A baker’s dozen in Second Life

December 5th is my SL rezday anniversary and this year marks 13 years since I arrived back in Second Life as Inara Pey. Thirteen years is actually the 2nd longest time by which I’ve called a single place my home, given a lot of my childhood and teen years saw my family moving around a lot in the physical world, and my early adult life was similarly marked by semi-regular relocations due to the annoyance of careers.

As I noted in my 2018 piece Twelve years in Second Life, I really didn’t expect to still be logging-in to the the platform after so long, given that a few years ago, I sort-of agreed with myself to hang up my SL hiking boots on the occasion of my 10th anniversary as Inara in-world.

In that piece, I noted three major reasons for still being around now: fun, discovery and freedom. I’m not going to re-tread those reasons here and now; suffice it to say that they do still hold true. I’m still having fun with SL sailing, boating ad flying as well as still enjoying my time kitbashing and scratch building (I’m still very much a prim person for building, never having really got my head around Blender, but also enjoy taking mesh bits and re-purposing them).

I’m still out and about visiting SL regions and appreciating all the art that is offered through the platform, and I’m obviously still captivated by the freedom Second Life offers all of us to be who and what we want to be (within the boundaries of the Terms of Service and Community Standards, of course!) regardless of race, religion, gender species or ability.

There’s also the fact that the technical complexity of Second Life continues to fascinate me, and I still enjoy trying to dig into things and understand them, be they genuine technical developments or updates, or more esoteric issues such as the SL economy, what’s going on at Linden Lab, and so on.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of of my Second Life time is maintaining this blog. What started as a fairly narrow-focused and perhaps lopsided projects has grown over the years, has become something that I’ve striven to make into not only a journal of my SL travels and appreciation of art in Second Life, but which can also be a useful resource for other users – hence the menu system at the top of each page (if you’ve not used it before, I do encourage you to do so!).

While I’ve never sought recognition, I am flattered and honoured by the fact that over the years, this blog has been recognised, from topping a poll of New World Notes readers’ favourite blogs, through to this year being awarded the Blogger and Vlogger Network (BVN) Founders Award, while I was also flattered and honoured to be made an Amica honoree by the Virtual Existence Society (VES). MY thanks again to both organisations for these honours.

This year has been interesting blog-wise, given the changes that have popped-up within Second Life, such as the arrival of the new Premium Linden Homes and their continent, there have been the various fee changes that have taken place, the arrival of Animesh and more – all of which have kept me busy. Sansar has also kept me engaged – to a degree, although I admit that the uneven pace of development with that platform and the unevenness of the same has caused a lessening the time I’ve been spending there.

Right now, I don’t see my blogging journey coming to and end – but we really can’t guarantee what the future may bring; so rather than prattling on, I’ll simply say another “thank you” to all of you who continue to read this blog, who support me via social media with re-tweets, likes, etc.. You as much as anything keep me engaged in Second Life. My thanks as well to Brett Linden at the Lab for continuing to put up with my questions and requests for information. And most of all, my thanks to Caitlyn and all my friends who continue to make my explorations and time in SL fun.