Protected: The List.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Juggling

My brain is full of school.

This would also explain my somewhat poor attendance recently into the metaverse, but hey, RL comes first and all that, right?

Before Christmas I enrolled myself into what I thought would be a few short courses in Maths and Literature. The Lit I wasn’t so bothered about as I know my English is already quite good given my school grade, but I signed myself up because it’s free, and because it’s something to do.

The math course, however, was something I was even more keen to try. I’ve always been appauling at maths and when I found out that this course was actually working towards a nationally recognised qualification, I jumped at the chance. It may help me to improve the already poor grade I received during my school exams. What I didn’t know was that the Literature too was a long course that earned me a qualification at the end. I’m still going to continue with this, and just see if I can work toward an even better grade that I got originally from school.

This is all on top of the first year I’m doing in my degree, which I’ve recently started on doing research for.

My children are ever-more demanding, as usual. My eldest is currently trying to settle into nursery. Although she had an amazing first week with no problems, this past week has been rather trying to say the least. She has been unwell, is still currently toilet training and has been thrown in with a new bunch of kids and teachers each morning on top of that. It’s a big thing for her and I’m trying to be patient and understanding of her anxieties that she’ll gain for a little while.

My youngest… well, anyone would think I fed her E-Numbers all day. She never stops, even though she can’t walk just yet. Her crawling becomes faster and more skillful, and her new favourite thing is to stand up and lean against everything, including mummy’s head first thing in the morning. Which makes for a more pleasant alarm clock, I have to say She officially said her first word a few days ago and has not been able to stop saying it since, which brings a smile to my face everytime she does.

My kids on top of my school work and a steadily growing social life/dating life is rapidly taking up my time now, and I’m only ever really available around Second Life during the evening. I know some people have realised this recently, and have asked where I’ve been – so I thought I’d take the liberty of doing a quick post here to let everyone know

I’m also trying to deal with the seperation of my parents.  What I thought would just be another ‘false alarm’ (my mum has had many of them) and that things would be fine in a day or two, turned out to be completely the opposite. They have been split for nearly two weeks now, and my dad has moved out to my uncle’s about fifteen miles away. I’m trying my damned hardest to stay out of the way and to just be a support branch for either of them when they need it, although even that has been hard to do. My mum doesn’t like that I’d support my dad too, and thinks he should leave me and the children alone until things calm down, but I can’t just do that. She’s asking a lot of me recently (emotionally and socially) that I can’t really do, but at the same time I just want to keep her happy. I guess we’ll see where it goes…

The opening of the C2P club last Tuesday was amazing, and I’d like to thank Bailey Longcloth, Prad Prathivi and Rrishanna Regina for their time and effort they’ve taken into building the club itself, as well as the managing it will take in the future. I thoroughly enjoyed officially opening the place up with my own DJ set, along with listening to Prad’s soon after me.

It’s taking me a lot of courage to be at social gatherings in SL at the moment with my usual friends, for reasons (and more) that I’ve stated here several times in the past. I know it’ll take me some more time still, along with much more thinking about what’s happening and what I should be doing before I can feel entirely comfortable again. I’d even considered dropping SL altogether from my life and focusing on the more important issues going on with my RL right now, but I know one or two friends would object to that – and who am I to stop their fun, and my own, because of a couple of shitty situations?

No, I’m around. Just not as much as people would like me to be right now – but I’m happier, and that’s the main thing I guess

Self-respect

My good friend, Bailey Longcloth, has been running a wonderful gallery based on my home island of Angel Square for a few months or so now. The latest theme for the Gallery of Light is ‘respect’, and I was asked to send in my own piece to represent my own interpretation of this.

Due to being burned so badly throughout the recent months by those I’ve held dearly to me for some years, I’ve come to realise that respect is due where it’s earned.

But more than anything you should learn to respect yourself. Self-respect, like self-esteem, is one of those qualities that we should all possess within ourselves to keep us ticking. To install confidence in ourselves, and to help us realise that we’re not such shabby people as we once thought we were. This is the case for me, anyway.

I have recently admitted to myself that I have a medical illness in RL which I’ve been deeply ashamed of. I was already aware, and have been for some time, that I have a mental illness. I was also aware for some time of this physical illness too, although have been too ashamed of myself to admit it until last night when my mother visited me. Something happened which meant I couldn’t hide or conceal this from her any longer, and I broke down in tears from feeling so ashamed of myself. But the reaction she gave me was completely unexpected. She sympathised and advised me to no longer hide from this condition, and that I should seek medical advise.

A method of treatment for this condition may require surgery, although I hope it may not come to that in the long run. I have had major abdominal surgery twice before when giving birth to my two children, so that doesn’t scare me in the least bit. But I hope I can find the strength and *respect* in myself to deal with this problem without surgery. I need to overcome the fact that I’m ashamed, and that I feel I’m a bad person because of this. It’s more common than most people realise.

As I’ve mentioned so many times in this blog before, both in a RL and SL sense, I’ve been badly burned by a loved one before. So much so that I can almost feel myself turning into some kind of cynical spinster right before my eyes. After Bailey sent me the note for the recent theme of ‘Respect’ for the gallery, it got me thinking. I don’t need to become a cynical spinster. I can find happiness again, I just need to respect myself enough to know that I’m worth  the happiness.

I have been asked out on a RL date this week coming which I have so far turned down due to other commitments on that night. That is the primary reason why I turned it down, anyway. But secretly I’m so scared. I know that my date and I will arrange a different day, and that hopefully I may be able to find a babysitter to keep the kids entertained while I’m out. But secretly I’m so scared. Scared of being with someone so new again, and scared of being burned once more. I don’t know if this will be the case… for all I know this person may end up worshipping the ground I walk on, and likewise with me to them. Again it’s a matter of confidence and respect in myself.

So from this moment on Operation Self-Respect begins. Relationships fail, you get burned, and over time you learn to move on from it and learn from your mistakes. I need to take a chance in myself to be the type of person that my date would like me to be,  and that I would like myself to be, otherwise I may end up a cynical spinster for the rest of my life. And that does nobody, especially myself, any good.

Life’s a bitch, and then you die…apparently.

I try not to write about my RL circumstances here, and it is meant to be overall a Second Life blog. I already maintain a RL blog which I’ve been keeping for six years now, however it is true when they say whatever you do in SL will somehow effect your RL too, and likewise the other way round.

I sometimes wish, and more recently than I ever have done, that this wasn’t the case. I wish I could see Second Life for what it was created for – an online game. I guess the difference is that Second Life, unlike most other games, doesn’t have a purpose. It has no ending, no levels to complete or bad guys to defeat. It is based purely on social and emotional networks in my opinion. When things are good, they’re great. When they’re bad, they’re hell. Just like in RL.

I have had a terrible evening. Just when I feel like I’m starting to get back on track with everything, something else is sure to come along and smack me in the face, like it has done today.

One of these ’slaps’ came from the man that I used to love. I’m really not going to go into too much detail about it otherwise I will no doubt have several people on my ass asking me to either protect or remove this post, but I found that he is ‘officially’ seeing someone else now. It shouldn’t pose too much of a problem really… we’ve been seperated for a little while, although it hasn’t been easy at all and there have still been a lot of bad feelings involved.

But now it just feels so… final. Here I still am, trying to pick up the broken pieces of my life and hardening myself to those that take an interest in me so I don’t get hurt again, when he can so easily move on. It makes me feel like he didn’t and hasn’t cared for a long time, and I’m of no significance or importance to him anymore – which he actually made clear to me in RL last week by wishing things upon me that I didn’t think anyone was capable of wishing.

Why do I still care? I don’t know. I really don’t. Recently I have put on a civil face for the sake of myself and of my friends, trying desperately to not get them wrapped up in this once again. Even going as far as to take a positive interest in this man’s new love life openly infront of everyone. But on the inside I still feel as if my heart and head are in pieces. They’re slowly being sticky-taped back together, and I do feel some positive changes. But I also feel a lot of hatred and disappointment, mostly in myself, for wasting two precious years of my life that was spent for the majority of the time in tears and anger.

I find it hard to wish happiness on him right now, and I think he knows it. I will continue to remain civil for the sake of everyone else, and the atmosphere at the one place we should all be able to go to and be happy – but this is going to take me alot of time.

On the plus side, for the last week or so I’ve been experiencing some positive changes in myself. I have more motivation and purpose in my RL than I ever have done before, and to be honest it feels exhilerating. I’ve never experienced anything like it. It’s almost as if I can feel this shell enveloping me, giving me the strength to be more honest with myself and others around me. I’m hardening to all the hurt I’ve been through recently, and it’s doing me some good I think. I walked down the street today with my iPod blaring out in my ears and I actually smiled for no reason whatsoever. Although I still hurt… I think I’m also beginning to let go of some things.

As for my RL issues, my mother called me tonight and we were on the phone for two hours. My parents, for the past year, have had a very rocky relationship. My mum hasn’t been happy for a long time – and today both her and my dad decided they were seperating, and he will be moving out of the family home next weekend. My mum is scared about being on her own again, and how she will manage financially as she doesn’t think her earnings will be enough to cover the cost of everything. I sat and listened and told her it will be okay… she *will* manage, because she has to.

In some respects I feel relieved about this. My parents have been stuck in this rut for awhile now, and they always put off doing anything about it. It wasn’t fair to them or to my younger brother who is still currently living in the family home. In other respects I’m devestated. I get on well with my dad and to think of him not being there anymore to crack the usual silly jokes around the kitchen table that he usually does breaks my heart. He adores my children, his grandaughters, and I know that they are going to miss him something chronic.

I cried once I hung up the phone to my mum. I stayed calm for her because I want to support her through this tough time, but I feel like I’m part of a broken home once again. Things are changing, and I don’t want them to. The kids and I can no longer go over to the family home and they can jump all over and play with their grandad while me and mum natter about nothing and everything. I know at some point my dad will want to come over to see us before he moves out and does his thing for a while, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.

The only person I feel as if I can fully let in and feel loved and comforted by at the moment is thousands of miles away, which makes me feel quite detatched from that itself. It’s a bizarre feeling. I want to open up and let them in, but it’s frustrating when I can’t share all of these bad and good experiences with them in person. For now I’m just going with the flow and seeing how things go… being able to talk to them on the net or by phone is certainly better than not at all. I don’t think ‘official’ feelings have been established yet by either of us, or whether we want to make them fully known at all due to the distance… but I wanted to thank them for being around more lately and being my shoulder.

Life is really up and down at the moment… I don’t know whether I’m coming or going from one day to the next. I have goals to work toward and achieve, and friends to talk to and laugh with and gain support from. It just feels like sometimes the world is spinning, and I’m not spinning with it.

Business in a Box?

Prims

I haven’t used SLExchange in a long time, probably in just over a year. There was a time last year, while running my own business, that I was fascinated, obsessed and relied heavily on the website for the sales of all the products I was making and designing.

When I closed my business down, I continued to let my account on SL Exchange run, but very rarely checked it.

And so out of boredom last night, I decided to have a browse and to see what the hype on the ‘SL Market’ was (and if there were any new gadgets I could buy myself f0r a spot of retail therapy!). What I saw quite frankly stunned me. There were gadgets and gizmo’s, scripts and accessories as normal – but almost all of them were designed and aimed at helping people establish their own business in SL as a way of making money.

For example there were ‘A Box of 3,000 sculpties’ that were being sold for a rather low price. ‘Business in a Box’ which consisted of clothing prims and garments that were plainly textured. The customer could apparently buy this box and make their own clothes at ease, without the need of using Photoshop or other such graphics programmes. There was a gadget which laid out tiny prims (beads, etc) in the shape of a necklace, bracelet or ring, saving builders potentially several hours of laying each prim themselves into the shape they want. And, the most amusing to me, was a gadget which allowed builders to make their own sculpties in world without, again, using the appropriate sculptie designing programmes.

As an ‘old skool’ builder, I didn’t know whether to be pleased or appauled by these items. You can guarentee that 98% of the top designers today didn’t have these items to help produce the items they were making, although still they come out with some excellent quality items that people from all over the metaverse will rush out to buy.These designers spent months teaching themselves how to build and texture appropriately, and so in some respects now these gadgets are  available to the market rather easily and for a cheap cost, in can put all that hard work and effort down the drain.

The existance of these gadgets mean it is now easier than ever for every resident to to start their own business – and do well. But it’s not their own work really, is it?

On the other hand the main question on every new resident’s mind today is “How do I make money in Second Life?”. The main answer to such a question would be for that resident to use his/her skills to design and create products which they could then sell on. But then that poses the problem of the resident in question not being able to use special graphic and sculptie design software to help them in their SL Retail Domination quest, which is where the help of these ‘gadgets’ come into play – making it easy for everyone.

I can now create fairly good quality textures if I really wanted to, but I have spent something like eight months in Photoshop CS to be able to do such a thing, teaching myself how each tool works and which brush strokes do what. And I suppose when the time comes again to start designing and building products for myself or other people, I can be proud that everything I have created is *all* my own work.

Protected: 0.o

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: Enough is enough

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

A touch of RL…

Me - 12.01.09

I was tagged in a Flickr meme by  an SL friend, and thought it would be good enough to share here too =) Above is my RL self, and below are 16 facts about me.

1) When I was a wee girl, I wanted to be an airline pilot. I’ve always had some sort of fascination with aircraft.

2) I’m very creative, and sometimes at my happiest when I’m drawing or painting. It allows me to escape myself when I need to.

3) I sometimes care far too much about what other people think of me and my life, and it effects what I do a lot of the time.

4) I have a tendency to draw strengths and support from my friends, rather than my family. My friends mean the world to me.

5) I have a scar along my right eyebrow which I earned from sleep-walking as a child, and falling onto the catch of a door.

6) I hate brussel sprouts.

7) I become easily frustrated when I feel people don’t understand me, or see and respect my view point.

8 ) Before I had my first daughter, I was diagnosed as lactose intolerant and had a very careful diet of soya products and no dairy at all. This disappeared after pregnancy, which my doctor told can sometimes happen. Pregnancy can cure certain ailments.

9) Maths has never been my strong point, and I was given a poor grade for it in school. However I was a grade A student in subjects like English & History.

10) I’m currently about to begin a BA (Hons) in History.

11) I have been a dormouse since a baby. I can sleep for hours if I wanted to/was given the chance to, and started sleeping all through the night from the age of 3 weeks. (Most babies manage this from 3 months onwards!).

12) My favourite scent is ‘Code’ by Armani. It brings back a lot of happy memories for me.

13) My eyes are brown, but turn green in the sun.

14) I’m fascinated by real life crime stories and serial killers. crimelibrary.com is fantastic for reading on that stuff.

15) I have only kissed in the pouring rain once – and it felt magical.

16) I’m a naturally open person, and find it easy to talk about most subjects which others may view as personal or would ordinarily be too shy to discuss, e.g sex.

2009

Beginnings

It isn’t officially 2009 for me until I’ve taken down my Christmas tree.

Like most people I do get rather excited on New Year’s Eve, although unlike most people I’ve *never* been out for a single New Year’s evening. I have either babysat my younger siblings or have had children of my own.  And because at the end of this year I’ve been sick with mild glandular fever, I haven’t even had a drop of alcohol.

But it was nice. I amused myself once my children were in bed up until the last remaining hour of 2008. I switched on the TV and began to watch the spectacular firework display in London, feeling immensely hopeful that this New Year is going to bring some wonderful things to me and my family. That was until I woke up on New Year’s Day and stood staring at my Christmas tree.

Christmas, for me, has been a stressful and rather lonely event. It was the first Christmas I spent without one of my children, and the first Christmas I’ve experienced without a partner to share everything with. Needless to say these subjects, and a few other minor ones, made this Christmas somewhat melancholy – and I have been counting down the days when I can take my tree down and forget all about it.

And so my tree went down today, and I’ve been able to adequately rearrange my livingroom and all of my childrens’ toys. And now that everything is all set for 2009 interior wise, it put a smile on my face as I feel I can now look forward to the year ahead properly.

2008 started off relatively well. I gave birth to my second daughter in January, and was in a stable and loving relationship. However, like most people, I think I can say that the year in general has been officially pants, and due to this I’ve been looking forward to the start of 2009 with a certain ray of faith and hope. And also determination. And because of this I instantly felt my self confidence begin to rise, and I know I’m really onto the start of picking myself up off the floor from 2008 and beginning to stand tall for 2009 – and it feels great!

My Second Life has already seen some new events for 2009, with the opening of RP sim Exogenesis. At the moment it is only available to play for admins and guests – this is to ensure that while we’re playing if we come across any breaks or bugs, they can be fixed in time for the public opening on Monday. Aloxis (Loxi) Bellman has dedicated months of her time into this project, and her building and scripting capabilities have just completely blown me away. The place has a fantastic opening story, runs smoothly and is FUN! The admins and guests are all in agreement that the place cannot possibly fail to attract hardcore roleplayers across the metaverse, and for it to be a flying success.

I have also took the New Year in Second Life as a new opportunity to get in contact with those that I haven’t been able to talk to much over the past few months, to catch up with, laugh with and enjoy SL with once again. Although the hassle of time zones is always apparent, we’ve still been able to make the best of the time we can hang out together and it’s been very fantastical.

I have two resolutions for Second Life this year.

1) Stop being a doormat. There are those out there that, whether they realise it or not, are out to make other peoples lives uncomfortable. I have been victim to this in recent months, and I will not be taking this anymore. My problem is I care too much about what other people think, and I don’t really know why. There is a wonderful quote I found recently that adequately fits this resolution:

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
~~Dr. Suess

2) Continue to build and improve my capabilities in this area. In 2008 and started and ended my own business because I didn’t think the products I was producing were good enough for the public. Since then my knowledge of building and using programes like Photoshop has expanded, and I would like to put that good knowledge to use and to start producing items that I am proud of, and that would possibly be good enough for the public to use.

So – Happy New Year to my friends and family within Second Life, and to my readers here at my blog. Let’s hope this one brings health, wealth and happiness to all.