Choosing an avatar is meant to be an enlightening experience. You can chose a different persona. Decide what side of you you want to show the world. You can change the colour of your skin, the colour of your hair even what sex you are. With all of this at my fingertips you would think I would have been more creative but I just quickly chose one from the menu that I liked the look of and left it at that. She is a female and she looks like a witch wearing a black cape and a carrying a cat on her shoulder...maybe choosing an avatar does say something about you after all!
I entered the Second Life world.
There I was staring at the back of my avatars head standing on the start platform, not quite sure what to do now. I followed the arrows which guided me towards a place I never got to see as the class was sent a link to the DIT college classroom and I could just teleport there, but I did get to have a little fun before that. The arrows are designed for you to move your avatar through different obstacles so you can practice using the different keys. So away I went up and around the walkway and was told by a sign that I had to jump and fly over the gaps in the ground....jump I went..and down I went..through the gaps and down to the floor below...around I walked again and now I had to learn how to jump up a step bigger than my avatars head, up I went and around I went again....jump I went and....down the hole again. This is getting annoying. It was here I was approached by another avatar, dressed all in black and had an array of guns floating above his head. Pretty cool dude. He said Hello, I said Hi back and explained that I was new here,I asked him why he had guns above his head. He said they were part of his costume and asked me if I wanted to go to the Island. It was at this point I freaked out at being put so on the spot. I had so many thoughts going around my head that I didn't know what to do. It was in the classroom in Grangegorman I had gone online that first day so I thought maybe it was another class member who had snuck up on me and knew who I was. But shur what harm...it was strange and intimidating these feelings that encounter brought to light! Definitely some underling psychological issues!! Is it the fear of conversation? of speaking to someone you don't know so bluntly like that? you wouldn't walk up to a stranger at the bus stop and just start chatting away, why is that? is it a form of anxiety ? is it because people just want to be left alone now days with what ever alone time they can get in between work and home and social life forever in there faces.
I sat on the bus last week on the way to Wexford and it was jam packed, so I squeezed away in next to this guy who was staring out the window. It felt very intimate on the bus for some reason, it was one of the old Bus Eireann busses where you can see everyone above the seats and your not in your black shell cocoon all to yourself ,so I offered him some chocolate and made a comment about how uncomfortable the seats were, typical bus talk and I could see he appreciated the comment as he relaxed a bit in his seat but no other conversation emerged...so why bother talk at all sometimes.
Anyway off I went and transported myself to the DIT classroom where we spent the class learning to sit and fly and talk to each other and we went outside to take a few screen shots with our camera button to use for next weeks class.
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