Second life has been a good experience so far. I was able to customize my avatar, search for some free goodies and attend class without any problem. After doing all these things without any problems, I was up to the challenge of exploring places on second life.

The first place I visited was “Veneto Vero” island. This island is a little Italy on second life. I found it on the showcase location in my search window as a hot spot. When I got to this place, there were many buildings. These buildings have an old look to them as those ancient ones we see on the television. There were some people dancing, while others watched them. I was able to interact with them for a few minutes before I kept exploring. Basically this is a place to make Italians feel like home, so I said “ciao” to them and kept on exploring second life.

My next stop was at Info Island. This place looks like a park with a few buildings around it. I team up with one of my friend “codyalan2” to look around it. One of the things in this island that catches someone’s attention is a hot air balloon located at the center of the island. My friend and I headed that way, and found out that this balloon is used to give a guided tour of the island. The next place we visited was the Peace Park Religious Resources. The description on their note card says “These places of worship were designed to provide information and symbolism for some of the world’s most popular religions.” Our next stop was at the weather and environment exhibition. This simulator is about weather and environment concerns of our world. Then we directed ourselves to the science building; they had a penguin exhibition. For our last stop, we went to the Info Island Library. One of the activities I thought would be fun to attend is a summer party where they will have fireworks, dances and other fun activities.

From the info island I headed to “pondex”. This place was like field that was under development. Many of the buildings in here were available for construction. I found a few people around, talking and selling stuff. Two of the people I met were speaking Spanish and I had the pleasure to interact with them. Then I headed to Apocalypse this place reminded of New York; buildings are close together, there is graffiti everywhere, and the roads were in bad shape. This simulator is a role-play one. It puts you in competitive roles to teach lessons to people, I saw a couple of people from our class that were probably exploring for their assignment.

My last stop was at Themiskyra. In this place I found a beach, a house and a castle. This place seems like a place to have a house for your avatar. Amazon Nation runs this simulator. I found a few of my classmate here too. I took a snapshot on this out door launch located right before the housing area. I thought this place was really cool. You should go see it.

Changing my avatar appearance was a challenge. The standard avatar was nothing like me. This was a problem because when I create a character in any game. I like it to look like me. As soon as I learned how to change my Appearance, I was up to the task. At first I could not get the avatar to look like me. The hair style did not want to change. I did not know how to put on different clothes. However, I was able to change how tall and fat the avatar looked. I went home and search for new clothes, skin, and any other thing that I could get for free. I found some good staff. However, I did not know how to put the goodies I found on. It took me a few hours to figure it out, but by time I came to my next class, I knew how to utilize all the goodies I had. The first thing I changed about my appearance, after I had the Knowledge of how to, was my skin color. I do not want to offend anyone, but it is not difficult to notice that I am brown. The next thing I changed was my hair style. It still needs some more work, but it looks more similar to mine than the default did. To finish the customization of my avatar, I put on it some clothes that I thought were my style. The avatar is wearing a brown leather jacket, a black T-shirt, dark brown jeans, and a pair of dress tennis shoes. I still not happy about my appearance, but because second life has been a learning experience since the first day I accessed it and Changing my avatar appearance has been a learning process. I expect to learn more about changing my appearance and navigating on second life.

hello