A Place To Call Mine

Last night, I took the final step to full citizenship. I bought land.

I don't know what got into me, but I had the urge to turn on the yellow dots on the world map, and start looking at what was available. Since the "First Land" program ended way before my time, I expected most things to be out of my price range. (at least things that weren't surrounded by those annoying little rotating ad boards.). I wanted to keep the purchase price below 10kL. But, after the initial purchase price, I figured that I could afford to pay tier for anything 2048sqm and under.

The Holistic Land Guide
Or...how I shopped for my first spot of land

Many guides recommend answering a few questions before starting a land search. I didn't bother with all of the soul searching. I knew how much I could afford, both up front and in tier. Other than that, I went in with no other ideas on what I would like. Only that "I'd know it when I see it".

Finding land for sale is very easy. I'm no expert, but the two methods I know of are:
1. Turn on "Land For Sale" on the world map. This will highlight all lots that are for sale in yellow.
2. Use the Find window to search Land Sales

I used a mix of #1 and #2. First I would pick a property from the search, and then just wander around the map from there.

At first what I saw was a whole bunch of yuck.

Either the lot was in a sea of empty blackness with rotating "For Sale" signs, or near a club, or 'naughty' place. All had horrid skylines with rotating ad signs.

Ok then...maybe a residential zoned island or estate with a covenant. On the bright side, if I do that I will still have the 512sqm available for a tier-free shop if I ever open one.

Then I saw it! The perfect spot!
It even comes with all of the items here! I can afford tier...how much is the asking price? $16,999. :( Ouch. I'd gladly go over budget for this place, but I can't really afford that much. Goodbye dream home...

Flying away from my dream, I spotted some empty lots with 'For Sale' boxes. "That's odd", I thought, "they aren't showing yellow on the map..." I landed and examined the property: "Starter Land - Accounts less than 90 days old, contact ACS for $1024 price". ACS...Anshe Chung....I'm in Dreamland, where I started 3 weeks ago! Well, I know her sims are reliable.

$1024L for a 1024 parcel? That can't be right. I IM'd the contact. Sure enough, the price is valid. Anshe Chung reserves some smaller lots for new citizens at discount prices. There aren't many, and they don't show up on land searches, but I managed to find one still available what wasn't too horrible. At least there were no eyesores. So I closed the deal, and now own property in Ellis Island, part of the Dreamland 2007 expansion. This is a great deal. It is the same price per square meter as the discontinued First Land program. And it is fully deeded, so I can sell later if I wish to. (Dream Beach house...you aren't dead yet!)

Well...here we are. My new little slice of SLife. It isn't perfect. I still wish I could have afforded the beach house. But I have to start somewhere, and I couldn't beat this price. Plus I have a whole new shopping trip to plan for!

Money...and a night out

So far, I've been getting on with what I can pick up for free, or $1L. Except for three outfits that a shop owner gave me as a "promotion". I think he just took pity on me. :) And a new walk and stance that he also bought for me.

Now that I'm through testing the waters, I need money. Looking at my skills, there isn't much there. I am not very artistic, I've never tried to use the paint and modelling tools to make clothes, animations, or anything. My one attempt at building something with prims ended in a pile of unrecognizable slag. I can script quite well. But I don't know enough about what scripts people might need to start a scripting business. Besides, bare scripts are fairly useless outside of the item they are supposed to inhabit.

Hmm.. DJ? No I can't really do that. Event hosting? Um...maybe I should attend events first. :)

A 'mature' career as an escort, or dancer? No thank you. I don't have the skin, don't have the animations, have never tried to cyber, and I doubt I'd be very good at it anyway since it doesn't really interest me. I'll confess to being curious about what the attraction is for a lot of people, though; curious enough that I did poke my head into one of 'those'places (after a night at clubs where I met 4 guys who's "Hey Sexy" was 5 minutes from "Hey" to "Sex"). It was enough to convince me that I could never escort. There are too many things out there that I'm not comfortable with, even in SL with that nice eject button in the corner (Maybe I'll write about that night in another post...it's surprisingly PG rated).

So this week I upgraded to Premium. At least I'll have a small stipend, and can own land eventually. Maybe as I get more experience with this life, a career opportunity will come along. Until then, it looks like my budget is 300L per week.

This week, I wanted to go to someplace classy, which meant formalwear. I made a beeline to Sirena's,bought a dress that I have wanted since I saw it, and headed for Phat Catz Jazz Club. I had heard that it was the most popular jazz club in SL. I needed that tonight.

Phat Catz is a classic jazz scene. It is an open air club, with a large dance floor. And popular it is! It took quite a time for me to fully load, and lag spikes made walking a bit of a chore at times.

Once there, it was everything I had hoped it would be. Excellent music, a wonderful atmosphere, and a hint of romance under a starlit sky. They even have champagne tables!

Being a natural wallflower, I had expected to spend most of the night lingering on the fringe, people-watching. But my feet had barely hit the floor before I was bombarded with IMs. Literally! I think I had four dance offers at once. Now...I had picked a jazz club hoping that "Hey Sexy!" would be more subdued than at other clubs. But, my dance card was full all night. I will say that happily all of my dance partners were perfect gentlemen (even if a few could use some cleaning up...jeans and newbie skin/hair...). I don't know if it was the club, my profile rules, my personality, or something else. But I didn't get any "come to my place", or "I know a quiet beach" pressure. I think Phat Catz will become a favorite hangout!

"So...do you come here often?"

One funny moment though. A guy with blue hair came up to me and delivered the best "Hey Sexy" I've heard. "Hi Mer, can blue hair dance with red? I think we were made for each other". Natalia...if you read this, I think I've found Mr. "Blue-where-art-thou". LOL.

The First Week

I think I wandered through my first week in a fog. To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement. And this is from someone who has been online for years, and regularly breathes the heady air of techo-geekdom. I'm afraid that this post won't be too exciting, because only this week has it finally sunk in.

If I had to do it again, and if I were asked by another new person, I would start with two big rules that are never mentioned in Getting Started guides:

1. Take Pictures!
Lots and lots of Pictures! Just like in real life, when travelling to new places in SL, always have your camera ready. You just never know when that kodak moment will arrive. Plus it's fun to sit down and go through those old photo albums.

2. Learn how to make landmarks!
In that first week, I found quite a few places that I would like to go back to, and explore in more detail (and this time take pictures!). Of course, I didn't make landmarks for them, and have no idea what their names were. :(

Now without further ado...

Orientation Island...what Orientation Island?
That's right. When I went through the registration, I saw the page that you pick a starting location. Not knowing anything, I ended up going through Dreamland. Which means that instead of Orientation Island, I ended up on Dreamland's version. I'm sure the tutorials are similar, and there were several boxes of new clothes at the end. I did cause a bit of a scene though. I got all of these new clothes, but I didn't appreciate how to change outfits smoothly. The next thing I know, I'm topless, with a guy landing in front of me (at the time, I didn't realize the default body didn't have undies...until it was too late)! A few fumbled mouse clicks later, the situation was fixed, but I was so embarassed I couldn't say anything. I just flew up and in a random direction until I was alone again. ::sigh::

I do want to say that the greeter in Dreamland was extremely nice. He even gave me 20L to spend at the $1L shop he gave me a landmark to, so that I could get started. And checked in with me for several days to make sure I was getting on fine. It was the follow-up contact that really impressed me. He really seemed to care that I wasn't getting too frustrated with all the newness.

Ok...I'm here...now what
Now the fog was pretty deep. I had no idea of where to go, or what to do. The Dreamland tutorial leaves you with a 'now you know how to get around...have fun' message. But no hints on where to get around to, nor what might be fun.

"Hey...", I said to myself, "That nice greeter gave you a list of landmarks...lets check those out". The rest of the week, I spent looking at the places the greeter gave me (and the stores linked to all of the freebies at these places). All of these are in the many 'Get Started' guides that are out there, so I won't elaborate on them:

New Citizens Incorporated
Free Dove
The Gnubie Store
Yadni's Junkyard

I will say that I like NCI so much, that any time I have questions it is the first place I go. For example, a few days after arriving, I had an unpleasant experience with someone. He walked up to me as if to introduce himself. (I was bracing for a "Hey Sexy" talk) But he stood there for a second silently (probably checking me out), and then said: "Gawd...you hair is awful. You need to do something about that", then walked off. I was stunned! I had nice prim hair, at least I liked it. Thirty minutes of frustratingly trying to see what he meant (at a few angles you could see skull), and trying to tweak it, and I was ready to either scream or cry. I actually had to take a few deep breaths, to get my thoughts together again. "Ok...you need help.", I said. "Off to NCI...I'm sure someone there can help straighten out the hair." And I was right. Several people actually. They spent another half hour with me patiently explaining all about hair, and how to get it to fit right on different heads, giving advice on what might help me (up a little, now left..hmm...let's look at your head...). Now I have over 20 different hairstyles (not counting color), and feel comfortable adjusting them to be just right. Thank you NCI!!!!

A New Life

Hi! My name is Mereille Despres. I am a new Second Life citizen. I have never blogged before, so bear with me here. My hope is to give an account of my time spent in SL. This effort has been inspired by what I consider to be the best SL diary blog out there. If you haven't, please visit Natalia Zelmanov's Diary. You won't be disappointed!

First, I guess a little bit about me.

I was born 9/4/07. Which makes me a whole 14 days old. This is me.

I'm not much yet, but I tweak myself a little every night. I refuse to use most of the (free) shapes I see. They all seem geared toward the 'model look'...tall, long legs, busty. I just don't see myself that way. So here is little old me. 5'3" (in heels), a little on the hippy side (very little, being short makes it look worse), and a reasonably sized bust. The clothes, hair, and skin are all freebies. I think the nike shirt, and jeans were in a box of various clothes. The hair is the Calla ImSoPretty style that you can find for free at Free Dove. One of the first things I have noticed is that the world seems built for the tall here. What is the average height of a SL female? 6'?

This is really my default...I'm here...look. I have found some nice hairstyles that I like, and a (very) few outfits that are nice (that are free...I love a lot of the pricey stuff). But when I'm just being, it's back to the jeans. My hope is that it will send out the 'I'm busy...don't try to hit on me' vibe. We'll see...

What Do I Want From Second Life

I guess the easiest thing is to start with what I don't want: Drama, and RL complications. I saw a list of rules in a comment at this Natalia blog entry. It struck a chord, so I added the 3 rules to my profile:

#1: i don't mix real life and second life.
which means i don't meet anyone irl from sl nor do i give out pictures, i don't use voice or use webcam. i don't even give out my e-mail address.

#2 i don't ask you about your real life, you don't ask me about mine.

#3: what happens in sl stays in sl.

It has worked well so far, since I put it in my profile. I've only had to say "see rule #2" a couple times, and the person who asked would quickly back off and we'd change the subject. Even for the "Hey, Sexy" talks. :)

What I *DO* want is: FUN

I haven't made any plans other than that. Second Life is a place for me to spend a few hours at night decompressing, not adding to the stress. So if I stress...I leave. In my 14 whole days, I think I can organize my fun list like this:

1. Explore - SL is filled with wonderful places. I am amazed at the time and effort creative people have put into making their sims breathe with a life of their own.

2. Socialize - The few events I have attended have been a blast. Talking to new people, listening to music, watching myself dance. But...I'm a naturally shy person. So it is hard for me to jump into the conversation. I tend to hang out at the edge, quietly watching the action, waiting for someone to notice, and include me. Actually I'm looking for some 'wallflower' type animations since that is what I seem to be at a dance!

3. Shop - Ok..this could be #1. But since I don't have favorite shops yet, and only camping lindens...I'm counting finding new good shops as exploring too! I just upgraded to premium...so we'll see how shopping rises on my list with that weekly stipend. :)

4. Build - I have spent some time playing with build tools. But so far I haven't managed much more than a mangled pile of what used to be shapes. So I tend to start..get frustrated..and go exploring.

I guess that's enough for now. Starting with my next post, I'll try to catch up with what's happened to me so far. (the good, the bad, and the just plain weird)