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August 2009 
Beautiful New Beach
Posted on Aug 25th, 2008
by 
asecondlifediary
asecondlifediary
SORRY FOR NEGLECTING YOU SO LONG, but so much has happened in the past month or so ... It's just life really, but life has a way of jumping up and smacking you in the face sometimes.
The good news is that we have a beautiful new beach section - "The Rocky Foreshore" I've labelled it. One of our new members hails from a tiny little Hawaiian village and she took me to see a beach which reminded her of home and I was so awed by how realistic it was that I raved to another member, who then went out and bought the waves, rocks and sea effects necessary to reproduce it on our island.
The soft photo above of Cal on the rocks is just so beautiful! I've told him that I think we should use it as a promotional shot for our community.
Rose, who is an engineer, then set to work creating the magnificent seascape you see above. It still needs some refining and this will happen over time, but I've found that I just can't leave the beach! The rocks have a variety of poses over them, which mean you can sprawl out with lots of friends in realistic poses and the effect is so 'real', that it's proving a powerful drawcard.
That's one of the appeals of Second Life - while it is a suspense of disbelief in some ways (i.e. all you need is the 'suggestion' of a mountain to 'believe' it's a mountain), when you get it right and the 'feel' of a place 'grabs you', then you are truly connected in some way. Maybe I'm not explaining myself properly - the only way to understand what I'm trying to convey here, is to experience it yourself. To go into Second Life and experience as many different places and 'moods' as you can.
Our Community has now swelled to around 30 people, with about 8 people joining last week after I contacted everyone who had visited the island in the previous month. We hosted a visit from a like-minded community last week and from the comments being made by those on the tour, they were impressed with what we'd done on our island.
It will be interesting to see how these new members are 'absorbed' into the community - indeed, if they even become a part of it. It's one thing to join a group, it's quite another to 'belong' to it, or be a part of it.
As from next week, I'll be on the road and my visits to Second Life will be very infrequent, so it's going to be interesting to see what happens with our community. Because I have been so active in creating the island and 'hosting' it, I think there is very much an identification of me with the island. When I'm not there so much, I hope someone else or indeed, a number of other people, step forward to 'personalise' the island, so that visitors and other members feel there is some 'presence' there - a personality to the island perhaps.
Cal continues to be very busy with his work and home obligations, but is getting more involved with 'administrative' type activities on the island - sending out group notices, organising get togethers etc.
I'm so excited about this adventure I'm embarking on, but I'm also really curious how my absence on the isand will affect the community. I'm so intrigued to see who will take up the slack and who will grow from the experience of 'hosting' visitors and being responsible for giving our community its 'voice'.
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