Give And Ye Shall Receive??

I have now been using Second Life for about a month and still do not understand it completely, and feel like I never will. Specifically, I do not understand the process of building and constructing anything at all in Second Life. In one example of a video I was shown in class, the creator of a Second Life Island spend something like eighty or one hundred hours building the island. These facts and assumptions lead me to the questions: Is it worth it? What does one get out of putting that much work into something virtual?

These questions lead me to a claim that is very unsupported but is derived from simply a gut feeling: Residents of Second Life, or any comparable virtual world, in general put in much more work than they get out of it.

When someone in real life builds his or her house with their own hands, he or she can easily support the claim that it was well worth all of the work. The builder now has a roof over his or her head that could potentially last a lifetime. Likewise, a farmer puts in a ton of effort in planting and harvesting crops. The same claim, that the work was well worth it, can be easily rationalized by the fact that they now have food to eat. Also, when someone sews a sweater the same claim can be easily justified. They now have something with which they may keep warm. I just have trouble using this logic to make since of spending hours and hours making a virtual island on Second Life. There is already so much space in Second Life that adding another island would not be for the purposes of having extra living area. The only way I could make since of this is for educational purposes. My question is just for those who do it for no apparent reason.

Writing With Sources

In chapter 7 of The Transition to College Writing Hjortshoj discusses in relatively in-depth detail the process of "Writing in Reference to Others". I, fortunately, was familiar with this process and used it when writing my papers, at least by my senior year. I did not know much about it during my freshman and sophomore years, but really started learning it during my junior year, and by my senior year knew it rather well, which was helpful being that my teacher was pretty strict. Though I knew it relatively well, I knew only the MLA format, since all of my papers during all four years were written using this format. During my senior year we had several seminars in regards to citing sources correctly and not plagiarizing.

My writing here at Richmond has not included a lot of citing of outside sources because my only formal paper thus far has been in my CORE class which forbids the use of outside sources. I was only able to use the primary source, the text, in order to write the paper.

I know that not all of my papers will be like this. I feel that as I write deeply analytical papers that are trying to prove some type of thesis or primary argument.

One section I found really interesting in Hjortshoj's text was the section about having one's own voice. I have never thought about it in quite those terms, but he is exactly right when he says this. When reading academic analytical papers, one does not want to just read fact after fact or quote after quote from other sources. The author has to say what he or she thinks. I think this is done through a move that Writing Analytically calls "making the implicit explicit". Through bringing out the hidden implications in a given text, one establishes his or her own voice and makes the paper flow better and more enjoyable to read.

Around The World In 80.....Seconds?

In this picture I am at the outdoor produce stands in Morocco. I had mixed feelings about Morocco. The castle-like building was very nice and all from the outside, but was very plain on the inside. Also, there was absolutely nobody else at all in all of Morocco. When I think of Morocco, a place I sincerely wish to visit in the future, I think of it being quite dense in population. I understand that this is a virtual world and there are not as many residents of Second Life as there are in Morocco, but still there should be at least another person or two. While visiting Casablanca, I learned that items can be "locked" to others. In one case I tried to ride a car but it said that I cannot because it is not mine. I just thought that all content was for everyone but I learned that this is not the case. While in Morocco I did not experience any uncanny valley moments.

In this picture I am visiting Dublin, Ireland. My first impression of Dublin was very positive. There were many buildings which gave it a real city feel, which I like. The buildings looked very up-to-date, as opposed to the buildings in Virtual Harlem which added to the overall positive feel of Dublin. One thing that I did find odd is that the streets and buildings suddenly cut off which made it look kind of strange. One thing that I learned when I went inside one of the Irish Pubs is that not only can you dance along, but it is also possible to dance with someone else. There were no uncanny valley moments here. I thoroughly enjoyed Dublin.

In the above picture I am in Mexico. My first impression of the place is that it was indeed very pretty, but also very small. The island is not that big, and the second that one teleports there you are right in front of the Aztec pyramid, which is absolutely very nice, but to be honest I did not think that it would be my very first stop in Mexico. I thought that perhaps I would wind up in a city with many people where I could talk to people and go in and out of buildings, perhaps more like the Virtual Harlem setup. Nonetheless it was very nice and I thoroughly enjoyed riding the giant butterfly. I did not have any "Uncanny Valley" moments during my time in Mexico. I learned that not only are there unique little activities that an avatar can do within the virtual location (such as the giant butterfly), but that in addition to walking, running, jumping, and flying, one's avatar can indeed ride things (as I attempted to do in Morocco). Mexico was quite an interesting experience!

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Virtually Me

I recently, with the help of my professor, set up my avatar in Second Life. His name is "Skyler Intermenos". I must confess that I did not come up with this name myself. I went to Google, since Google does solve all problems, and typed in the search box "Gender Neutral Names". I read many names but Skyler really caught my eye. It reminded me of the sky, and to some extent I think of the sky being somewhat out of this world. To me this fit perfectly because Second Live is a virtual world, apart from this world which we currently live in. So, in essence, the name Skyler is symbolic of being a character apart from my world. The selection of the last name was rather random, but the name "Intermenos" seemed like it was a more robotic name than most, which perpetuates that it is an artificial character rather than a real one.

I must also confess that it does seem rather cool to have a character in Second Life. I personally love traveling, so in a way I can go where ever I desire by simply clicking a button that says "teleport". I can almost do almost anything I want. In reality, what human would not want to have the power to fly? Though no human physically can, I can fly with my character in Second Life. One final thing that seems really cool about my avatar in Second Life is that I am (or am at least represented) in two separate worlds. It is fun to break the laws of physics in more ways than one!

College Writing From A High School Perspective: Looking From The Outside In

At my high school my teachers tended to require us to meet draft deadlines in order to ensure that we were writing drafts before turning in the final product. That was great, but they often only required one or two drafts as opposed to the six or so that Dr. E suggests. I found myself of course doing the required drafts, but not really doing any extra drafts, even if I needed them. Also, in most cases, my high school teacher would sit down with me and edit the paper with me if I had it done a week or so in advance in order to ensure 1) that I was meeting all of the requirements 2) that I was analyzing properly 3) that I was on topic and 4) that I did not have any grammar and syntax errors. I get the feeling that in college not many professors will be willing to do that with me.

Granted we do have great resources such as the writing center, but there is nothing like that reassurance that you can get from the person who will be grading the paper that it is a good paper. Because of my teachers willingness to help, I often got A's on papers, with possibly an occasional B here and there. I know that the standards are much different in college though. I have the feeling that I will have to "unthink" that which I have learned and relearn the writing process as a whole yet again. I do feel like I have had good instruction and thinking and writing analytically in high school, but I just have no idea what to expect in this university setting.

So far in Hjortshoj's book I have noticed that he knows exactly what the high school writer's though process is and has some suggestions of how to solve it, but I still do not really know what to think or expect. I just hope that as I continue reading Hjortshoj and Writing Analytically I get a better idea of what the whole picture of a good college paper looks like, rather than just being completely ignorant as to how the process goes and what an "A" college paper looks like.