On the 4th week of the semester, we were not supposed to go to EIR class, which meant I could get up a bit later (EIR class is in the morning, from 0800 to 1000). There was a reason for not going to class—we had a meeting with HK poly students online. We were supposed to meet them at 2100 on Wednesday of the 4th week.
A week before our virtual meeting, I downloaded the Second Life in my laptop and signed up. I entered the Second Life then and wanted to get familiar with this software and I realized that Second Life has a virtual environment which imitates the real world.
On the actual day, I logged in at 2030 and went to the required meeting place—the mushroom of Temasek Polytechnic. Once settled down, someone came to me and we started our conversation. At first, I was kind of nervous because I had not used this medium to communicate with others before.
Then I met Ywingo, a HK poly student. His avatar was a robot. We started our interview session. He asked me my name and age. I answered directly. Then he asked about my recent activity and who I was with. I told him I like to play badminton and my recent activity was playing badminton. I provided him with a list of my fellow badminton players. Because I am not local, I was not able to type English that fast so I told Ywingo that and apologized to him for my slow response as a result. He said “never mind, it’s ok”. Just this simple sentence made me feel at ease with him. He conveyed me an impression of easygoing and gentle person. I knew he was a part-time student in the HK poly, but I thought he was in my age group. So I asked how old he was. His answer shattered this notion. He said he was 28 years old. He told me he worked in the morning and studied in the evening, I thought he must be very tired juggling work and studies. Then I asked him how he dealt with pressure since his whole day was crowded with work and study. I thought his answer would give a hit of a way to handle stress, but it was very simple. He said that whenever time allowed it he got into sport and music. This provided relaxation and a retreat from work. It was his way of rejuvenating himself. Haha, he must like being busy. Later I told him I understand his pressure because I also did a part time job in year 1.1. After hearing this, he was very surprised since I was so young. I told him I wanted the experience to prepare myself for reality. He commended on my practicality. After the interview time, I went to our dream holiday city—Paris, with my group, and I helped to teleport my friends there. We went around and took photos there. Later we went to Dubai Women's College.
I was supposed to capture the interview on my computer to provide a proof that I had participated in this activity. But at that moment, I did not think of the way of capturing using my keyboard. I went to find the tool of the Second Life, and later found a tool called “snapshot”. When I used this tool to get a screen capture, all the chat boxes and names above the avatars disappeared. As a result, I only got photos of the avatars and the virtual environment without any script.
I have to say that, I enjoyed Second Life a lot. The first time I logged in and went to the Temasek Polytechnic in Second Life, I found that in such a simulated environment, I found it realistic. I have a feeling of freshness. When I got used to operating my avatar, I love this Second Life. And Second Life allows us to teleport someone anywhere. If I cannot find my friend’s coordinates, they can just teleport me and I will be there in seconds. If we can also teleport someone in the real world, it will be wonderful because I do not need to spend money and time in flying back to China. :p:p:p
