Second Blog

As you can see I bought a medieval mirror with reaper statues attached on both sides. I want to use it to present my information about the black death on its surface, or maybe convert it into a magic mirror, so people can ask it certain questions. I don’t really have an idea how to do that yet, but I have seen it with other mirrors. So if any of you should know how to do it, it’d be thankful for some advice. :)

We can put it wherever there’s space for it,  somewhere close to the presentation about the war of the roses or other historical events maybe.

This week’s assignment was to look for objects that would be helpful/nice to have in a medieval village. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to look for some instruments, preferably some medieval ones. I did this because I figured that the normal Old English peron was illiterate and most stories were passed on by means of word-of-mouth. So I figured that by buying some Old English instruments we could appoint a bard, who would/could go from town to town, telling the heroic stories of Beowulf or entertaining towners with puzzling riddles. Therefore I bought a harp and a lute. They were pretty expensive and now I’m pretty broke, so I hope Kirsten won’t get mad at me!

I bought the instruments at Oz’s Medieval Instruments Shoppe http://slurl.com/secondlife/Montisigard/146/56/79 If you’d like to, go there and check it out. There are a lot more instruments to try out. Feefee

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2035/2007963446_91c5732c61.jpg?v=0

I only bought some decorative items so far like a rug or wooden utilities (plates and spoons) and a fire and cooking station which can be used to show the day to day life, but I  am still not able to post the pictures- sorry

On Friday, our seminar has received mention in a radio broadcast done by the Deutschlandfunk. The title of the report is “Zukunft digitaler Campus – Hochschulen in ‘Second Life’”, and the “Anglisten der Uni Düsseldorf” are cited as one of the examples for German universities using Second Life for teaching and research.

Only one and a half weeks into the month, and we have already exceeded our course Flickr space. Ouch. 

This proves that it’s prudent to resize screenshots taken in Second Life and save them as gifs or jpgs before uploading them…

To quote Flickr: “This is a bandwidth limit, and not an amount of space that you have on Flickr servers.”

But since we’re flexible, we can use pictures uploaded to my own web space. Or private accounts.

Shakespeare_002, ursprünglich hochgeladen von SLAnglistik1

Gutenberg Printing Press

Shakespeare_001, ursprünglich hochgeladen von SLAnglistik1

Waasland Castle, ursprünglich hochgeladen von SLAnglistik1

Waasland Castle, Guernsey Island (25, 225, 24)

Waasland Castle takes up a small spot on Guernsey Island. At first you think there isn’t much to discover, because there are only the castle, a tent, and the pitch where you can fight (see the bloodstain?).
But inside the castle offers a large throne room decorated with crests and a chamber with a round table, an altar and coloured windows. Your avatar can pray on the kneeler before the altar, and in the throne room you can perform a knighting.
In the tent outside you can buy things like belts, boots and daggers, for what I believe are okay prices, plus those things look more authentic than most that are labeled ‘medieval’ in SL. (The weapons I think you can actually fight with, by the way.)

I haven’t seen another avatar there yet, but I think it’s worth a visit.

I also tried to find some medivial related place like “Canterbury”, “Westminster Abbey”… but could not find  anything.  Then I started to search more generally by tiping in  words like village,  monastry….

I found some really nice places, although the majority of the results I got did not have anything to do with what I was really looking for.

1. Village of Domain, a really beautyful looking old village with barns and a shop where you can buy buildings

2. Monastry of St. Michael archangel, really big and beautyfull church

3.  Lil Burn Valley, Monastery of St Felix Meritis, also a very cute  medivial looking church, smaller than the first one

Unfortunately, I couldn’t post the snapshots but I uploaded them on flickr and will try again

The first thing I did was search for a few typically Old English things…like a library, King Alfred, Chaucer, Canterburry (hoping to find something about the Tales), but had no luck. Then I typed in Beowulf and got this “Beowulf Brewpub”. This thing has absolutely nothing to do with out Old English Heroic Epic, but is simply a brewery and bar. There were no people and not much to do, but looked okay, as it was set up very loungy.

Then I simply typed in “Medieval” and that’s when I got some interesting results. I found Avilion Island, to be exact the Avilion Ballrom. All very cute, music was playing and they had a formal dress code. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Avilion%20Grove/129/127/48

What I found then was the Dradwood Cathedral and Medieval Towers. It was very nicely done with a lot of detail. This place is very interactive, for example, at the altar the bride and groom can stand together and hold hands or they can kiss. You can actually make real life donations to this cathedral! http://slurl.com/secondlife/DarkWood/205/132/25

In front of the cathedral you will find a pretty park with this little tent-canopy-kinda-thing. You can sit in it with your friends and enjoy their company next to a warming fire.

Then I flew over to Darkwood, on the westside. I found this part particularly interesting, because I found instruments that you can actually play. So I tried myself at the “Elven bass drum” and the “Elven horn”. Might be more fun in a group though, as you can then make your own band and actually play all the instruments at the same time. Who knows, it might just sound good… I also found some medieval looking art and lots more! Go check it out! I liked it!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/DarkWood/176/192/35