Mmmm... yesterday was not a good day in many ways as I was already tired from the w/e then was disturbed by a noisy cupboard-door-slamming downstairs neighbor for half the night. Who knows what she was doing, but it was noisy. At work I was heartened that Vincent perked up and said, "Am I having art even though it's Tuesday?" He cares! I'd thought I'd arranged ahead of time but no, no one knew, but that was ok as I'd arranged for one of our Cornell mentors to meet us inworld for the first time, and luckily got students (I just arranged what I could beforehand since I don't get email replies). Just 3, for yesterday, but it seemed like 300. It was Alina in NY, and Vin, Hal, Erika from the Lut. Erika had never done it before. I got them logged in, then they all changed username/password, added contacts, moved, changed avatars, adjusted camera view -- then I told them to find Alina and she popped right up! Good timing! The computer lab computers bite, though. Anyway, we were trying to run through some very basic things like dupes, move object, change object. First the students' object boxes were greyed out but Alina got the build permissions set for them, then they could go forward. I'm Osprey (always), Vin is tater tot, Erika is timothylove75, and Hal WAS Jin Kazama but she changes a lot (which is ok as long as everyone isn't changing every 2 minutes). The children learned a lot and got burnt out, but now the plan is to go inworld Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2:10, and I will join from my house and Alina and Leslie will join from NY. Montrose will have the students in the computer lab. It'll be good because then people won't be talking to me out loud -- they'll be forced to chat inworld. Yesterday was a super madhouse as there was a class at any given time in the lab, as well as us, and everyone talking, speakers blaring, students popping in to ask/say things ("Hi, Miss Kendall. What are you doing?" "He's in a chatroom! Hey, you're not allowed to be in a chatroom!" "Where's Mike?").
I'd made IDs for the bus people, but Jake came in the comp lab and said in a roundabout way that they required additional info on the cards because of Fort Lewis. I said I was happy to make anything they wanted, but that someone had to tell me, therefore thank-you Jake, although it would've been nice to've been informed beforehand. He made me laugh (inwardly) by showing me last year's ID and saying, "We've always had..." I said, "Only because I made it that way -- I could make it any way I want. " I just make them however I think is best, but I suppose people think there's a manual or a box or a piece of software that someone employed in the creation of the cards. No one actually seems to know that there are certain things I do (yearbook, invitations, pow wow poster, website, IDs etc.). The IDs are the part I don't like and don't do well. The website would be better if I could ftp instead of having to physically get on the server, which is often something I need to do but can't find Mike to set me up as he's got duties elsewhere. He says to email him with instructions, but the last 2 times he never got my emails, I reckon. So -- eh. I'd like to be able to ftp (pout).
I came home and went in SL to try to organise my inventory in a sandbox (the inventories are set up to be most incredibly difficult to control as you can only select one item at a time, and putting something in a folder makes both windows update -- so if you are dragging 5 things from folder A to folder B it's OPEN 2 windows, SELECT 1 thing, DRAG from A to B, FIND the original folder again as the window has changed, SELECT 1 thing, DRAG, FIND, SELECT, DRAG, FIND -- then I get frustrated or someone calls me, or I lose interest... Everyone has 100 objects called "object" that are who knows what unnamed objects from something being worked on that was either saved by the owner or returned by the land. We'd all work on our inventories which would help LL as all this futile crap has to be using a lot of server space, but it's set up to be well nigh impossible. When I was born LL provided me with a burstingly full inventory from the get-go -- I think it's pared down now, perhaps. So taming my inventory seemed a huge task from the first second here. I am still throwing away "Ruth" (default avatar) clothes and hair styles and shapes I've never even looked at. I changed everything within 2 minutes of arriving here.
Anyway, after a few minutes of inventory purgatory Olmy IMed to say there was an AIDS Quilt quilting bee then a meeting (I'm part of the Second Names group making a quilt to be displayed around WORLD AIDS DAY in Plum). Great! I zoomed off and hung out with Olmy, then quite a few people showed up and my help was required to assist those unfamiliar with making textures and building. I spent a long time (hours) helping a woman who was building her second thing ever (think it was second) and had no idea how to link, change textures on faces, etc. It's supremely difficult to, by keyboarding only, and by thinking of the edit tools layout, direct someone who doesn't know what you are talking about, but she was very smart and picked things up very fast. Once we got over the confusion of the say, texture TAB versus the texture BUTTON, we were ok. She made the main part but it was unlinked, so in linking and making the base she almost had to re-make it, as things went awry. She was totally groovy, though, and at about 9:30 we parted. At 10:30 I got back on to go see the giant things Starax (not someone I know except by his amazingly fabulous sculptures) is making. She was still there, and Olmy was back, so I can safely say we have another SL addict there.