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Scylla Rhiadra

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Posts posted by Scylla Rhiadra

    Resiliency In Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    Here are the bits of the poem that I think are applicable to everyone. They represent a reasonably good guide for at least parts of how one should live in SL.

    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
    If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
    Or being hated, don’t give way to hating

    If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim

    If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch

    The rest, not so much. For me anyway.

    • Like 4

    Resiliency In Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted · Edited by Scylla Rhiadra

    41 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

    I just encountered an interesting experience  @ The Wisdom Circle in SL today where a poem was shared, discussing 'resilience'.
    We all encounter difficult experiences in SL -- what helps you cope and develop resilience? Do you recognize patterns in the poem that relate to how you manage difficult situations in SL, and/or do you have coping strategies of your own to share?
    Remember to stick to coping with difficulties in SL only. Here's the poem:

               If    By Rudyard Kipling

    If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
    If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
    Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

    If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
    If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;
    If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
    Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

    If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
    And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
    If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
    And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

    If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
    If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
    If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
    Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

    And—which is more—you’ll be a [resilient person, my friend]

    Interesting, and likely necessary, substitution at the end there!

    I have very mixed feelings about Kipling, who was centre stage for much of the heyday of the British Empire as both cheerleader and sometime critic of the colonialist enterprise, especially in India. He was an excellent writer, and a great storyteller, but there is a machismo (not to mention Anglocentric) element to most of his work that leaves something of a bad taste in the mouth.

    "If" was a very popular poem, the kind of thing that people would hang, framed, on their walls as an inspiration and a sort of embodiment of British muscularism. There is much with which I agree in this poem, and a great deal that I find unattractive as well. The final line, without the substitution, sort of sums that up, because it defines the meaning of this sort of character that in a way that is much more "judgy" and value laden than suggested by your substitution:

    Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   
        And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

    In the original version, it's not merely that these qualities define the kind of person that you are (a "resilient" person), but are actually the criteria by which we determine if you are a success or a failure (i.e., not a "man").

    Putting aside the sexism here (Kipling wasn't really great at representing women, and usually didn't bother), does this mean that if you cannot manage these things, one is a "loser" instead? Does everyone need to have a stiff upper lip and a gung-ho attitude?

    There's also a lot more required from this poem than just "resilience." I actually teach Kipling occasionally, because he can be nuanced and interesting, but I find this poem a bit trite, to be honest. It's one step above the rubric on the inside of a Hallmark greeting card -- at least in my view. Not his best work.

    Interestingly, btw, there is a pretty good old film called "If" from the late 60s starring Malcolm McDowell that is a sort of savage and satirical riff on this poem set in an English school for boys (it's a little Lord of the Flies) -- what does the exercise of these qualities actually look like, on the ground? It ain't pretty, or so the film suggests.

    Oh, and SL. To some degree, maybe this poem is of a piece with the "it's only a game!" or "block and move on" school of thought here? It's a short step from "resilience" or a "stiff upper lip," to "stop being such a snowflake."

    • Like 5
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    How Does Your SL Look Today?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    Another old pic rescued from the shoebox under my bed in Voroznia.

    My bathroom isn't large enough for a bathtub -- and there's barely enough hot water to fill one anyway (Comrade Antonova says they'll be upgrading the building boiler next year . . .but she told me that last year), so I just have a slightly grotty shower.

    Goodbye-Voroznia-4-2-(SM)-Blank.thumb.png.cd8573ea6494e24f7d97c4bc316f147d.png

    • Like 13
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    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    8 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

    There are other instances where even English teachers change the language willy nilly on some pretext that makes it dubious as to what the proper form actually is.

    That's because you are on the Enemies List that we all secretly circulate among ourselves, silly!

    English teachers come in all shapes and sizes; there are those who are arbitrary, and those who are not. And there are some who are not very good at what they do, just as there are others who are excellent.

    In general, though, I think teachers are less likely to flip out about things like split infinitives these days than they once were. Our focus tends not to be on grammar and "correct form," so much as upon communication. Are you making your point as effectively as you might?

    • Like 1

    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    9 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

    Should an essay not be dependent on whether is authored by a Science Major {if appropriate topic)rather that an English Major? I get leery if it is written too well and suspicious of the quality of the science behind it if there is too much focus on how well it is written.

    It's not so much a question of how well written it is, so much as, is it riddle with errors such as spelling mistakes, missing punctuation, and so forth. In other words, the criterion is not "eloquence," but rather just plain professionalism. A piece that has been poorly edited is more likely to have been poorly conceived and produced.

    And, I should point out, that's merely one of the criterion. Other include citation and references, use of evidence, etc.

    In addition to which . . . I teach English students! (Although I get a number of science students in my first year course too.)

    • Like 1
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    Very Sad News for Blueberry lovers

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    I'm not entirely sure that the tangent this discussion has taken, with the suggestion that this is a business decision prompted by diminishing returns from SL, or pressure from investors, has any real foundation in the very few facts as we know them.

    The announcements have been pretty vague and confused so far. Blueberry is leaving -- but not necessarily permanently! Store credit will be lost -- or, no it won't! The MP store will be closed -- maybe, but possibly not.

    This is not sounding to me like a carefully premeditated move. It reads more like a sudden, spur-of-the-moment thing, with details being sorted on the fly.

    • Like 13

    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    5 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

    Peeve: Sorry for the double-post, but context and expectations really apply in "Real World" writing, when you read something and expect it to be professional (for example, a "news story") but it appears to be unedited completely.  A major difference between a "blog" and a "news site", for example, can be whether the quality of writing meets your expectations for the site.

    Absolutely.

    One of the exercises I have designed for my students involves them finding an online source for an essay that is not peer reviewed. The exercise asks them to evaluate the worth and trustworthiness of the piece (usually a blog post or something similar), and one of the criterion I've directed them to use is the quality and correctness of the language.

    • Like 2
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    Very Sad News for Blueberry lovers

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    10 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

    This is the real deal?

    There is no way a scammer can fake a name? A potential scammer would have to use a name like SidddeanMunro or some other spelling?

     

    siddean.jpg

    I'm in no position to make guarantees, but I'm pretty sure this is legit. There was a notice in the Slink group (to which I apparently still belong!) a week or so ago. I don't think it's easy to spoof someone's account name (unless you've hacked the account of course) on the MP,  and I don't think a scammer would have just relisted Hourglass, or warned that it was no longer supported.

    • Like 5

    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    26 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

    My participles dangle at times.  I've also been known to end a sentence with a preposition.  While that's not technically incorrect, my advanced grammar teacher would throw a fit.  She was old school.

    Yeah, I'm definitely not "old school."

    Language is a living thing, not a desiccated corpse entombed in a dictionary or grammar text. Most of the words, idioms, and constructions we now consider "proper" were, at one time, themselves neologisms or "hip slang" (those damned Elizabethans!).

    It's partially about context: the expectations around the language expected from a formal piece of writing (as for instance an academic paper or a university analytical essay) are different from those associated with informal writing or speech. I'll correct an error in a paper from a student, but I honestly can't imagine correcting someone's speech unless they've made a really egregious error.

    And it's about changing rules over time. Many of our older ones were artificially introduced into the language in the 18th and 19th centuries, as academics attempted to regularize the language, and some actually make no sense. To take an example, the rule about split infinitives ("to boldly go" is bad, "to go boldly" is correct) is founded upon a nonsensical parallel with Latin, in which infinitives are a single word ("ire" = "to go") which of course you can't split. So, by a rather idiotic extension, one shouldn't split "to" from "go" by inserting an adverb because in Latin they are a single unit. It's dumb.

    • Like 3
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    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    5 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

    You wonder if you can, then you do. So, the answer is "yes".

    If you actually meant "May I", you still did... and before receiving permission.

    What hellish kind of Canadian are you?

    That's not the worst part!

    I started a sentence with a conjunction!!!!! EEEEK!

    18 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

    BUT of course, I entirely agree with you!!!

     

    • Like 2
    • Haha 2

    Coming to Accept "Different" people in Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    19 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

    Actually, I lied about never using block online - I DO use it very liberally on Twitter. 👀 To be fair, that's a LOT different. It's not like anyone argues in good faith over there and there's so much spam.

    I was SO proud of myself last week when I apparently provoked Brianna Wu to block me on Twitter!

    Achievement unlocked!!! Woot me!

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