Please make way for the king! Or, Who reads these things anyway??

Hello! I am Teresa. I am a builder and landscaper in Second life and I have decided to start my own blog on the wonderful fun and adventure available in Second Life.

I have loved most of my time in Second life. It opens up amazing opportunities and I have also met people that have become real life friends. I was so lucky to meet a man in SL who decided to open a 10 sim group known as Kookaburra Haven. He trusted me and allowed me to learn so much about building and operating what was a very special place that sadly only lives in our memories now.

I have been incredibly lucky to meet wonderful generous land owners who allowed me to trade off my skills in landscaping for areas of land to set up a total of 5 beaches so far in SL! My desire is to create beautiful open spaces and being from the Gold Coast in Australia, my beaches have always had a fairly tropical theme. I have never planned to make money in Second Life. I just wanted to make places beautiful.
I declare once and for all, I am not perfect and neither is my work in sl. Luckily most people agree, but we end up with a pretty good vision and useful sim at the end.
I offered my skills for use of land. It happens all the time in SL but as you will read my blog-interested friends, there are PITFALLS!

Second life can be nasty. Pure and simple. The biggest problem is people that obviously have never been successful in real life that get a few Lindens together and buy a small island all ready to make their millions and be a successful land Barron. Most people that do this are great but in my experience, its the failure's of real life that make it terribly hard on everyone else as they start to do things they would never be allowed to do in real life right there on their own Islands.

It makes me laugh when I see some land barons who think they are God. They will operate their sim with vicious intent, quite happy to see it destroyed and ugly rather than possibly admit that they have no skills in landscaping or building. Some people have no sense of style and it’s very easy to see their efforts reflected in their ugly and bland sims that no one enjoys. Hey, don't ask me to do brain surgery, I won't attempt what I don't know what to do! I wish some people in sl would realise that...

In real life, we have rules and laws, no matter what country you are from. In Second Life, crazy people who would never make it successfully in the real world are suddenly allowed to act like Judge, jury and executioner just because they can afford $1000 and set up their own tyrannical kingdom!

I have had landowners discuss with me the punishments they intended to dish out on their own residents purely because those people had the nerve to disagree with the king!! How dare anyone suggest that his or her building is ugly or perhaps does not fit in with the common theme of the Sim! Thank God they can't get at me in real life!

I have been accused of stealing prims, blocking views, taking up valuable land space and basically ripping people off when they suddenly decided that I was no longer needed on their sim. Look out new avatars, once your usefulness is over its back to Help Island for you!

For those that don't understand Second Life. It's a virtual world operated on virtual land with prims becoming your love and hate objects. Everything is constructed on prims and since this is a world made of pixels and scripts, if you don't have enough prims you can't put anything more on the virtual land. You also need permissions on most sims to build or lay out prims. If you try and build your own palace you will soon be ejected from that land. This is just like real life and is totally fair and reasonable.

Sometimes a landowner will realise they have no skills. They will never admit it but its not hard to see their handiwork of buildings that sit a meter off the ground or objects that are upside down, or buildings that just float by themselves in the water, yes I know, hard to believe but seen by my own eyes on several sims I worked on.

Go there, fix it all up. Pay your rent, then one day, a deputy of the land owner decides to get rid of you for her own gain. Look out if you agreed to set your items for everyone's use on the sim in group title. Bad people can delete your very expensive items and you will never see them again. One ugly avatar deleted many thousands of Lindens worth on me.

Then, one day, you meet someone so talented and so special that you remember why you came into sl in the first place. For the last few months I have had the absolute pleasure in being on Amy's 'Nature's Way' sim. Well, what a wonderful human being, caring, honest and all the things that make sl the place to be for relaxation fun and wonderment!!

I was given a small section of a sim to lay out my landscaping and the result was a beautiful stretch of Open sim complimenting the original Buffy's Cove, one of the most popular nude beaches of all time in sl. It's been an honor and a pleasure to be a part of it. Sadly, Amy is leaving SL because of the land profiteering and Tier fee increases by the Lindens.

PLEASE LINDENS! UNDERSTAND.... SOME PEOPLE OPERATED THEIR SIMS THE WAY OPEN SPACE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE!

Ooohh dear, I just shouted in frustration again!

I have no regrets over any of my actions knowing I have always done my best to stick to any agreements made and try and help more novice or inexperienced people learn and develop their own skills. After all, no one knows everything... After a couple of years in Second Life you soon realise that not all things are happy and hip in the world of pixilated fantasy!

I have so many stories to tell as my adventures in paradise continue. I look forward to writing down my observations and laying it all here for fun. Until then, if you’re a new avatar, please respect SL and its residents. Overall, it’s a wonderful beautiful pixilated world of amazing ness!
Love and Peace always.

Teresa.