Becoming Serratia Warcliffe

My exploration of Second Life began today as I created an avatar and logged onto this virtual world for the first time. As I answered the questions, first filling out my real-life name and then choosing my virtual world name, I began to feel excited about the freedom to choose who I would be in this other world. As a microbiology instructor, I have always been taken by the name of a red-pigmented bacterium in the genus Serratia. I thus chose this as my first name. I then became very enthusiastic as I realized that with freedom to choose my own name, I could share my partner’s last name for the first time (she already has an avatar). However I was saddened to see that there were only very limited options for last names and I thus settled for Serratia Warcliffe. Though I had hoped for a virtual world complete with the social justice so lacking our our real-world, I was pleased with the ring of the name that I had chosen and I suppose I was not surprised that any work of art (including a HIVE) would be a reflection of our current culture.

 

I continued on to choose a look for my avatar that seemed most appropriate. This truly was a strange but liberating process. Being able to select an appearance that most reflects oneself is both terrifying – forcing one to consider a physical manifestation of one’s nature- and utterly liberating. With the exception of eyes and hair color, I chose a basic look to which I felt most suited and moved along.

 

After receiving a conformational e-mail and logging in, I was shocked by the extent of the terms and restrictions; they ranged from age to intellectual property. However, I agreed to all terms and began my second life. I found myself on Help Island and originally unsure of even the simplest actions, walking for example, I somehow managed to find a map and teleport to Ed Tech Island. Built by a professional educational technology organization, I felt safe once here, located my partner (who has already spent time on the island) and began to edit my appearance. Now this was when things became overwhelming. Ranging from lip width to underwear color one has a buffet of options, enough to boggle the mind. I am embarrassed that I spent far too much time trying to change my eye color and most importantly give myself the appropriate athletic build. As the minutes ticked on I finally had to pull myself away from the appearance editing, consoling myself that I would return later to achieve a satisfactory hair color.