Wednesday, 28th March, 2007

Dull

random self-doubt

Something wonderful happened today. Something that I've been fantasising about for a long time. An email that I thought I'd never get plopped into my work-inbox, and sent me scurrying up several flights of stairs to share the news.

...

Later on, in the pub after work while I was having a quick pint of Guinness before trotting off to catch a train home, there was an unusual air. We normally go to the pub after work — at least, I say "we", I mean the others. Lately I've taken (especially as I've been commuting each day) to hanging around in the office until seven-ish, then kicking the little band of third-year clingers-on out as I make my solitary way to the car, safe in the knowledge that the traffic will have died down.

But yeah, usually there's a fair crowd of us all in the pub, either discussing the day's events, taking the piss out of each other, or generally being amusing.

Well, we think so.

Tonight though, our numbers were depleted for various reasons, and I became hugely aware that the customary bonhomie. was quite noticable for its absence.

"Perhaps we're all tired", I thought to myself. I mean, after all, it has been a hell of a long term (without the half-term break that other Unis seem to have wangled for themselves), and with only a couple of days to go before the end of it, we are — perhaps — feeling the strain.

But then I realised what it really was. It was me.

I am very VERY BORING.

...

The email had come addressed from a "Dee Linden", and I'd almost shat myself when I saw the subject:

"Your island is ready!"

For over a year now, I've been mentally toying with ideas surrounding teaching within virtual spaces, and how fab it would be to have some resources to explore the possibilities of such things. Ever since I saw Kei working in her floaty-home above Albion, I've had a sense of purpose within Second Life — a reason to experiment and explore, rather than fruitlessly walking along deserted roads, peppering a solitary existence only through random clothes-buying.

I'd introduced my little 'extra-curricular activities' very gradually to the people I work with, enduring the (predicted) "I think you should get a first life, before you do anything else" banter, never entirely sure whether or not this venturing into unchartered spaces would turn out to be a useful thing or not.

It was only (and I forget the exact details of this) when another of my colleagues took interest in all of it, that things really started moving. I'm not — truth be told — someone who's very good with understanding the complexities of academic institutional procedures. I haven't the patience, nor the attention span, to wade through the meetings and the proposals and the forms and the signatures to Get Things Done™, prefering just to go ahead and do things through my own steam, and hope (vainly, usually) to recoup at least some of the costs/kudos at a later date.

I mean, take the fancy new thing on the site that I did the other day (which I think is almost completely cross-browser now, but I stand to be corrected). Had I explained what I wanted to do, I doubt anyone would have got it. So intead I just sat down over the weekend and did it, to (I think) the delight of a few people yesterday morning.

Actually, the main site itself — I tried for four years to get the go-ahead from various committees and meetings to do something like that. But it was only me going out of my way to do it, then showing it to people, that made people 'get' it.

But yeah. Just over a year after things started forming in my head, I've got an island to 'play' on. And there's another one coming pretty soon.

Which is great and all, but the momentousness of this little personal goal seemed to get a bit lost. And I realised that there weren't many people I could share the news with — or at least, people I could share the news and the excitement with.

...

A strange thing happened on the train from Leeds to Manchester tonight.

Well, not strange — just a mild example of personal 'misfortune' and the intricacies of ettiquette of seat-shifting within a carriage.

Everyone dreams — I presume — of double-seats on train journeys. Despite one's personal space boundaries shifting 'selfward' on public transport, there's a craving in us all for a window seat and an empty seat next to us.

Some people go to extreme lengths to secure these — to the extent of rudely putting their bag next to them, despite old ladies on crutches being forced to stand all the way from Stalybridge to Huddersfield (or is it the other way around?)

The thing is though, if you're travelling a long way on a train, there's the distinct chance that even though the start of your journey will be midly uncomfortable, sitting next to someone, as the stations pass and more and more people get off, by the time it gets to the run-up to you destination everyone will have gotten off, and you'll have a bit of peace and Not Sat Next To Comfort™ for the final leg.

When I got on at Leeds, it was kinda busy. Some rude woman pushed infront of us all on the platform (even in front of the blind man with his guide dog) and barged her way to a seat. I (who had been stood alone on the platform twnety minutes ago, and had magically managed to position myself right where the doors of the train had stopped) let a few people on, then found myself a seat next to a bearded chap who seemed friendly enough.

At each stop (of which there were two, and judging from the past paragraph, I can't remember which came first) more and more people left the carriage, and it wasn't long before I found myself in an almost empty space.

Empty, apart from me, and the guy next to me.

What are you supposed to do in situations like that?!

Occasionally, I see people who have sat beside me on a journey dive for the nearest free doulbe-seat as soon as it becomes free. And while I kinda like that they've given me space, I can never help but think "do I smell or something?"

I was sat there, acutely aware that if I moved to another seat, it would seem rude — yet if I stayed where I was, it would seem ... well, weird.

As weird — perhaps — as picking the adjacent urinal to someone having a pee n front of a bank of fifteen urinals, fourteen of them being free.

A memory has just slipped into my head — that of April laughing at me for refusing to wash my hair after 9pm, because I didn't want to disturb my neighbours with my hairdryer. And I guess that I'm kinda like that — I fret too much about what people think, and fuss to an excessive extent about causing The Wrong Impression™ and Kicking Up A Fuss™.

But to be perfectly honest with you, I was panicking inside about what was the right thing to do in that situation. Rude, or Weird — which did I fear the least?

...

Don't get me wrong, by the way. It's not like I've turned into some über nerd who begins every sentence with "well actually, it says on Wikipedia that...". It's just that I'm very consciously aware that the things that excite me at the moment aren't necessarily of unimaginable interest to the world at large. The things that I'm doing, and the things that keeping me awake (or at least would, were I not consistantly drunk) at night aren't necessarily things of which I can convey the same sense of 'entrancement' to others that keep me involved with them.

I find myself replacing words like "Second Life" with "Virtual Spaces", pre-empting the incredulous cringes from friends and colleagues that usually accompany them.

And I realise, that I have an ever suffering readership that rolls its collective eyes every time I mention it, consistently wondering when I'm going to get back into some form of bouffant petticoat and stick my bum in the air at a camera again.

(Although I do rather think I did rather well on Monday night)

This is what I mean when I say that I'm very dull, BTW. I've found — or rather, was dragged kicking-and-screaming into — a space that I really think I can flourish in. And for once in my life (she said, perhaps over-dramatically) I've found an environment I can thrive in — a space in which I can explore not only my intricate balance of self-gender-perception, but also my love of Making Stuff™ and my 'inner geek'.

But I'm acutely aware that I'm, becoming very BORING in the process — at least, to anyone outside of that space.

...

All the way home, I've been reading the Jon Ronson book that I got for Christmas. And perhaps it was his gentle, self-effacing ramblings that put me in the sort of frame of mind where worrying about seating etiquette on a train became all-encompassing.

Who knows?

But in what I like to think of as being a pure Ronsonian moment of decision-making, I knew what I had to do. I put the book down, carefully placing my ticket as a bookmark, and went to the toilet.

Genius.

And when I got back from the toilet, I sat down opposite the guy I was sitting next to earlier, destroying that awkwardness, yet retaining an air of dignity and non-rudeness. I'd managed to give us both the space that we craved, without suggesting that he was someone to be avoided — diffusing a potentially creepy and embarassing situation through the simple act of "going for a number ones".

Later, at Manchester, I spotted him at Platform Fourteen, and realised he was getting the same connecting train as me. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but it seemed he was making a very concerted effort to not be in the same carriage as me.

...

Anyway. If yous'll excuse me, it's just gone ten o'clock, and I'm going to wash my hair.

I am, of course, very worried by this.

I bet though, that you're not sat there, just a little bit narked that the whole 'ordering and naming' process happened when you weren't there

(Later)

/me should check things on the map before grumbling about what my island is called

Mine

photo secondlife island

All MINE, do you hear me?

OK, so it's not. Technically it belongs to A Third Party™, but I'm sure as hell going to have fun with it

An Abundance of Bears

photo secondlife

(I thought I heard your footsteps, but it was just the wind)

Be prepared, if challenged, to explain these rules in a calm and rational manner

You know, I toyed with the idea of voluntarily sparking up a conversation, based around such ettiquette, with an opening line of "You know, I bever know quite what the done thing is in these situations".

Diffuse the embarassment by openly admitting it — so to speak.

But I decided against it, because my brain was too mashed to do it in a way that didn't come across as clumsy...

"You know, I bever know quite what the done thing is in these situations"

"Ha ha"

"Ahah ha"

"Ha ha"

/he buries head deeper into laptop

"Ah, ha. Ha. Ah?"

/me squirms

The last thing I want to hear is the sound of your urine and faeces cascading down my

I thought we agreed never to talk about that?