The Beginning

July 2007

Dublin – (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dublin/81/81/25/?x=100&y=100&title=Dublin)
Free Dove –(http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gallii/113/53/33/?x=100&y=100&title=Free%20Dove)


I entered the wonderful world of Second life as most Avatars, a lump of clay that was popped out of a cookie cutter. Ms. Oona Babenco was born on May 31, 2007. She had the long brown hair, long sleeve T-shirt and Jeans. Oh yes, the flip flops….those beautiful flip flops. Gotta-luv-um!!! She walked into the tutorial having no clue as to what this virtual world was all about, but willing to learn. I went through with ease, but not without the infamous bumping by the male Newbie….”Hey Baby”. Oh why are men so immature? Anyway, I swiftly went to Help Island….So much to see and learn.

I started Second Life hoping to start a business or maybe get away from the real life monotony I had been battling with for months now. I had no idea that I was about to run into a million and one other Avatars with the same ideas of “getting away”. I went straight to the build tool. Very easy to learn I thought. This could be something…. But before I could really get going on the “building thing”, I had to do something with my Avatar. Oona was just not what I envisioned….she was my wild side waiting to come out but she didn’t really look like that. She was ready to let loose on this crazy world…but not looking like she was. So I started fooling around with the appearance tool. New pants, new shirt…Oh sexy now, lol. Shorter & lighter hair, some new high heal shoes. WOW, a new woman….I laugh now because I was such the newbie, no clue and the hope for having fun and meeting people.

Ok I was ready to go, I spent a good amount of time at Help Island but I was ready to move on…let me out of here I thought. So away I went…where to go?…I popped up the map and off I went…Bear Island. Nice, small island, with a few people mingling about. I went into my first shop. I honestly have no idea what shop it was, but I do remember it was my first shot at a camping bench. “What’s this?” I thought to myself. Hmmm, I can make money just sitting on a bench? Cool, and I sat…all alone in this great little shop listening to 80s music. A man walked in with some “bling” looking hot as most non newbie avatars do. Should I say hi? No, not ready yet. He didn’t say anything to me. Just looked at me and went about his business. I wondered why, was there something wrong with Ms. Oona? Oh well, I had made about 2L$ and I was ready to go. Alright, let’s go check things out. So I went up to an area that had people just standing about. A few were talking, but not many chatting, most IMing I thought. I looked at them all. The women were so beautiful. Long flowing hair, beautiful clothing, lots of jewelry, and gorges bodies. There is no way they did any of that in the appearance tool. I wanted to ask. Still not ready to talk to anyone. Oona was not ready I guess I should say. Even thought I was a Newbie, I knew I would have been laughed at.

OK Over to a private place, I went to fool around with my clothing and hair again. How did they do that? OK I need to research this a little more, I think to myself. So I got off and went straight to Google. I typed in, “Second Life Hair”, “Second Life Clothing”, “Second Life ANYTHING!”. The very first thing that caught my attention, “How to Get Hot Fast and Cheep”. (http://sexsecond.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-to-get-hot-fast-and-cheap.html) Great! Off I went to get hot fast and cheep. It was like a light bulb went off in my head, ”This is so easy…and no money needed upfront”. Excellent! I took notes and read Ms. Lillie’s blog from front to back. (http://sexsecond.blogspot.com/) An excellent read, I recommend it! I said to myself, Sex in SL? Ok not on my top priorities right now, but she had a ton of other great articles that really got me off to a great start. Alright, on I go, back to SL the very next day. Notes in hand I set off to Free Dove (http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2007/06/15/free-dove-for-free-things/) and a few other places with free stuff. I arrived at Free Dove First. WOW, there were boxes all over. I clicked on every box and took it all. I was a crazy woman. Man my inventory was full and I was ready to unpack. Off to the first sandbox I could find. I landed in this strange place. Full with objects people had made, screaming noises that people were testing out. OK, let’s unpack. I started to drop boxes and try on items. WOW, all this was free and it rocks! I saw the potential for a beautiful Avatar. Oona was going to be the beauty that I always envisioned her to be. I still was not sure what her style was going to be or what I really wanted her to look like, but I knew that I didn’t want her to look like clay and I wanted her to have all the right parts that a woman should have. Oh yes, and long beautiful flowing hair. Ok, I found a skin and some hair and a nice outfit. I am an organizer by nature so I organized all the clothing into categories (recommend this! Very important) and I was ready to go. Next stop Platinum (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Platinum%20Island/144/124/24). This is a whole island that a skin design company called Platinum owns. They have good skins and in the rear of the building they have some for 1L$. I picked up the skin called “Tara” and felt like a new woman. Where do I go now? I opened up the map…at the very top I saw the button “home”. What’s this? I pressed it and off I zoomed to Dublin. Cool, Oona’s from Dublin. I went off to the closest pub and I was ready to meet people.


Oona walked into the Blarney Stone (http://www.dublinsl.com/blarney.php) all new and happy, fresh out of freebie land. Ok I think I’m ready to talk to people now. Once she walked through the door, everyone in the pub welcomed her with open arms…”Hello Oona!” “Wow, people are talking to me”, I thought to myself. Wait, they are talking to Oona. Man what a head trip this is. “Hello ya’ll!” Ms. Oona uttered her first. Oh that felt good, to be excepted and people wanted to talk to her. I struck up a conversation with a male avatar that seemed nice. Others walked in and began talking about The Three Lions Pub. I heard they were going to take off over to the pub. I asked if it was a great place and they all agreed that it was fun, good music, fun people. Excellent! I exclaimed. They invited me to meet them there, and I said great. I looked to the guy I had been talking to after they left and asked him if he knew where the Three Lions pub was. He gave me the locations and I invited him to come with me, sorry, Oona. He passed and said there was too much drama there for him. “Oh No!” I said that maybe I would not go then. He replied that it was drama for him and I should not worry. I said all right cool. I was going to take off. Before I left he offered me group membership to the Blarney Stone. WOW! Group membership, more acceptances. Oona was just rockin today. Wow that trip to Free Dove was paying off. I said thank you and took off. As I landed in Bourton Village in came an IM…Ok, I had no idea how to deal with an IM. It was my friend from the Blarney Stone…”I just can’t go because my ex would be there. “ Ok I thought to myself, his ex…”RL or SL ex?” something to ponder. I heard the great music and I wanted to go try dancing. I had all these new dance moves and I wanted to try them out. I walked in and saw the guys from Blarney Stone. “Hey Oona!” again, acceptance. WOW, Oona is on FIRE!!!! “Hello everyone!” Oona exclaimed. Oona walked onto the dance floor..I popped open a few dances and started. NICE! Oona looks good! I changed the dances with every song, stopped when the music stopped. Then the fun began. The chatter was good and I laughed at all the people’s banter. You could tell they all were friends and had met here often. I was the Newbie in this UK wonderland. Then in walked a tall Av., good looking and his girlfriend and all their friends. It was surreal. It was like being at a real pub/club. You could tell the crazy fun lovin people, the quiet people…once again a head trip. This group was the crazy group. They were talking about having sex and orgasms and all with each other. I laughed and just watched the show. Mr. Crazy himself walked up to a lady, not sure if he knew her or not and decided to pull out his Avs. dick and spewed all over her and the floor. OK, I thought to myself, I knew you could get these attachments, but man, this was crazy. Everyone got upset and Oona declared that there was always one in the crowed. I thought back to the note card message I had gotten when I entered this island. It said something to the affect “NO DRAMA ZONE” I laughed and thought back to my Blarney Stone Friend and his drama here. If this is not a drama zone, I have no idea what one is than. I decided that that was enough for one night and logged off.

I went to bed thinking about all that I had experienced that night. Oona had grown up in one day from a little clay girl into a grown avatar woman. I hoped that people didn’t know I was a newbie. I always strive for perfection in RL and I was finding that I was bringing that to SL too. It was getting hard for me to wrap my head around all the feelings I was having through Oona. I was finding that I was more willing to be outgoing and talk to others once I had her looking decent. I am an outgoing person in RL so that was not going to be hard in SL. I was ready to venture to other places. I was looking forward to the next time I would go to SL. Would I see people I had seen before? Was Oona going to make friends? What was she going to wear? All the things I thought about when going out in RL.

It was a few days before I got on again. I took some time to read more about SL. Like I said I was a perfectionist and I wanted get past the Newbie stage fast. I found more places to get free things and I also found more blogs of people that had avatars on SL for years. I found a great blog that talked about building things and fashion. Both things I was interested in. (http://slnatalia.blogspot.com/) She got me thinking about Photo Shop and maybe I should take a look at it and try out making some clothing. Hmmm something to think about. Then I saw an article on skins. There was a picture of a beautiful avatar woman and it discussed the skin and where you could get one. Oh I was in love. She was beautiful and that was the skin for Oona. I was off and running, finally, the skin that I was looking for. If and when you start SL, you will find that you begin to feel what your Avatar should look like, what their style should be, how they should act. But before I could go buy a skin, I decided to purchase a membership to SL. I had decided that this was for me. Some day I was going to buy a house and set up shop, so I better get serious. So I signed up and Oona had a bank roll. YES, let’s go Shopping!!!