The girl that fell from the sky

About a year ago I visited Torley's Watermelon paradise, when a female avatar dropped on my head. Immersionist that I sometimes am, I said "ouch", and that was the opener for what must have been nearly 3 hours of talk. Turned out she was fairly new, didn't have a clue and since she skipped orientation island was weak on the controls. I taught her the basics, gave her a couple of freebies and some cash, and we generally chatted along about what is ossible in SL. As I had to go, we said goodbye - uncharacteristically she did NOT issue a friendship offer. I put "Newbie help" in the "My Comments" section of her profile and logged off.

The story could have ended here.

Last night I was delighted to manually find the entrace to the "Super Secret Sewer area" at Silent Sparrow, where hyasynth Tiramisu is retiring some of her old outfit. Happily I announce to the small crowd "I found it", when a kid avi wide exed stared at me and asked me if I know a certain avatar. The name she said rang a bell, I looked the profile up in Search and, sure enough, there was "Newbie help" in the comments section. Turns out that kid avi was said avatar. She changed her account once in the meantime, but for over a year she hoped to run into me again, to say thank you. We talked in open chat and I was a litte bit embarrassed since she painted my picture in the brightest colors, but she said I was the person that really made the difference to her first days.

I usually make it a point to help newbies who are halfway polite. This amount of gratitude after a year really made up for all the jerks I ecountered in the meantime. Go out! Help a newbie today! The first days are so critical, and you don't know what gifted designer, artist, entrepreneur or just good person SL might lose only because she/he made bad experiences in those critical days. We all started - and we all neded help. Help a newbie today!

It's a small second world

For the last couple of months I keep on bumping into persons I met before - only in completely different places. And I am not talking about "tourist locations", but a small shop here, a hidden club there, a lonley castle - you get the idea.

The most unlikely coincidence however happened early this week. A new client - Emilie Watkins Premier Equestrian Supplies (great clothing, check it out!) - approached me for some Japanese translations. Since I am always curious about the type of business my clients run, I visited her shop with my new old friend Cake, who in turn brought her friend Nynke in. As I understood it, the Ladies bought quite a lot of the clothing, so giving the translation jobs to me was already a smart move for Emilie... I saw a few things in the shop which Angi, another friend of mine, might like, so I sent her the landmark too.
Angi visited the shop the next day, and in turn brought one of her friends in. Not onlydid he knew the shop before, but he wanted to show it to Angi the week before and simply could not find the landmark. And finally it turned out that he even knew the owner, but under her previous account which she had to give up for some reason. And as Angi tells me he was quite happy to get back into contact with her again.

Nominally, we have millions of residents, but only a fraction of those is online regularly. The population of a small town, so no wonder one bumps into each other occasionally. SL is small then, really small. But still it is funny how things turn out sometimes.

Additional read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_world_phenomenon