irez.me Avatar Blogger Month

Single Frame Stories: Community – A Gaggle of Bloggers

Image PeepSideshow Darkward7 Comments

1 SFS Bloggers

ACK! I know, I know, this photo looks eerily familiar 😉 I was actually going to make my previous post a double-shot for Avatar Blogger Month and Single Frame Stories, but then I remembered Whiskey asked us to use a landscape format. So…I went back and did some more editing on the same raw shot to make sure my entries don’t cause her grief!

I’m getting this in a bit late – the post for this week’s prompt, “Community” has already been published, but we have a grace period, since this is part of the display for SL10B. If you want to participate in Single Frame Stories, you can get in now with any of the three selected prompts: Identity, Community, and next week’s, Creativity. Just upload them to the Single Frame Stories Flickr group by Friday of next week.

While blogging is often a solitary endeavour, there is a huge number of bloggers in Second Life. Many may never meet another SL blogger. Yet there is a true sense of community through blog comments and other social media platforms. A blogger’s words can be nothing more than a personal online journal, or it can reach hundreds of thousands of readers. But no matter where on the spectrum yours sits, it’s a bit frightening – yet empowering – to realise that once that post is published, even if you delete it, there is still a copy cached somewhere on the interwebs. It’s a connection we all share and links us together.

A gaggle of bloggers – a group of individuals who face the same hurdles with every post they write – constitutes a community where I am happy to belong.

Just as an aside, neither thesaurus.com nor synonym.com have another word for “blogger”!

Like Herding Cats

Image PeepSideshow Darkward6 Comments

1 ABC Bloggers Stars
Seated: Vaneesa Blaylock Left to right: Strawberry Singh, Peep Sideshow, Anarya Elderslie, Lizzie Gudkov & Ravensong Merlin

Vaneesa Blaylock set probably one of the hardest challenges possible – to try to get all 24 bloggers participating in the Avatar Blogger Month together in one place at one time! Since we’re scattered across the globe in heaven knows how many time zones, I don’t think it was possible, even for someone as energetic and positive as Vaneesa. She did, however, manage to gather six of us for a quick photo shoot to mark the completion of the first week of the challenge. For those of you who don’t know, ABC stands for Avatar Blogger Crossfit – if you missed my earlier post, you can check out our training work stations and more about this challenge here.

I was thrilled to meet these amazing ladies who share their views of Second Life with the rest of the world in their blogs. To be honest, I hadn’t read any, other than Strawberry Singh’s, prior to this challenge. It’s been a marvelous opportunity to find these new bloggers (at least to me).

Please take the time to get to know them. Their blogs are all worth a look. And reading them sure beats the hell out of herding cats!

Vaneesa Blaylock: Vaneesa Blaylock @ iRez
Strawberry Singh: Strawberry Singh Blog
Anarya Elderslie: Stuffery
Ravensong Merlin: Chaotic Virtuality
Lizzie Gudakov: Lizzie is currently publishing a 12-part story on irez.me, It Takes A Village. When she completes it, you can catch up with her on her personal blog, lizziegudakov

You can check out the full participants list here.

PS to Berry – please note, we got our gold star 😉

Unexpected Unicorns

Image PeepSideshow Darkward11 Comments

1 Pink Fuel Harley Peach Arcade 2

This was going to be yet another fashion post. I shot and processed the photos to be about the shoes and my skin. I had even started writing the entry. But something kept going through the back of my mind, and I decided to share it instead. So no, the pictures don’t illustrate the story. But I’m not going to apologise for that.

I suppose this is what I would classify as a “Mood” post. Normally I write those when I’m sad or upset. I’ve had a few knocks in recent months, but this blog, and more importantly, the people in my virtual life, have helped me to weather them. I see so many people complaining, whinging and moaning in Second Life, on Facebook and other social media platforms. All. The. Time. And it does make me sad, which in turn makes me angry. I know that a lot of people feel the need to express their hardship with a torrent of emotion to anyone within earshot (or viewing distance, as the case may be). But when all you hear from a person is vitriolic spewing against their partner, family, circumstance or whatever (perceived) injustice may have been dumped upon their head, it’s easy to become immune to the suffering they may actually be experiencing. It becomes a bit like the boy who cried wolf. Or being trapped in a cave with a never-ending echo.

Now, before you start giving me a hard time about being cold or insensitive, hear me out. I am not without compassion. I am not without empathy. And I am not without fault. I, too, have carried on about some horrible occurrence(s) in my life. But I do try to confine it to one or two people. Preferably, those who are directly involved. And if not, to a confidante whom I know I can pour my heart and soul out to, and he or she can do the same with me. I’m a private person, and I try to shield all but the closest to me from any outpouring of emotion.

So here’s the skinny…I’m happy. I’m smiling. And I’m so blessed to have those few wonderful people in my life. And I have this blog where I can express myself freely. My wish for those of you who seem to have nothing but one horrible thing after another happen to you is for peace. And the ability to see that there are silver linings and unexpected unicorns everywhere, just waiting to be discovered.

1 Pink Fuel Harley Arcade 2 FL

You just have to be willing to look for them.

Credits:
Skin: [PF] Harley – Arcade 02 (The Arcade)
Hair: tram C407 hair / maroon (size40)
Top: DN Mesh: Bodysuit
Skirt: DN Mesh: Pleated Skirt
Shoes: [Gos] Mae Platform – Polka Dot (FaMESHed)
Necklace: MG – Necklace – Summer LadyBird – White (The Arcade)
Earrings: .:* LOULOU&CO *:. – Earring :: HESPERIDE ::
Eyes: Mayfly – Liquid Light Eyes (Glacial River, w3)

Poses:
Top photo: Glitterati – Backed Up 10
Bottom photo: [Ca.co] Lusty 10F