots (and the consequences of doing this) – changing clothes and avatars without getting embarrassed – using camera controls more effectively – dancing to a wide range of music at a very special bar where my resilience and sense of self esteem have been sorely tested by a special group of people (don’t worry, I won’t let on who or where you are!!)  

Karelia shows off toned-down hair colour!

 - having – having my heart in my mouth as I watched one of my best friends undergoing various transformations (but I think she pulled through!) …better stop there for now!  I’m really looking forward to meeting Helen’s friends at the London Language Show on Saturday and Sunday.  I hope she can persuade you to come to my world to meet me and my friends!

Friday night was music night

After an interesting day when Helen introduced me to some people who had visited her at school, I had a very musical night last night ….

I am gradually making my way through a lovely set of landmarks given to me by Groovy Winkler .. a nice mix of edutainment.  (IM me for the list]Sometimes I can’t see anyone when I teleport somewhere, but I have now learnt to look at my map, locate all the green dots which represent life, then open my minimap to fly around and join them.

First stop was a night club in Courcheval where a friendly DJ personalised it all by greeting newcomers by name and explaining how to click on the dance ball above his head to get moving.  I chose the ‘dance in sync’ option.  It was so much fun to see the way the crowd managed to ’sing along’ or rather ‘text along’ to the songs .. there was a great community feel to the place, and I got to try out my French.  Many of the songs chosen were Michael Jackson ones.  Helen told me that she went to a MJ concert in Milton Keynes years ago, and could not help but get swept up in the mania.  I left a little tip, and again was thanked personally.

Next stop: Milano.  In true Italian-style, there was a free concert going on in the large open square .. and what a concert!  Maximillion Kleene enchanted us all with his beautiful, tuneful voice, and skillful guitar playing, performing a wide range of music, some of which you would never have believed would suit solo guitar + voice, but somehow he made it work. He *said* he was in Niagara Falls .. but he looked as if he was with us in Milano!   It was so good, I had to invite my good friends Luis, Gizmo and Marisolde along.  Marisolde interacted verbally in a very entertaining way!  I wish I were as bold and witty as she is!  Amusingly, Maximillion’s tip jar is a figure of a cow which literally ‘tips over’ as you add money. I had to leave a group in order to join his fan club (you’re only allowed 25 groups in SL) .. but it will be worth it.

There was a slightly frustrating end to the evening though when I failed to speak with Gizmo… the reason was discovered by Helen’s long-suffering techie the next day .. somehow the audio / volume / recording control had slipped to ‘wave out mix’ rather than microphone .. hence why Gizmo could not hear me.

Next post: what happened on Saturday!

Creating and passing on objects – nearly there!

Box to pass on Wordgrid

Karelia adapts a WordGrid!

I picked up a wordgrid from Dudeney Ge’s store on Edunation(he’s so generous) and decided to have a go at it.  It’s great!  You get to drag words to pictures.  There’s no feedback, so you have to do it with an ‘expert’ there .. but I could imagine a game where learners could discuss the answers as a group and use prepositions and imperatives to complete the grid collectively, then go on to compete to be the first to get a correct version (with the teacher running from board to board!!)

 Little tips for anyone else trying it for the first time: (this will all be obvious for any old-timers reading this!)

• take time to read the instructions which come with it;
• press ctrl+alt+T to see the ‘transparencies’ so that you can select the word easily
• use the corner red and blue bits to navigate across the grid quickly (quicker than just using horizontal and vertical arrows)
• always click the board to clear the pictures and the words before you take it back into your inventory(otherwise the words are left hanging in the air separately)

I then went further, and edited it for French. 

• I saved the ‘original’ into a newly created folder called ‘wordgrid’,
• I created a folder called ‘wordgrid French’,
• I did a ’save as’  and named it ‘wordgrid French animals’,
• I created a new notecard containing a list of 16 words and named it ”words’ (-you have to call it words for the wordgrid to work),
• I saved the card into the ‘wordgrid French animals’ folder,
• I dragged the word list into the contents area. 

Et voilà – ça a marché!

Next step: to be able to package it up for passing on to others.

• I created a little box (right click on the land / create / select object / click the wand on the ground)
• I asked Helen to make a picture to put on the box in her world, (she’s actually quite proud of her creation – she used snagit to bring together 2 pictures and some text – and she’s featured her 2 cats!)
• she uploaded it as a ‘texture’ into my world (File / upload …it only cost her 10 Lindens for this – about 5p in her world)
• I added the texture to my box,
• I dragged the wordgrid, the words list, a ‘give to all’ script, and something else into the box, (must ask Anna what the something else was .. I’ve lost it now and it’s not working!)
• I checked the boxes to say that other could copy and modify but not sell the word grid

But now the sad news …..

While Anna was patiently giving me instructions, and was affirming that it had worked, we both got thrown out of Second Life, and sadly, I seem to have lost the box!  Of-course, we SL citizens are not fazed by this (!!!) so I did the whole exercise again.  But this time I forgot the ’something else’, and so when I was showing off to my friend Gizmo later on, it didn’t work.

Watch this space for the answer!

Anna also passed me an object which allows you to organise your textures into little ‘mini-folders’ .. will really help to retrieve textures from pre-defined categories as I build up my bank of textures, and Anna says it has the advantage of constituting fewer prims.  I expect when I grow up, I will understand better what that means.

I’ll sign off now .. Helen has asked me to help her with an excel spreadsheet.  But I’ll try to upload a picture of my box first.

Mark / Nik’s ‘A coffee with Pete Sharma’

Nice to see several familiar faces at this evening’s interview. Helen tells me that in her life it is seen as quite rude for the audience to join in during a formal interview. In my world , we usually switch off our voice while the interview is taking place (to avoid echoes and interference), but we can express ourselves whenever we like in text chat. I must confess though that this sometimes means that I lose concentration and stop following a sustained line of thought. Perhaps I will develop this skill more as I get older. (Nik says he’s got used to it now!) Pete sounds like a nice, sensible man.

Grazie to Anna Begonia

Helen gently reminded me that I should have started by acknowledging the fact that I am blatantly copying Anna Begonia who is my intelligent, creative and fun Italian teacher .. or, should I say, ‘animator’.  (And I don’t care if that sounds as though I am trying to be teacher’s pet.  It’s simply true!)  I’m looking forward to seeing her and my friends tonight to do  some italianimation.  (If you read her blog, you’ll understand the new word which she has created!)

Hello world!

Hi!  My friend Helen has suggested that I write a blog for anyone who is interested in knowing what it is like in my life, which people from her world call ‘Second Life’.  I’m rather uncomfortable with the term ‘Second Life’ .. it sounds somehow ’second class’ .. but to avoid confusion, I’ll use that description for now!  In my world, we have a variety of ways to communicate with each other (the most highly sophisticated one is called ‘voice’) – so it may take a while for me to learn how to use this method.  Please be patient!  I’ll be back later to learn how to upload a picture of me here. (Actually, I just have!)