Man in the Mirror

Recently, I was perusing Milky 9 and I ran into a fellow avatar and we had small talk. We talked about a homes and some of the things we do in Second Life. While we were talking about our Second Life hobbies, I began to reflect on my avatar and the persona that is in Second Life. I then began to ask myself, do people really understand me or do they just understand Jozi Oakleaf? Will the residents of Second Life ever know me instead of Jozi Oakleaf?

My answer to this question is No, the residents of Second Life will never know me as Antoine that goes to college, but they will only know me as Jozi Oakleaf that wears a tye die T-shirt.

Whenever I meet a new person on Second Life, I always try to make sure that I ask about them and their experiences in Second Life. In my conversation with a man in Milky 9, he was telling me about his SL girlfriend and how she was flying around somewhere in the store. I began to wonder if he is attracted to his girlfriend's avatar, or if he is enamored by her personality. I may never know because I don't know the hearts of the two, but I can only speak for myself. I still can't see how a person is 100% themselves in Second Life because an avatar is in the place of who we really are.

My life in real life is vastly different than my life in Second Life. In real life, I'm always studying and working hard to do what I have to do to succeed in college. But in Second Life, I can go to a club, go to space, or fly around just for the sake of flying. This is who Second Life residents see, not the studious workaholic college student.

When I look at man in the mirror of Second Life, I don't see Antoine at UR but I see Jozi Oakleaf of Second Life.

Move Over MLA. APA and CMS are here to stay!!!

In Hjortshoj's book The Transition to College Writing, he discusses many of the different ways to cite a source. Whether it is an in text citation or a bibliography, citing sources are extremely important so that plagiarism can be avoided.

In my high school, we always used the MLA format when doing bibliographies and I always thought that MLA was the law. Because I used it so much I deemed it as the supreme ruler of the citation world.Even though I always used the MLA form, I never learned the format of it because we were always encouraged to just use websites such as Noodle Tools and Easy Bib. When ever a question came up about citing a source, the answer was always, "Oh, just type it all in the Noodle Tools and it will do it for you." I feel like that attitude won't cut it in a college course because there are so many different ways to cite sources, and sometimes professors will make their own ways to cite sources.

According to Hjortshoj, there are other ways to cite sources like the APA and CMS. I must confess. I knew these existed, but I never knew that they were actually used. This shows a huge difference between high school writing and college writing because I am now expected to be able to use different ways of citing a source. Luckily, there are many ways that I could learn to use APA and CMS. For example, Hjortshoj lays out very explicit details on when to cite and how to cite correctly.

Rocket Ships, Sigmund Freud and Fake Colleges

I have recently completed a scavenger hunt where we had to go to a series of landmarks within Second Life.

The first place I went to was the International Space Museum within Second Life. Initially I found it to be quite odd because I have never seen a museum that was outside like that. When I began to look around, I noticed that they had replicas of various defense systems and space ships from history. Each one had a small a excerpt about the space ships and some of their missions. When I began to look even further into some of the attractions that were there, I noticed that you could take a ride on a rocket into space. I began to explore the other planets in the solar system and the Hubble Telescope (pictured below). From this visit I learned about space travel of course, but I also learned about many of the functions that Second Life has to offer. The museum may not be tangible, but it shows simulations better than any museum that I have been too (including the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum).

The next place I traveled to was the Theorist Project that was built by Montclair State University. The Theorist Project is about many of the theorists that helped shaped psychological theories. I extensively visited the Sigmund Freud exhibit. It explored his theory about the id, ego, and superego and how it was reminiscent of an iceberg. To demeonstrate this, they built an iceberg in which people could enter and walk around and learn about the various states of the conscious and subconcious. After that, I went into Sigmund Freud's office and was able to lay on his couch and discuss some of his psychoanalytic theories with him. When I took psychology in highschool, I wish that I had this resource to learn more about Sigmund Freud and all of the other theorists that greatly influenced psychological theory. This resource is so great because it brings the textbook to life and makes great simulations of psychological theory.

The next place I went to was the University of Caledon Oxbridge. I think that this place was very interesting because it was set up as a place where Second Life residents could go and learn about some of the functions that you can do in Second Life. Whether it is changing your clothes or you're entire appearance, you can learn about it all at the University of Caledon Oxbrdige. The interesting thing about this place is that it is set up like an actual college would be. Like the University of Richmond, it is broken in to various colleges. Instead of the School of Leadership and School of Arts & Sciences there is the College of Camera Control and College of Communication. This is very helpful, especially for a new resident like myself because it teaches you about the basic controls that are in Second Life that can help you assimlate into the society more readily.

After my long day of traveling to outer space and back. It was back to Richmond Island for some relaxation.

Lions, and Tigers and Avatars???

I recently set up my Second Life account with an avatar named Jozi Oakleaf. Initially, having an online persona on Second Life seemed really weird to me. The idea that I could live in this virtual world and no one would know who I am but only who my avatar is made me a little uneasy and it seemed weird. Since joining Second Life, I've realized that it's not strange, but it opens up a new way to interact with average people or academics.

When I made my avatar I knew that I wanted it to have characteristics that are similar to mine, but not exactly the same. I felt that it needed to be similar to me so that I would be able to add some of my own uniqueness to the world of Second Life. But he needed to be different than me to stay with the novelty of being able to maintain some anonymity while interacting on Second Life. The tie dye shirt and jeans are a reflection of me and everything else he is wearing just seemed to fit as I brought my avatar to life.

Initially I wanted the avatar to be named Jo because of its androgyny and I just like the name Jo. Then I saw the last name Oakleaf and thought that it was really cool for a last name. Unfortunately the name Jo Oakleaf was taken so my professor saw the name Jozi and I thought that was a good idea for a name.

This is my avatar sitting on University of Richmond Island.

Stepping Up to the College Level

Keith Hjortshoj discusses the writing processes of the students he surveyed. He found that many waited until the last minute to write papers, usually wrote one draft, patched it up, and turned it in. I must confess. I am very guilty of doing the same thing. All throughout high school I would sit down and just write the paper based on the first thoughts that came to my mind. I always figured that those ideas were obviously the best and they would get me the grade that I wanted on it. Typically, I usually got an A or B. So of course, my method was perfect and always worked for me.

When I started at the University of Richmond, I knew that I would have to step up my writing game. The past two weeks have shown me that college professors expect much more than my teachers in high school. Many teachers in my high school didn't expect independent thoughts, but they expected a regurgitation of whatever was discussed in the lecture. My experiences of the last two weeks have shown me that I'm expected to think on my own (much to the dismay of my past English teachers) and be able to express my own opinions eloquently. I know that the writing at the University of Richmond will be tough, but it's a level of difficulty that I'm willing to handle.