Post #15

Do you even find yourself on Second Life with no one around you? Have you ever gone to a party only to see that no one came or the meeting point was given incorrectly? Or do you just find your current location boring and wish to leave? Then just start island hopping till you find what your looking for. Island hopping is when you go to your island search option and pick a random island to visit every thirty minutes. This is one of those rare cases where no one is trying to trick you into doing something you wouldn't like, since all you are doing is teleporting from one island to another. The only catch to island hopping is that your meant to pick a place at random and have no real direction to go. But the point of island hopping is to kill time and explore Second life in the hopes of finding a random gem.
While jumping from place to place, I found myself in the most random locations and talking with the oddest people. Most the time I would appear on a deserted island and walk around to see nothing, but from time to time I would find someone to make light dialog with. Or the simple design of an island would just keep me looking around, or it would be so dull that I would just jump right there and then to another spot. More then not, there were times when I would not find a single active avatar to converse with. Still this did not change the fact that in a matter of three hours I visited six islands and met some new people.

Post #14

We have been assigned the task of writing a newspaper about Second Life in a positive manner. We have decided that our paper will be an informative list of things to know about Second Life. We, as a group, have also decided that we will not take this paper with too much weight for the sake of anyone who is to read it in the future. Meaning that we wish for the reader to have an easy time and not be overwhelmed by the new information that we are providing to them. If this is seen as too informal then i must say that we are not trying to be formal because our readers are not formal but academic. Which means that as long as the paper has meaning and purpose, it can be a bit informal.
My contribution will be three report articles and the layout of the paper itself. while i am not working on the grammar aspect i will also look out for anything that is simply noticeable. my articles will be mostly on the human aspect of the game and all the socializing that goes into Second Life. It will cover travel, talking to others, and the whole international aspect of Second Life. Travel will be about Island Hopping and its random joys that can only be found by going from one random location to another. In the conversation aspect i will discus tolerance in the world and how to respect others. And in the international section i plan on showing how many different people are online.
as for the layout of the paper i will start with the title of World Time Fun, and work my way down with a basic schematic of text, photos all pulled together by color. so everything will go down in columns till about half a page where the article will halt and start another column. a picture will be to its side if not some random advertisement for Second Life. To gain realism i will try to create a magazine feel more then not, because of the lack of formality in the information itself.

Post #13

Today in class we talked about how to write an article and its many formats, or at least tried to convey this. Lucky for me, I worked on a newspaper back in high school and i was a journalism major till i found the course work pointless. The book covers everything in light detail but points out that everything they say can't help you if the teacher picks a different format. But most of it just follows the MLA format and most of the time its hard to mess up the format on an article.
Now the layout of an article is important because it will be what draws in the readers. The size of the article is important because if its too long, no one will read. Then pictures are important because it shows emphasis. There is also the issue of color in your article because too much will put readers off while too little will not even catch the eye, and given colors will also show the readers what type of state of mind the write has.

Post #12

I remember traveling for ten minutes across the barren plain of the World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, this did not occur during the duration of class let alone in the world of Second Life. But even though it was just a boring walkabout on my way to a quest, it was way more entertaining then the lagging Second Life. Thou in no way is this a slander of Second Life, but rather a personal dislike of pointless virtual walking. Now keep in mind that both games are pointless in the long run and both have their reasons to exist.
Then comes the issue of picking a virtual field trip as my favorite or most memorable. This is an issue because there was nothing worth remembering and most of the time was spent trying to move only to reappear in random spots. Our trip to the psych ward and the republican island were lacking any scholastic reasoning even though they were perfect for the assignment. The same can be said of the gym, and traveling from island to island. I can only say that as someone who plays enough Video Games to be called a gamer, that Second Life is one of the most boring network system because there is no holding point. And as a twenty year old that know better ways of virtualing socializing, such as Facebook, Topic Forms, Xbox live, PSN, IM, TXT, Twitter, blogging, and MMO's, Second Life does not match par with the speed or enjoyment of any of those.
I'm not trying to put down the accomplishment nor is this belittling the social power of Second Life. There are just things that seem to hold it back from being greater. And even though the creators try to say that Second life is not a game, if it involves playing then its a game. And when you escape threw an avatar then you are role playing, which brings us back to a game.

Post #10

Writing a topic sentence is one of the easiest things the author can do. This is until the writer begins to thing to over think the topic sentence and gets writers block. Though you must give it proper though, it's usually best to write what feels natural to the topic and later build the sentence after the entire paper is structured. In this manner you have the ability to build your subject rather then form the subject around your sentence. Students are told to write in such a manner that makes the topic sentence seem important. But the sentence alone wont save a paper from lack of substance. Meaning its better for an author to write the paper first and edit the topic sentence in such a manner that fits the paper.

Post #8

The ability to know how to navigate threw the internet and find information about any given subject is something that we, the children of modern man, do for granted. Now I am a Linguistic major working on an associate’s degree in English just to work as a teacher. So what is there for the student working on an English degree for the sake of working on his Linguistic degree? Simply put why not just look around for those who have a good discussion going and talk to them. Socialize with random avatars, rather then travel a world that you don’t want to really travel. Though this is rather sad; Second Life can help unite those who live across the world with each other.
So I did not really visit an island per say but rather I just wondered around till I found some one. Upon finding anyone, I used my skills in customer service to simply start a conversation. The topics were as random as the people that were playing but there were some individuals with good conversations. Sadly, I didn’t keep track of the names or the people because this was not my intention as the assignment entailed going to something.
But going to Second life alone and walking, flying, and teleporting all count in a given manner. Though the question is posed; what was the point of even writing about talking with people I don’t know. Linguistics is all about talking with foreign people and starting a relationship for the sake of connections. Thus meaning that the ability to make friends from random foreign people is a minimal requirement.

Post #7

Our presentation was on Second life commerce, other wise known as making money in the game called Second Life. Though the actual presentation was very limited on true current values and information due to lack of present day coverage. Any given economy, though able to go threw drastic changes, will attempt to maintain a constant import and export system. Mean that the numbers will change with time but the products and services will attempt to stay the same. Thus even though some of our information was old, it still had current value as long as we inspect the validity of each grain of facts.
Our form of delivery was not the best method simply because even though we prepared for the presentation, we could have done better. We all had a moment where it was clear that we are not professional public speakers, except for Dean Newbarry who likes to brown nose. All jokes aside, the truth is that we did a good job for always being the first group to go, and even though there could have been a better presentation done, that could be said for all groups. In the future i would like to actually create a script for all of us to follow so that everyone doesn't have to wing it.
As a whole i would dare say that we deserve a B for our effort and the amount of work we showed. Though most of us only presented a bit of our actual material, what little we had was well documented. Along with the fact that we were the first to use technology in our presentation, and the fact that there was no real guidelines to how or what exactly we had to present. We earned a B!!!!!!!