Virtually Tagged - 8 Virtually Random Things

Ok, technically I've already posted on the 8 things about me meme, but those were 8 things about me outside of Second Life.

So....when Tara5 Oh tagged me I thought I'd do 8 things about me as it relates to Second Life. (Though looking at where the meme has traveled who I'm going to tag is a good question...but I'll worry about that at the end.)

1) I joined Second Life for the conferences. No, really. I kept hearing about Second Life, but it wasn't until I heard about Bar Camp being in SL and Lawrence Lessig speaking in SL that I though "Gee there are going to be conferences I want to go to in SL and I won't even know how to walk". So I joined SL. Of course it was over a year before I actually made it to a conference.

2) I chose my SL last name because it was the only name available at the time that was close to either my maiden name or my married name. Ironically Katsu means pork cutlet - which for someone who keeps kosher is particularly amusing.

3) I've helped set up two Arabic classes in SL - one pre-SL Voice (using skype+streaming software) one post-SL Voice. I find the potential applications for language learning in SL fascinating. Immersion and use of words relevant to the speaker are the most effective ways to learn a language. Within SL the likelihood of running into someone who speaks another language is pretty high.

4) I collect Linden bears, which are bears that the Lindens give out. The lore as I understand it was that it was started as a means to give residents a reason to start a conversation with a Linden. I have made bears for two Lindens who did not have them so they might have one to give out, but as of this writing, neither the bear I made for Cory Linden nor the one I made for Joe Linden has become an official bear.

5) I like to build in SL. I find sculpture and architecture built on the basic prim types fascinating. I love see what people can create from these simple shapes, and it was amazing how after I started building I would walk around and look at buildings and break them down to their prim components in my mind.

(For those not in Second Life "Prim" is short for "primitive" which is to say the basic lego shapes that make up Second Life. Just about everything you see in Second Life is built from boxes, cylinders, prisms, spheres, toruses, tubes & rings - the basic primitive types - which can then be cut hollowed and twisted etc. this is changing with the introduction of sculpted prims.)

6) I have been mistaken more than once for Golda Stein. Not that I look anything like her but I guess there was a time when there weren't so many Goldas and Goldies.

7) I did a Menorah lighting as part of last year's (2006) Official winter festival. This year the festival is after Chanukah so it didn't seem so relevant.

8) I'm trying to learn how to do machinima but so far I've only made one Seesmic video as machinima.

Ahah! And now I get to tag 3 more people. Hmmmm....I tag Mark Forman and going a bit cross media to Utterz I'm tagging Yxes Delacroix, and thirdly Akela Talamasca. You three get to write 8 things about yourself (or speak it), and then tag 3 more people at the end.

Have fun!