May 2, 2015 | Blog Challenges, Chatter
I’m the worst learner at Medici University. Seriously. I signed up, rezzed my little gazebo studio, wandered around for the first week to a couple of events, then I got distracted and wandered away.
Okay, some of it may have had to do with various aspects of RL distracting me so much that I couldn’t focus on SL. Some of it has to do with my laptop suddenly deciding that half of my favorite sims are going to send me into a downward spiral of lag that will seize control of my viewer and kick me out if I so much as dare to cam around looking for good camera angles.
But even with somewhat valid excuses for not logging in, I’m still the worst learner at MU. I signed up for creative writing, but I’m barely writing. Well, I take that back, I’m writing a lot, but it’s mostly been journaling in notebooks, I’ve been bad about keeping up with blogging. To to remedy this I think I’ll make an attempt to do Ryan’s May 1-2-31 challenge. A blog post every day? Related to numbers? (Which I presume should be in sequence…) Ahahahahahaha! I’m completely insane. But hey, I’ll give it a shot. I want to be a good student who participates in something before the term is up.
Now, of course, I have a month worth of posts to consider and I haven’t the foggiest idea what I’ll talk about. I’ve read a lot of advice about finding your blogging niche, but I’m still adrift here. I think my biggest challenge when blogging about SL is trying to stick to SL topics. I often struggle with whether or not I should blog RL thoughts here because I still see so many people talk about keeping a strict divide between SL and RL, and I find that when I’m not sure what to say I just abandon my thoughts entirely. I really suck at splitting my interests up between different accounts so I have SL here, RL there, music to the left, crafts upstairs, and spirituality down the hall. On the one hand, I enjoy reading blogs that pull everything in, because it’s an extension of people watching for me, and I enjoy writing about whatever pops into my head. But, on the other hand, I know that not everyone wants to read about Every Single Interest you have.
As if trying to figure out what to write about isn’t enough, lately I struggle to figure out my place in Second Life. Sometimes I feel like I cling to SL because my late husband and I shared so many happy adventures there, and I’m not ready to let experiences like that go. I’m beginning to wonder if I keep this blog going because it anchors me to Second Life and gives me a reason to keep going back in world on a regular basis. I still love being in world, I still lose hours just wandering around, or trying on outfit after outfit, but occasionally I feel like I should be doing more, I should be having adventures, I should be taking advantage of all the fun and exciting things people can do in SL,
Maybe I need to stop trying to figure out the right way to do Second Life, and the right way to blog, and just go merrily forward being me, one step at a time.
Feb 12, 2015 | Images, Monday Memes
So I said to myself, “Self, we need to think of something to blog for this weeks Berry meme…”
I’m just ridiculously happy that Strawberry Singh has started up her Monday Memes again. I know I won’t always think of something on topic so I can take part, and I’m often quite late, but I just love going through the comments and checking out everyone’s responses. This week she talks about her blogging milestones. Her instructions:
Share when you started Second Life, when you started blogging about Second Life and talk about any Second Life blogging milestones you wish to share with your readers.
I’m not sure I have any typical blogger milestones. I’m very casual about blogging. I love to write, I do it all the time (mostly on my own where it won’t be seen) and I love my blog, but I don’t post often enough to build up an audience. I don’t mind this, I continue this because it makes me happy, and even if it was a private journal I’d still make posts, just because it’s fun.
I began SL on Feb. 5, 2007, I just passed my 8th rezday last week. 😀 The blogging came much later though. Originally the only thing I had was a Flickr account to post my pictures, and for a few years that was enough. Sometime in 2010 I decided I really really wanted to blog and started on Blogger, mostly with RL stuff and iphoneography, but occasionally an SL related post crept in. After a year or so I lost interest in that and moved on to Tumblr, where I eventually made the same-named predecessor of this blog (I imported most of the original posts to this blog when I started it.) The first post was in February 2012 and was a stand of trees where I’d been experimenting with shadow settings.
I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with the blog, and for a few months I posted very infrequently. There was a small SL community getting started on Tumblr, but I was having trouble finding people to follow. Since my SL blog was a side blog I could only follow from my main account so I’m sure it puzzled SL bloggers who wondered why someone who seemed to have no connection to SL was following them. I enjoyed Tumblr a lot and am still active there, but I began to want a slightly more full featured blog platform because I thought it might give me more incentive to post long things, and I always wanted to play with WordPress, so here I am. Yay!
My milestones are just my little memorable blogging moments. I think my first was deciding to start doing Strawberry Singh’s memes, because it gave me a topic to work on each week, when I was having trouble thinking of something to say. The second was taking part in Vanessa Blaylock’s 30 Days of Avatar Blogging challenge. That not only got me in the habit of thinking about what I could post, it also got me exploring SL more, and it introduced me to a lot of wonderful blogs that I try to keep up with when I can.
My favorite post was in response to a Berry meme, about my best friend, where I wrote about my RL husband/SL partner. I talked about how much fun we had exploring SL, and how much I loved his love of our virtual world. Less than a month after I posted that I lost him to a heart attack. Reading that post is bittersweet now, it reminds me that I’ll never be able to explore the world with my soul mate, but I will always have the most wonderful memories.
These days I’m trying to get myself back into the swing of blogging. I’ll be trying to find time to get in world and think of something to post and trying to figure out what use I will make of my studio at Medici University, while still adjusting to a new job IRL. Might be tricky, I have no idea how dedicated I’ll be. Still, I have lots of things I want to do. I want to post more and go in world more often (I’m averaging about once a week at the moment.) I’ve contemplated breathing some new life into the Tumblr version of this blog and trying to keep up with posting to the Facebook page I created.
I’m not sure how far I’ll get with all my plans, but I’ll try, and if nothing else I’ll continue to entertain myself. If anyone else enjoys this as well it’s always a lovely bonus! Who knows, maybe I’ll even reach a new milestone this year. 😀
Apr 29, 2014 | Images, Monday Memes
A year ago Strawberry Singh asked us why we blog. This year she’s following up on us with a few more questions about our blogging journey. As usual I’m always extra thrilled with q&a memes, so I’m excited to tackle this one.
In preparation I wandered into my archives to see my answers to the meme last year, and found that I’d probably answer them a bit differently if I were tackling the first meme again. Last year I was just starting to pay attention to this blog, but I was still mostly focused on Tumblr. This year I still have all of my previous blogs, although all but one of them are rather quiet these days. Others have sprung up to take their place, though, so I can still manage to neglect several blogs at a time. Yay, right? Oh well, even if I don’t post as regularly as I’d like each one of these blogs is very important to me and I’m glad I have them.
Here are Strawberry’s meme instructions:
Copy and paste the following questions and answers to your post, delete my answers and input your own. Don’t forget to leave a link to your post in the comments (on the original post) so others can come by and read your answers as well!
- Which electronic devices do you use to blog with? – I only blog on the computer. I have WordPress apps on my phone and tablet, but I doubt I’d write a post with those, I’d rather have all the features of the regular website. I mostly use the apps as readers, or to keep up with comment notices.
- Do you have a mission statement for your blog, if so, what is it? – Not really. My mission seems to be to share whatever pics I enjoyed, and sometimes to add in some rambly commentary. I’ve decided that since this blog was created entirely for my own personal enjoyment I’m never going to worry about how many people read, I’ll just keep posting happily and if somebody else takes notice once in a while and thinks something was interesting then it’s an extra bonus. 🙂
- How do you feel about blogs that use their platforms to spread negativity? – I don’t think I’ve ever stumbled across any blogs that do that, but I wouldn’t want to read it if I did.
- Are you a grammar junkie? Do you thoroughly check your blog for errors before posting and/or do you judge other people’s posts if they contain errors? – I rely on the spell checker to warn me about typos, but I usually just hope for the best with grammar. I’m sure sometimes I’m terrible but I try to catch my own errors, and I judge myself pretty harshly when I find something glaring. I try to avoid judging other bloggers for little spelling and grammar errors. It’s easy to miss something even if you’ve read a post fifteen times before you publish.
- If you could switch blogs with another blogger who would it be? – Ooo I don’t know, there are so many! I’d love to have the ability to write eloquent travelogues and art reviews, and take great pics like Ziki Questi.
- Has your blog/blogging style evolved over the year(s)? How? – I don’t know if my style has changed much from the start of this blog to now. I’ve noticed my blogging habits have evolved, I’ve found myself moving away from the short form image focused Tumblr blog I started out with and finding more interest in longer posts.
- What is the most extraordinary thing that has happened to you because of blogging? – With non-SL blogging I have met some really lovely people who’ve become friends that I keep up with outside the blogging community we were in. With SL blogging I’m not sure I’ve had any extraordinary things happen, but I have been able to find quite a few really interesting bloggers that I read regularly, so that’s enjoyable.
- When it comes to Second Life blogs, there are different styles: Fashion bloggers, Lifestyle & Travel bloggers, Informative bloggers, and more. Which style do you prefer and where do you feel your blog fits in? – I read and enjoy all SL blog types, fashion blogs for shopping advice, and travel and art blogs for tips on where to visit. I do enjoy information bloggers a lot, I love reading peoples ideas about SL and keeping up with what’s going on with the platform and related technologies.
I don’t think my blog really fits into any of the categories. I think it just exists as my little happy spot to talk to myself and share what I think is fun or looks neat.
- What has blogging taught you? – I hope it’s teaching me to organize my thoughts, though I’m not too sure how I’m doing with that. It is teaching me about myself. I often use blogging as therapy, at least lately, so it’s actually helped me get through the day and carry on.
- Share your top 3 tips for new bloggers. – 1) Blog about things you enjoy. 2) If you are blogging for personal enjoyment don’t worry about following rules, just have fun. 3) Do blog challenges! They’re a great way to get yourself started if you’re not sure what to post.
😀
Oct 4, 2013 | Chatter, Images
Yay for more Autumn sims! I’ve seen a number of people mention Small town Green lately so I scooted over and roamed about for quite some time. The fall colors are lovely and the pumpkins are impressive. (more…)
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