Tick Tock

Its been a bit since i've done an update, certainly not because nothing has happend but because everything has happend !!!

Kaya is back ! which is the big thing, and now my life is feeling a bit more complete again. Im so useless without my soul mate, despite all my friends been with me.

One thing that is laying heavy on my mind at the moment is the way I distribute my time and attention between my two lives. I spend around 5 hours a day in SL Mon-Friday, then very possibly 12-16 hours over the weekend. Thats a wapping 41 hours a week !! and gives an indication of just how important it is to me. And, when im not in SL im thinking about it and looking forward to being there. Although i dont see anything wrong with devoting such time and energy to SL, I know I neglect important people and duties in my First life and I know that unless I want to court disastor, this current level is unsustainable.

Knowing this does'nt make finding a balance any easier. Over the years of my cyber world addiction i've become an expert in juggerling my time and commitments around my second exsistance, but at what cost ?

The Show goes on

Its been a little while since I did an update, life has been quite busy in both worlds. It's quite hard running the The Purple Rose without Kaya. One of the most important components of success within SL is having a solid and passionate team around you and at the moment the team is very short handed. People expect things to run 24/7, they want to be able to log on anytime they like and have an event going on at their favourite place, thats what drives customer loyality. So the real secret is to have a big team that can cover lots of different time slots. There are two main problems in expanding the team. Firstly, its a commitment and many just dont want to HAVE to be there at scheduled times, and secondly they need to be paid so venues have to raise enough Money to pay Wages. Just like first life - no difference at all.

Im now collect quite a list of 'issues' that need to be addressed to move the Rose onto the next level. Time for a good think.

Let there be Light !

So last night, I went to SL Church... again. I've been three times this week, almost more times than I've ever been in RL. Being HSP, I seem to be attracted to events and people without really understanding why and this is certainly no exception. I have never really been a religious person, and I certainly wouldn't describe myself as a christian but the concept of religion in SL absolutely fascinates me, especially when the 'events' are truly emotional. So its a bit like a church service, but everyone is listening/speaking using voice chat and sharing their feelings and experiences in life that give them both joy and sadness. Its so obvious that their god is so much part of their thoughts and feelings. Even the minister( who is also a minister in first life), exposed his deepest vulnerabilities and shared how he 'turned to god'. So human. I felt so touched and emotional that I really did start to cry over the keyboard..... again..... (new keyboard on order).

This has triggered off some thoughts in my mind about the emotional side of SL. It is indeed a very emotional environment, in fact many of my emotions feel magnified and more intense than in first life. I think that during our first life we have to bottle so much just to keep balance and function. There is often a price to be paid for demonstrating feelings. But in second life, I certainly feel more at liberty to express how I feel, probably because the consequences are perceived to be lower. kinda.... perhaps..... maybe..... What I can defiantly say is that in SL I've felt real Love, real friendship, real sadness , real joy and also real loneliness.

I like the church people. I'll hang there for a while.

It was loud, and proud

Great event Friday night. Thank you to everyone who attended and helped to make it a big success. I was so relieved, I put so much effort into it.. I think this is a bit of a model for how we will plan events in the future. The competition board worked really well.

It was such a different type of event that we usually do, but i think that been flexible about what themes you can provide works so much better for 'event' driven venues.

Here's a couple of picks :-)

On another note, I sense that we are all buzzing with new ideas and enthusiasm for expanding the Rose's membership and fun factor, which is great. There is even the possibility of started to do a few events in US time. However, i have a niggling feeling that we are forgetting something important. Money. We need to make some to expand and so far we haven't really got to grips with been self supporting yet.

Girls loud and proud. Friday 13th 3pm SLT at the Purple rose

Its been a busy week with a few first life crisis' to deal with, but being able to run into my Second life helps. I am sooooooooo missing Kaya. Although I have my friends to talk to, they all have there own individual lives. I just so want to sit by a stream with Kaya and talk about whats going on, how I feel, and go on our random visits around the world. I had one of those 'oh my god' moments last night and spilled the contents of my heart out to Kezzy, just while she was hosting a busy event in Dublin. Shes a real Gem.

I have also spent a significant time this week preparing for tonight event at the rose. Tonight its "Girls loud and Proud", an evening of the greatest party music from female artists. I made some props and I'm going to really dress up the hall. Lights, dance floor, poles, cages :-).... the works.
Not exactly the usual type of event we have at the Rose but we are all for exploring new ideas. I've spent a lot of energy on this one and will be gutted if we don't get a reasonable number of people attending.

In some ways, its quite difficult to know and define the 'right' type of event for the Rose. Maybe the Rose as we know it should really be more dedicated to performance events and we should build somewhere else to party and have fun hmmmm " The Black Rose"......., naaaahhhhh....... the "The Purple petal".... hmmmm not bad. :-)

Hope to see you all tonight... at the Purple Rose.

Show time.

Last night at the Rose we hosted a live performance by Elvera Lerner. The SIM was soooo laggy that many of those who turned up had to leave :-( I was so pleased to see we can pull in a crowed 40+, but I think Ive decided that events of this size and complexity just don't work well on out shared land. On one hand i was so pleased people wanted to come, on another embarrassed and disappointed that we couldn't do justice to Elvera's fantastic performance. I am now of the opinion that having our own dedicated island is not just a 'nice to have' but essential to maintain and grow the type of events we want to do. The big problem is of course money and people to help. Its a bigger commitment on which I would want to involve more people to help run it. Its also a risk, but this is were commitment and passion is tested. If we really really want to see the Purple Rose Grow and flourish we have to take this step very quickly or we will get a bad reputation.

Back to Elvera. She was brilliant ! Best i have every heard from her and the guests loved it. I was proud to have her there. Id like to have her perform again soon but maybe i have to think seriously about this lag issue first.

Bridge over troubled water

Having my own sim has definitely made me learn
more. Using the terraform tools I created a little
stream going through the sim, and made a little
bridge. I've also been doing some animations !!
I don't think sine wave has anything to worry about, but I reserve the right to be a little pleased myself with the results.

On another note I met a group of Christians in SL last night who are building a church. God told them to have a presence in SL !!!!! Well maybe he did, who am i to say otherwise. Really nice people, though I did face a bit of a barrage of scripture and rhetoric from some of them. Just another of example of the blurring lines between colliding worlds.