I have worked with graphics in different forms since I started to play with my mum’s old MacPlus ages ago. MacPaint was a wonderful application that made me love using the computer for my creative needs. After that I’ve used different kinds of computer programs but “fell in love” with PhotoShop. I don’t really see myself as an artist, but I know what I like and how to make it. Another way to decribe me, using a word that I read somewhere, is a graphics nerd;).

My passions includes digital RL photography, painting in photoshop, 3d graphics in Bryce and Poser. I’ve never really gotten into SL photography as an art form, but I take lots of snapshots in SL as a form of picture diary. I’ve documented what I’ve experienced in SL during my almost 2 years in here. In my blog I have also written about my experiences in SL as a newbie. My photography includes pictures of small details of flowers, trees of course, I love trees, my animal babies, portraits and landscapes. And often I can’t resist the temptation of playing with the pics in Photoshop.

It’s really fun to paint directly in Photoshop. I don’t use a sketching pad yet, that’s on top of my wishing list, but the mouse. Don’t know how good I am at it, but I love it. I also make non-figurative art using filters in Photoshop. 3d graphics is another passion of mine. Using Bryce is like SL photography with one exception, you build the scene yourself before you take the shot. Then you have to wait. It takes forever to let the picture render. It’s really rewarding to see the result. Poser is more like taking portraits in SL. But you have more control over the pose, clothes, lights and background.

In RL I also love to work with silver. I make different kinds of silver jewelry both my own design and traditional designs like viking jewelry made from silver wire. Knitting is something I love, especially traditional patterns. I also design bags of different kinds, shopping bags, smaller bags made from reused jeans to mention a few.

Oh I know it might be hard to remember how it was to be a newbie. When we wore boxes on our heads;), had trouble walking or didn't know how to find your way around. I remember since I used to keep a diary. Not for long though, just those first weeks before I felt more confident about myself and my Second Life:)

My other life 1

My other life 2

This is my personal experiences. Enjoy;)

I have been a resident of Second Life for almost 2 years now. When I joined I was really lucky. I met some really nice persons that helped me a lot. Now I want to give something back to the community. I applied for and got accepted as an official mentor of Second Life. So far it's been so rewarding helping new residents finding their way in this wonderful 3D communty:)

I've heard it all. The hate towards campers are quite obvious in some groups. Why do people hate campers that much?

Some people who have been residents for a long time always claim that it's sooo easy to just build something and sell it. But the question is, would they buy something a newbie has created? And if they won't, why would anyone else?

It takes time to learn enough to create quality products. I work with graphics in RL and still it took me a year to learn enough to create products that sell. And I created my first object when I was 3 days old.

Other residents say you should buy your lindens. Well that's a good point, but why should you, as a new resident buy lindens, when you're still finding out about SL? Try before you buy? I used my account without upgrading to premium or buying lindens for a month before I was certain I would want to stay.

I was lucky when I started out, no one said bad things to me about being a noob, newbie or anything. People helped me around. They gave me time to learn, time to grow. Fortunately for me, I got 50 lindens as an weekly stipend back then. So I didn't have to camp, didn't even know about it.

Now about camping. I like camping and campers. And I think I have good reason to. First of all, in my opinion campers do contribute. They contribute to the traffic of the area. In some areas they contribute to the environment. They can 'work' as gardeners, 'play' the piano or the violin or they can pose as beggars. Seeing them also gives new members a chancer to see avatars 'in action'. This is a very common complaint: "But Second Life is so empty". In an area with many campers no one will have reason to say that.

It's also good way to get to know people.

I'll take campers any day over people pestering group chats and public places asking for handouts. And I really do prefer them to the sex industry. Guys posing as girls working as hookers is pathetic.

Wouldn't we be better off without it? If you guys want sex with guys, (lol) or girls if you feel better believing that;), then it shouldn't be so hard to find a nice sex partner without paying for it.

Me and my sister have started a group for campers with a conscience. We give the money we earn to charity. Up until now we've given twice to Puppy Passions with money we've earned as 'useless' campers;). If you want an invite to the group (to contribute or to recieve info about different charity causes), please IM me for an invite or donate lindens to the group.

Every donated linden will be given to charity and we'll post the receipts in notices of the groups with names of people contributing and with info about how much the group has collected.

Freya Designs is my (Lila Mill) own line of stores. For now I have 3 stores with my own products. I sell clothes, products for your SL home and shapes. And if there's a demand for it I sell customed houses.

Freya's Café and store in Brianconnais
Freya's Café and Store in Sphinx

One of my most popular line of clothings is the striped *Sinclair* outfits. I also sell a lot of the scripted Teapots and Coffee pots. For the holidays, I also have some special limited offers including the Yule outfit.

This is for you D. You probably won't read this. I'm out of your life now and you are out of mine. You were wondering why I haven't written a blog post for so long. Well, I have had too much fun. I thought you were part of that. But now I know I wss just kidding myself. Nothing you ever said was true. You were just following your script. In a way I pity you. Nothing in you is true. You are just making up things as you go along. You know, you will just end up old and alone.

Don't know why I keep doing this. Open myself up to ppl. And allowing me to get hurt. I'm so happy that I have real friends in SL. Ppl who isn't gifted with a golden tounge, but are much more true. They care about me. And they don't keep lying to me.

Well I'm glad you are out of my life. I liked the D I thought I knew. But not this coward as you turned out to be. You are hiding behind your smooth talk, afraid to be yourself. I'm much better off without you.

Second Life is also a place where you can live out your deepest dirtiest and most secret fantasies. And like I mentioned before, SL is a lot about sex and the little blue and pink balls. Some ppl explore the realm of subs and doms and other things that they don't dare to do in RL. Other dress their AV:s to look like prostitutes. Besides we've all heard the rumours. Most of the sexy tarts are really men. LOL. It's funny really, guys having sex with guys believing that one is a girl.

One thing that seems to be very popular, from different reasons, are sex change. One reason is that ppl have this fantasy of having sex with someone as someone of the opposite sex. Like the rumour, guys having sex with guys, believing that they are having sex with a girl. Oh, well to each their own. Besides it's an interesting thought. Another reason for the sex change might be that the person is gay and wants to try out life as a straight person. I've read that this has nothing to do with sex, instead they want to see the difference in how ppl treat them. It's sad that they need to do that, but I guess they feel discriminated in some way.

But it's not just sex fantasies that can be tried out in SL. One of my friends in there is a Police man!?!. Not in real world, but in SL. He has his uniform and visits the station saying howdy to the other police men. It's kind of sweet really. He gave me a guided tour of his station and introduced me to his fellow police men. The station was very realistically built and I was really impressed, but being a police man has never been a dream of mine. He was hoping that I would find him sexy in his uniform, but I had to disappoint him. I could only see this kid playing with guns LOL.

There are other fantasies that can be fulfilled in SL. Some get themselves wings and fly around like faeries or they dress their AV:s like furries or devils. You might also have more down to earth dreams. Some become inworld designers and make clothes. That is close to my own fantasies. I have never been able to become recognized for my creative work in RL, but in here, it's easier somehow. Others want to become builders. There are a lot of skillful builders in SL. Others are really skilled scripters.

One of the things that SL is criticized for is that you have a hard time earning money. You have to rely on your RL skills to be able to make any money. If you don't have that, you don't have much to chose from and the things that are available is mostly like escorts and strippers. And those positions are only open to girls, or at least female AV:s. I don't know if that's degrading for the men or the women, but it is all the same. Some guys tried to pick me up one day, thinking I was a prostitute just because I was visiting one of the less appealing places in SL. I wasn't dressed like that, but because my AV was female, they assumed that I was "working".

There are a lot of other unattractive parts of SL. For one it's quite traditional and sexist. The animations are mostly made for either girl or boy, the pink and the blue. The pink ball often gives some sort of submissive animation and the blue is more dominant. Sometimes there animations that are for more than two persons and than there are always more girls then boys. Another thing that is strange - it's a lot easier to find nice clothes for you AV if it's a female than if it's male. The same goes for the skins (the looks of your AV). The reason, I think is that the ones that are creating the clothes and skins are either guys wanting to make the AV females look sexy or they are women wanting to create nice looking things for their own AV:s. The down side of that is that you rarely find any sexy looking AV:s that are male:(. Thankfully, some are LOL

Speaking of that. Someone asked me if I think about how the AV look before I starting to interact with them. I had to think about that and the answer is yes, strangely enough. I am more likely to talk to a guy who looks sexy or cute or nice than one that is dressed up like a devil or someone that haven't even tried to make their AV look nice. Well it seems to have been a good idea, since most of the guys I know are both sexy and very nice LOL

After my first week in SL with new experiences, including getting my heart broken (LOL) I was ready to take on this new world as a real resident. What I have left to try is to buy my own land, build my own place and try my luck as clothes designer. But for now, I'm just happy to hang out with my friends or explore this new and exiting place.

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Perhaps we'll meet there:)

The first day I met this nice American guy. He showed me around and was the perfect guide. He showed me the good things in SL and the bad things. This first day I found out that there was more to SL than graphics, building and money. A big part of SL is sex!?! He took me to this club and showed me small pink and blue balls. If you sat on them your AV would do certain things depending on what they were programmed to do. Well when I was about to test those balls, my guide had to leave for the real world (RL) so I was left standing there feeling like an idiot. LOL.

Because we were in different time zones it was hard to meet regularly. When I am about to go to bed, he usually comes online. We still keep in touch, but we mix in different circles. I'm very glad I've met him, like all my other SL friends. He showed me around the first days and taught me about this fantastic digital world. I'm very greatful to him for that.

There's also a lot of emotions involved in this Second Life. I met this cool British guy one of the first days inside. When I was a newbie like the residents call the new members. I'm not sure when you go from being a newbie to being a "real" resident. I guess I'm not a newbie anymore anyway. Ok, back to this British guy. He was really nice and he still is of course. We had only known each other for a few hours when he told me he wanted a relationship with me. I got quite surprised. I liked him, but this wasn't real, or was it? He certainly thought it was real. And he felt he loved me. I was careful how I responded, like walking on egg shells. This was all new to me and I didn't want to hurt his feelings.

I mentioned that we lived quite far apart so it would be difficult. Then he just responded that he meant a relationship in SL. I felt it was rather strange, but I've later learned that this is quite common. You can even have a marriage in SL. With your RL partner or just one inside SL. Well I kindly declined his offer, but said I still wanted to be friends with him. After a couple of big rows and some misunderstandings, we now are quite good friends. He's one of the few ppl in SL who has told me about his RL and vice versa, he knows somethings about my RL. His feelings for me are still the same. He's in love with me or so he says. It still feels strange, but I guess this is Second Life. Everything gets so serious. The following quote is from the same profile as the other quote:

"Imaginary Characters
Imaginary World
Real emotions
Tread carefully!"

I think that this explains something about how different and special Second Life is. To someone outside SL it might sound strange and of course it is. But I think because everyone forgets about their normal life for a while and just become whoever they want to, emotions gets more important. And because of that you can get your heart broken quite easily. The SL partner of one of my friends got so jealous over a girl in real life, she left him after a big row. My friend got so depressed over losing his partner so he started to act real strange for a while. Now I've heard that they are back together so everything worked out ok, I think.

The first few days in SL I was convinced that, even if I've met ppl in SL who had boyfriends/girlfriends or even husbands/wifes, I would never have these deep feelings for anyone that I've only met online. Atl least not someone in a digital world. And I thought it was quite silly to take these things so seriously. Then I met this guy and he swept me off my feet only to break my heart some days after that. I felt so stupid having fallen for someone that I didn't know in RL. Well, I soon got over him and he's not worth crying over anyway. After a while I couldn't even remember what was so special about him in the first place.

I now have a very close friend in SL. He's very clever and nice, and the best thing is that he doesn't make my head spin. LOL He and I spend a lot of time together and we have fun. This time I won't take things so seriously. but I have to admit that I was very happy when he said I was his number one person in SL:).

I have found a new place to kill time and I'm really enjoying myself. It's not a real place inte the real world. No, this place is virtual. It's a digital mix of fantasy and fun. This place is called Second Life (SL). The members are called residents and it has its own currency that can be bought for real dollars. Second Life is quite a good name for it anyway since it really feels like that. It already feels like a big part of my life.

The first time I heard of Second Life was in an article on a website. The article was mostly about the financial system, but it wasn't the money that caught my attention. It was the creative part of SL that appealed to me. This digital world is made by its residents. The buildings, the art, the clothes. Since I love working with graphics, both 2d and 3d I was fascinated. So I got this free membership and started to explore.

I have only been there for about a month, but like one of my friends in there once said, it feels a lot longer. In this relatively short time, I've got to know a lot of really nice persons and a lot of ppl who are not that nice.

Well, I've met their digital personas, their avatar (AV for short) and I know very little or nothing about their real life. And we, the residents of SL, prefer it that way. Second life is a nice way of escaping our ordinary lives. You don't want to think about work, bad relationships or whatever occupies your thoughts.

"Here in this crazy, mixed up magical world for escapism and enjoyment."

This is a quote from the profile of someone that was once a friend of a friend and I think it captures the essence of Second Life.

Now, let me tell you about my first week inside SL. The first time you set foot in this virtual world you come to some sort of training area. It gives you a chance to get familiar with the surroundings before you enter the real Second Life. My first impression was that it was so big. So much to explore and so much to learn. One of the first things that caught my attention was that you were offered two different outfits for you AV, one male and one female. It was pretty clear that most ppl wanted both. That gave me a little hint of what I would find out about this world later.