University of SL

A bit ago my sister and I were walking and talking and laughing. I was reflecting on Life. Well, really on MY life because, as you should know, it IS all about ME. *grin* I see life as a series of specific events. You either pass these events or you fail. You get letter grades as well. I mentioned one such incident to my sister, saying that I thought I got a C- at best because although I “passed” it, I really could have done better and learned more. On the other hand, I gave myself a strong A for another rite of passage. She was quite amused at this concept: that Life is a curriculum. Apparently even though we are sisters, we don’t view Life in the same manner. But we started playing with the idea of the University of Life, where there is a core curriculum – things we ALL must do. We identified core courses and electives. It seems to me we could play this game here, too. We are enrolled in SL. There are certain courses we ALL must take. There are electives. I suspect that this topic would be best in the hands of someone like Prad Prathivi in his Metaversally Speaking blog. Actually, he probably HAS had a post on something like this – he had so many truly funny posts on life in SL. *grin* My apologies if I am treading old ground. I am too lazy to go back and read all of Prad’s humor posts (although I would probably laugh all over again, and laughing is good). And I’ve been thinking on this topic for the last few weeks.

So here it is…. Ahuva’s curriculum guide to the Univ of SL. I know it’s incomplete – PLEASE be sure to add to the course list. I am NOT telling you which courses I have taken. *grin* After all – I am still a matriculating student. I have time ……

Orientation Island 100:

Okay, I’ll admit to failing this one. If you are one of the 5 people who have been with me since Day 1 of this blog, you already know that I failed OI. This course allows the new student to learn to walk, talk and “do things”. Since I failed this and was tp’d out of OI in less than an hour, I really DON’T know what happens in this course. LOL. I ultimately took an equivalency exam so I could move on……

Inventory 100

You have to learn how to open your inventory. How to buy something and open it to your inventory, how to make folders.

*grin* Okay, here’s the truth. Those aren’t really the kinds of courses I meant at all. Let’s get right to the nitty-gritty. I’ve left out sooooo many. But these are the first that came to mind. *grin* Oops. What DOES that say about me?????

Cyber 100

Have your first SL sexual experience. Everyone has to at least try cyber. There ARE harmless ways to do this, you know. This reminds me of a wonderful book by Willard R. Espy, The Almanac of Words at Play. He does a WONDERFUL example of porn writing for people who have no desire to read porn. He describes cooking an egg. *grin* But he does it porn-style. So. You CAN learn to cyber straight up (all puns intended) or you could get someone to help you learn “cooking-egg” style. Requirements: LOL. An active imagination??? The proper pose balls??? A VERY good friend??? A total stranger????

Drama Queen 200

Meet your first drama queen. Be part of the emotional storm flung through the local chat and all known IMs. Have people IM’ing you to report back on the drama queen. To tell you the ripple effect. Waste hours and hours on the Drama Queen’s story. Requirements: Make 3 friends. At least one of them is a drama queen, trust me.

Drunk in SL 210

Logging in to SL while you are inebriated. This course is closely related to Drama Queen 200. The most successful strategy for navigating THIS course is to be sufficiently drunk that you are unable to actually work the keyboard or mouse, and therefore you fall asleep before you do too much damage. Requirements: /me blinks. whatever it takes to get you to an altered condition where you are going to say things you really shouldn’t and where you will do something equivalent to dancing on the table with a lampshade on your head in RL. But – in SL – dancing on the table with a lampshade on your head is everyday behavior. *grin*

Live Mic 300

Oh yes, a VERY popular course. Leaving your mic open. It’s bad enough when it’s just feedback. But when you actually start talking over the performer/speaker….. that’s a fail. *grin* Requirements: no headset, open mic, refusal to read chats and IMs where people keep saying to you: please close your mic, we can all hear you. please close your mic- you are causing feedback.

Failed Love Affair 400

You are in love. You shout it to the world. You partner. It fails. Your heart breaks. I’m not even making fun here, folks. It’s a course. It’s life. I’ve watched too many people enroll in this one. Despite the grueling course load – this course always has standing-room only enrollment. Course requirement: the willingness (or stupidity) to trust your heart to another, to let yourself feel, and to learn that SL is like RL – things don’t always work out. Duration of course – much shorter than it takes in RL.

Learning to Create 100

Whether you take on scripting or building, you must try to create something sometime. Either you are hooked and you have found your electives, or you need to find a different vocational path. Course requirement is that you must create something other than a wood cube. *grin* At least change the color of the cube and make it a sphere!!!!!!!

SL Ennui 500

No one loves me. I hate everyone. I’m bored. I’m going to eat worms. SL is the pits and I’m leaving forever. You should too, you know, because SL sucks. I’m leaving. I’m never coming back. I’m never talking or thinking about SL ever again. Course requirements: you need to tell this to everyone you know, everyone you meet, everyone you don’t know. You need to post it to every medium possible. This course lasts 48 hours, at which point you return to SL and pretend you never said any of it. *grin*

Grid Hunts 100

Freebies!!!!! Hunting the grid for freebies! Learning to spot hidden packages. Luring your friends out to join you, getting THEM to waste hours on the hunt as well (you get extra credit for every friend you seduce into wasting time on the hunt 🙂 ). If you haven’t hunted, you cannot graduate. It’s really that simple. Requirements: None. Show up on the hunt. Click on the object. You are hooked. Your inventory is doomed. (See inventory picture above….. I have over 30 Bunny Hop folders. That I still have not organized. Plus all the stuff I also BOUGHT from the stores that I was in while I was wasting hours chasing eggs.)

Live Concerts 315

You must attend a live concert. See the local chat spam. Observe the idiots who feel compelled to shout, scream and perform obscenities in local chat while the performer is singing or talking. Feel the excitement when you realize that there is indeed a real live human being on the other end of your computer. That person is really singing and playing – for YOU!!!! And you get lost in the music and the glow. Requirements: None. Just try it once, that’s really all it takes. You’ll do it again. Really – you’ll take electives in this field, we all do.

SL Blogging 230

Ah, my favorite. LOL. EVERYONE in SL bogs. You must create a blog. You must tell all your friends about your blog. You must send the blog link to EVERYONE you know. Put your blog link in your profile. On every page in your profile. Pontificate to the world about the meaning of life. About the meaning of SL. About your personal hopes and dreams. About why you are so brilliant and wonderful and talented and everyone should take your advice. Requirements: ROFLOL. It’s like making babies unfortunately. They let ANYONE do it. Even Ahuva……