The Quest to Understand Second Life

Have you ever wanted to be someone else? Look different? Perhaps you'd like to be skinny, have brown hair, and wear cool clothes. Have you ever wanted to visit Ireland or some other destination? Now you can! In a class I'm taking at IUPUI, we are exploring Second Life, an on-line world where you can be someone else, live somewhere else, and meet new people. You can even spend money called Lindens. But, DON'T tell anyone that you are "playing" Second Life. Persons who spend a lot of time in the environment will take great offense at that. They are "residents" in Second Life. They are someone in a virtual world that they are not in the real world!

First, you need to have an avatar. This is one of the hardest things to do in Second Life (my opinion) because when you create an avatar, you can either make yourself look like you or you can create a new you. There are hundreds of different combinations of body sizes, shapes, facial features, and clothes. There are even stores in SL that you can go in and purchase new clothing for your avatar. However, I am going to stick with all the free items because I'm cheap! If I want to buy some clothes, I'm going to buy them for me, not an avatar!

My quest to understand Second Life has been slow. Although there is Orientation Island where you are taught how to walk, stand, fly, and sit, there is still much more to learn. The most challenging thing on my quest is to actually find free things to do. For example, in our scavenger hunt, we could choose to ride in a hot air balloon or scuba dive. I wanted to scuba dive, but when I searched for a place to dive, I was sent to an island with no one on it and no place to try scuba diving for free. I could purchase items to dive, but I couldn't find where the place was to dive for free. The search box said you could do it there, but I never found it. I experienced other things like that in my hunt to find items on the hunt list. The items may be hard to find because the scenery is slow to load on the screen. When you're used to a fast computer pulling up graphics, and then you get slow graphics in Second Life, well, let's just say I'm not too patient.

When graphics do come up, they are beautiful. I enjoyed especially the botanical gardens. You name a type of garden, you'll find it in that location (or, landmark in SL-speak). I even met a fairy avatar there and her pet lion. It was fun to talk to her. She was totally in character as she told me she lived in the garden with her lion. It was almost as if she created the garden. This is a picture of me looking at some flowers in the botanical garden.

As I'm still new to SL, the concept is difficult. However, the more I work with my avatar by teleporting her to different locations, changing her appearance, and making her run, fly, or walk, the easier it is becoming. I still find the search function rather difficult, but I'm getting a better hang of it.

I expected to see more avatars in the landmarks. I visited many places where I was the only one there. I visited the Stardust Treehouse several times hoping to run into one of my classmates, but no one was ever there either.

I will continue my quest to understand and "be" in Second Life. It is more enjoyable than I expected it to be, but I anticipate once this class is over, so will my life be in Second Life.