19th Annual National Service Learning Conference

My friend Rhiannon Chatnoir just sends me this invitation:

Starting now (April 11 ) in the NMC sim Teaching, as part of the National Youth Leadership Conference live events, Global Kids' workshop on Using Virtual Worlds to Promote Service-Learning - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching/110/117/23


The National Youth Leadership Council will be hosting its 19th Annual National Service Learning Conference in Minneapolis from April 9-12th, 2008. The NSLC is the largest gathering of youths and practitioners involved in the service-learning movement where participants connect through three days of plenary sessions, featured forums, and service projects.

Friday the 11th, Global Kids will be streaming the key events live onto the web at our blog http://tinyurl.com/67pt8l, and hosting live events in Teen Second Life on our Global Kids estate and on the Main Grid in the NMC sim Teaching (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching/110/117/23).


Schedule of Events

Join us for Day 2 of great plenaries, performances and speeches from the Learn and Serve Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota.


Date: April 11th, 2008

Be sure not to miss Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an activist who helped end racial segregation in South Africa!

7:00- 8:30 a.m. (PST)
Plenary session with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, human rights activist and Nobel laureate
Archbishop Desmond Tutu's faith in and commitment to the peaceful destiny of South Africa earned him the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. He served as his country's voice of conscience during its long struggle against apartheid. During those years, Archbishop Tutu soothed the spirits and rallied the hearts of his people with simple words of passion and dignity. Those words also united the world against South Africa's apartheid regime.

8:45 - 10:15 a.m. (PST)
Responding to Tutu's Global Call to Action
Calling all youths! Don't miss this opportunity to hear young people's reactions to Archbishop Desmond Tutu's plenary address and global call to action. You will spend this session responding to issues discussed in the plenary session such as Jewish relations, Darfur, and HIV/AIDS.

12:30 - 2:00 p.m. (PST)
Tabitha Gkid's workshop on Using Virtual Worlds to Promote Service-Learning!
This session highlights some of the exciting work that young people are undertaking both on- and off-line to address significant problems faced by youths in the 21st century. Come hear what youths around the world are doing in virtual worlds at Global Kids, a New York nonprofit, to promote service-learning, and learn how you can do the same in your community!

2:15 - 3:45 p.m. (PST)
Youth in Media: Leveraging Our Power
Are you a middle or high school student who feels that you have creative media ideas to help change the world? This forum will feature panelists whose lives are focused on making change through media. This forum will ask, document, and seek to answer questions such as: What is the media feeding young people? How can media and service effectively complement each other to make change?

Déjà vu - May 2008 –

The Déjà vu - May 2008 - is now available with very nice articles. The front page cover is an interview with Space Junky band. The music is fantastic and you can download a copy.

So don’t lose reading it Deja vu international.

My article is about Fashion trends and tips. In the article I would like to give my personal fashion tips and suggestions. Please don’t understand this as an obligation to be beautiful. “The most courageous act is still to think for yourself aloud” (Coco Chanel). This is only Anna Avalanche thinking of myself aloud. Lol!

The magazine is fantastic and I would like to have a feedback from my readers. This is very important for me to make better article. So please leave your comment here about my Déjà vu article Fashion trends and tips.

You can also read the fine articles:






Silver Lining in home and furnishing from SC Tracy World’s traditional outfits from Antonella Munro
Japan “hanami” in around the world

Food and Yoga for your health and pleasure.

Spending money... really necessary?

This article was wrote on Lucille Morigi blog. I love it. Well… With this commentary I would like to introduce the new article for the Déjà Vu magazine on the May Issue that will be soon publish. The May number will be ready till the mid April and my article is about fashion tips. So don’t lose reading it Deja vu international.

From Lucille Morigi blog
If you don't want to become a supermodel there is no need to spend much money in Second Life.

I have made a research joining Second Life with an alt - because I knew that if I had one linden I would eventually buy something and I was after freebies for newbies.

So Christina, my alt had to camp - yes, camp -for money.

Actually I found out that she got from a newbie to something pretty reasonable only going to some good stores, like


Calla

Bare Rose Tokyo HQ

ETD

Ghost, Ingenue, Alady, Tuli at Gossipgirl Sim and Gurl 6.

This is how Christina joined second life and she (I) was not happy with her look; She wanted to be different and have more outfits.

And after going to ETD, Gurl 6, Alady and Bare Rose, this is how she became:

These are 3 linden look all, including shape, skin, outfit, hair and shoes.

As I said: She is not a model, but she only went to places where freebies were available, either 1 linden or 0 linden.

She even bought a 1 linden photosphere to take her snapshots!

So, yes, I believe that you can live in sl and don't spend too much.

You can find more pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucillemorigi/sets/72157604181367496/
Lucille Morigi

P.S. From Anna Avalanche: This is intended to help your newbie friends. If you have any question Please let me know.

A tribute to Mexico People

This is the April Issue I wrote for Déjà vu magazine. You can also find other great articles here: Deja vu international

Mexico ~Chichen Itza~Archeologic, Visit Mexico (198, 69, 38)

I love to travel and explore real and second life places and I decided to make tribute to my friend’s country. Maybe I can have all 192 countries members of the United Nations as homage. So I ask my friends to write an article about their countries. For my surprise Patt Sands a very intelligent and especial friend sent me this remarkable note about Mexico. This is not an interview but a very well wrote article. Enjoy your second life and maybe you real life in a travel to this fantastic country.

The most notable tourist draws in Mexico are the ancient Meso-American ruins, and popular beach resorts. The nation's temperate climate and unique culture – a fusion of the European (particularly Spanish) and the Meso-American – also make Mexico a large draw.

This article is about the impressive pre-Columbian archaeological site. Chichen Itza, pronounced (/tʃiːˈtʃɛn iːˈtsɑː/) from Yucatec Maya Chi'ch'èen Ìitsha' was a major regional center in the northern Maya lowlands. I invite you to travel in the thought and words written from Patt Sands.
Anna Avalanche

Text from Patt Sands, Photography by Anna Avalanche
Models Anna avalanche and KidBengala Blackadder

Chichen Itza

People say there are places to be remembered but not all places capture our attentions in the same way. That is what I felt when a while ago, with sweat on my forehead, gasping; a little tired after climbing 91 stairs. Finally, I arrived at the top of the Pyramid of Kukulkán (plumed serpent). This place is most commonly referred as, “El Castillo” (the castle). It was built with nine terraces and four staircases, one on each side of the monument. Each staircase consists of 91 steps. If you add the steps of all four staircases, that totals 364 steps and with the top platform of the pyramid you get the number 365, which equals the number of days in a year[1]. This is the most famous place of the late classic maya culture in the city of Chich’en Itzá (At the mouth of the well of the Itza) located on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
[1] http://www.pyramidmatrix.com/kukulkan_pyramid.htm

There, two special days a year before sunset, many people gather around the pyramid and wait. Then, an undulating shadow identified as the, “Great Plumed Serpent” moves down the balustrade of the staircase. I could see one corner of the structure casting a shadow in the shape of the famed plumed serpent descend along the side of the northern staircase. I could feel the mysticism which, arises from the seven shadows transcending the stones; a wonder that can only to be seen on the Spring and Fall equinox[1]. The Mayan people were great architects and astronomers. They knew to anticipate that moment in time when the center of the Sun can be observed to be directly above the Earth’s equator. El Castillo was built oriented in such a way, so as to produce this amazing shadow projection, which will occur this year on March 20th and September 22nd.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmnC_fQXvBU&feature=related

Concurrent, sound was as important as light. When a person claps their hands at the base of the staircase, they evoked echoes from the countless facets of the Mayan pyramid. Uniquely interesting is that the echo resounds to mimic the primary call of a Quetzal, the Mayans’ sacred and symbolic bird. This magnificent bird, now near extinction, has for thousands of years represented the “Spirit of the Maya”; spirits that tradition ascribes to be able to speak in echoes.

Research involving the Pyramid of Kukulkán has been ongoing, as modern technology allows. Scientist Nico Declercq of Ghent University in Belgium[1] has more recently shown that sound waves ricocheting around the tiered steps of “El Castillo” create a parody including the chirp of a bird and the patter of raindrops. Declercq's team has shown that the height and spacing of the pyramid steps function as an acoustic filter that emphasizes some sound frequencies while suppressing others. An underlying questions prevails, “In the creation of form, function and functionality, did the original architects know exactly what they were doing?” To the Mayan people, this rhetoric question is akin to asking if the enduring works of Mozart and Beethoven where also accidents.
[1] http://www.me.gatech.edu/declercq/Chichen-Itza.htm

As my day drew to a close, I had the opportunity to hear from far away, some old canticles invoking “Chaac”, the archival God of Rain. In that fleeting moment, the “Itzaes” were again alive and asking for both mercy and water; sustenance of life of their abandoned city. Archaelogical findings suggest that Chichen Itza’s collapse was violent[1], and the population abandoned the metropolis around AD 1221, but the Cenote Sagrado (Sacred Cenote), where sacrifices were supposedly practiced as a form of worship to Chaac, prevails as a pilgrimage, where one will find a natural sink hole formed by water percolating through the soft limestone above.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichen_Itza

In 2007, El Castillo of Chichen Itza was voted one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, by a worldwide plebiscite.

I invite you to visit the Mexican Tourism Board’s portrayal of Chichen Itza [Mexico ~Chichen Itza~Archeologic, Visit Mexico (198, 69, 38)], where you will enjoy a rare opportunity to look directly into Mayan history, while wearing traditional robes.
Patt Sands

Anna Avalanche sponsored by:
AA Trade Company, Cleary (120, 70, 113)

Racism at Vogue cover?

The new Vogue magazine cover featuring basketball star LeBron James and the Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen. There are several in the media who are now saying the cover is racist and is a take on the ‘racist’ image of King Kong holding damsel Ann Darrow in distress.

ESPN writer Jemele Hill was one of the first to mention this in her article, “LeBron Should Be More Careful with His Image”.

NBA star LeBron James has dismissed criticism that his recent Vogue cover reeked of "Me Tarzan, you Gisele Bundchen."

Some academics, analysts and bloggers say that James' bared teeth and hulking pose, one arm slung around Bundchen's waist, reinforces the stereotypes of black athletes as savage animals. And such images "reinforce the criminalization of black men," a University of Maryland kinesiology professor tells the Associated Press.

But James says he was pleased with the Annie Leibovitz-shot cover, the first in Vogue to feature an African-American man. "It wasn't a situation we're being rough or looking mean," James tells the Plain-Dealer in Cleveland. "Just showing a little emotion. We had a few looks, and that was the best one we had ... Everything my name is on is going to be criticized in a good way or bad way. Who cares what anyone says?"

The April issue is dedicated to size and shape, says Vogue spokesman Patrick O'Connell. "We think LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen look beautiful together, and we are honored to have them on the cover."

What you think? The cover is racist? By the way, have you suffer racism on SL? If you did, leave your comments please.

Linden looks outside the company for new CEO

SECOND LIFE, March 20 (Reuters) - Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab who is stepping down as chief executive, told Reuters on Thursday he was looking to bring in someone from outside the company rather than promote from within.

He also said the new CEO would have the freedom to change elements of Linden’s quirky culture.

“Companies always talk about the fear of losing their culture because parts of their culture are lame,” he said. “It would be inconsistent of me to bring someone in and say ‘Listen, buddy, you have to use the love machine.’”

Rosedale spoke at length in a Second Life interview about what Linden Lab was looking for in a new chief executive. He is leading the search and will become chairman of Linden’s board once a replacement is found.

The most important criteria, he said, was to find someone who’s had experience growing a small company into a global player. No one at Linden Lab brings the right résumé to the job.

“We need someone who’s done this stuff on a organizational scale we haven’t,” Rosedale said. “We’re all relatively junior.”

In describing the skills he was looking for in his replacement, Rosedale said the new chief should already be a passionate user of Second Life. They also have to be “a great coach” who will work well with Linden’s staff.

“And they have to have complementary skill sets to mine,” he said. “Because I’m staying and will still be involved.”

Experience operating in a global information technology market is necessary. Rosedale pointed to Second Life’s large non-American resident population and the company’s confusion last year as it began to charge VAT to European Second Life users.

“Me, I’m a California guy, all the way,” he said.

Looking forward to the year ahead, Rosedale expressed optimism about the new “HTML-on-a-prim” feature in development, but said his company’s top priorities remain making Second Life easier to use, and improving the stability of the software.

He said Second Life is currently able to turn between three and five percent of new registrants into committed users, compared with ten to fifteen percent for sites like Facebook or LinkedIn.

“I want my new role to be about getting that retention up,” he said. “I don’t want the community thinking I’m reducing my hours.”

By Eric Reuters from Reuters

I will love to have the community comments on this information.

HAPPY EASTER

Besides the eggs caressingly packed on the rabbit nest, I desire blessings, peace, renewed energies, many flowers and happiness to all in this Easter.
That this Easter really reflect rebirth, love, hope and liberation.

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL MY DEAR FRIENDS