A bow to the people of United in Style

How I got involved

The past two weeks, I had been participating in the United in Style event, an ambitious project involving fashion designers, models, musicians/DJs, emcees, show production people, and other supporting folks, culminating in three full days of musical shows and fashion shows.

When I found out about it, I figured I'd offer to walk as a backup model. I didn't want to participate as a designer, because I don't have much time with all the RL travel and projects I have until August, and I already participated in two other events as a designer earlier this year (the Fashion for Life clothing fair and the Fantasy Faire). And I also said that I couldn't start until the end of June when I came back from a 3-week travel.

At first, I was assigned one outfit designed by the amazing Sonatta Morales. Then, somehow, with all the people leaving for various reasons, I ended up with increasingly more responsibilities, some of which I volunteered for, just to keep Prissy Price (the founder of the event) from panicking. So I got a second outfit to walk, two teams to coordinate, which grew to four teams, and four other teams to help out with, emcee scripts to compile and distribute, music streams to collect, two group photos to take and process, three days of helping direct models/emcees/musicians/DJs during the shows, and an hour taking over as emcee at the last minute. Thank goodness, they didn't ask me to sing.


I am in awe

Some people called the event a disaster. Many people forget that it's not about them, that it's about raising funds for cancer research, that it's about saving real lives.

The project was chaotic, yes.
There was lack of communication all around, yes.
It could be improved in so many ways, yes.
It fell way short of its fundraising goal, yes.

It may have been a disaster, but it wasn't a failure. Not from my perspective. It would only be a failure, if we don't get anything good out of it. Personally, I did. Because, in those two weeks, I met many amazing people and I was awed.

"The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Both the teams in the Evening category -- "Breathless" and "Nocturnals" -- recovered well after being abandoned by designers. I bow to their resourcefulness.

Even Breathless's DJ Xerxes Ixtar recovered on Day 3 after an embarrassing conversation between him and his wife that was unintentionally broadcasted on his stream on Day 2. Well, embarrassing for him but funny to us. I bow to his commitment to delivering the best job he could and to making it right when he couldn't.

Rachel Dooley (Evening Team 1 "Nocturnals") stayed up late to clean up her team's emcee scripts and style cards after a designer withdrew at the last minute. RhiannaLynn Lane (Casual Team 1 "Fusion") compiled her team's emcee scripts and style cards in the same order as the line up and saved me a lot of time. I bow to their organizational skills, management skills, and dedication to their teams.

Avacar Bluestar, BillyJo Riler, Galdriel Inglewood, and Leigh Mialifo of "The Problem Children" (Casual Team 2) had the worst lag and even server crashes during their shows. I bow to their resilience.

Memory Thorne of "Disharmony Dream" (Haute Couture Team 1) and Rex Requiem of "Retro Glam" (Retro Team 1) bugged me to make sure their team's shows ran smoothly. I had to tell Rex he needs a good talking-to about panicking. Rex, here's your talking-to: "Keep clam." (Quote borrowed from my favorite seafood restaurant Ivar's.) I bow to their initiative to get things done and to continually follow up.

Katherine Comet and Aspen Parx of "Estilo" (Retro Team 2) were unable to pull together outfits for the competition, but they insisted on doing the designer showcase anyway. Even Blue Porchers, whom everyone thought had disappeared from the team, appeared on Day 2 to showcase additional outfits, in spite of incredible lag. I bow to their professionalism.

"Moda Hermosa" (Haute Couture Team 2) had disagreements and clashes within their team, yet they set their personal differences aside and came together on Day 2 to present the best show they could. I bow to their work ethic.

Lopez Fairlady and Memory Thorne, competing with each other on Day 3, collaborated with each other to sync up their poses for their finale. I bow to their broader sense of "team spirit".

I bow to Pooky Amsterdam for remaining calm under pressure. (And thank YOU so much, Pooky, for wearing opals in my honor. I AM honored!)

I bow to Wurlitzer Seisenbacher for his hilarious verbal antics.

I bow to NyuNyu Kimono for her foresight to wear a communicator to coordinate directly with the current modeling team while she emcee'd.

I bow to onyx Warwillow whose quiet empathy calmed me while I was pulling my hair out.

I bow to Rhianna's ear that patiently listened while I vented at the end of Day 2. (Thank you for the tea and sandwich!)

I bow to the many emcees/musicians/DJs/models who went with the flow as schedules and plans changed around them at the last minute, including Harlee Lane, Wurlitzer, WytchWhisper Sadofsky, and many others.

I bow to the many people who were willing to stretch themselves and do things they had never done before.

I bow to all of you who remembered why we are doing this and who saw this project through to the end.

And, finally, I bow to Prissy Price's vision and her tenacity to bringing that vision to reality. She may not be the easiest person to work with and I personally don't agree with her management philosophies, but she has good intentions and she listens to ideas. And, without her vision, this would never have happened at all.

Transience

I am standing in front of my store at the Sea of Mer sim at the Fantasy Faire. I had just finished running the entire loop through eight sims. In a sense, that run was a practice run for the actual relay in July.

But practice wasn't the reason I ran tonight. Nor the reason I came here again tonight.

We don't have to clean up our stores since Linden Lab would just delete everything anyway when they clean the servers. That's not what I came here for either. I came here because I feel this unexplainable deep sadness about all this going away.

I've always been a sentimental sap. I own parcels and builds of friends who are no longer in SL. I've preserved my first 512 sqm with the same objects that I created in my first week in SL.

But these sims have only been here for barely two weeks. How could I have gotten attached so quickly?

132.25 kilometers

That's how far I ran this weekend on the Relay for Life track in Second Life. That was about 15.5 laps, with each lap taking 8,500 meters and approximately 45 minutes.

I was up all night, since I had out-of-town friends visiting yesterday, and it's easier at night anyway. Of course, I took breaks too.

This year, I prepared for the hourly themes. But, when one of the DJs on the music stream reminded us of Kimmera Madison's RFL gown, I kept an eye out for it and bought it when I passed by the vendor. I decided to use that instead for the Formal Wear lap, just before the Closing Ceremonies.

Kevlin (who wanted to show me his new shape) tagged along with the "Walk and Talk" for a while. Hans (who came as a cute little ferret) was planning to, but work called his attention and he never got back. Vann came just briefly. But all of them got a luminary. The MODA models joined me at 8am today and we sashayed our way through the lag in our gorgeous gowns. After the Closing Ceremonies, I did one more lap, but, this time, dancing.

What's awesome is that, during the RFL, all the oldbies come out of the woodwork. So many familiar names on the track. Not just friends and acquaintances either, but also people whose names I've only seen as creators on prims.

As of 11am today, the total amount raised was US$214,211.

And, oh, yeah, unlike last year, I already have a boyfriend. ;)

No new boyfriend

Relay for Life 2009 ended yesterday (Sunday). I'm sitting in one of the sims as I write this. I just finished going around the whole lap again, taking in the sights this time since I didn't have time yesterday morning as I was running.

I came in around 2pm on Saturday to see what was up, but it was way too laggy so I figured I'd go home and do some work. I came back at 1am to do the relay.


I started out with Morgana tagging along. RFL gave out these water packs that you can click and you can automatically follow someone or automatically walk. So Mor was automatically following me, and she didn't even last a lap before she went to bed.

Anyway, I stripped down before I went and chose to wear a bandana from the Hair Fair when I returned in the evening. My sneakers were kinda high in ARC, but, overall, I was still under 400. No eyelashes, even!

I chose to run instead of using the "walk" feature of the water pack since walking was too slow. And I took off all HUDs, including my AO, so I was running my run animation manually. Unfortunately, I had to reset it every time I crossed sim borders.

All my graphics settings were set very low so I was hardly seeing anything. Sometimes, the road wouldn't even rez and I'm already on it. But as I ran more laps, I rezzed a bit more, but I still missed a lot since my distance was set too low.


Around 7:30am, I gave up. I was falling asleep on the keyboard. But I had already ran 72km. I came back in the late afternoon and spent the evening exploring and taking photos. I have almost 400 and I don't know what to do with them yet.

In the end, RFL raised a record US$263,000 inside SL this year.

Well, I didn't meet any new boyfriends from the relay this year. *sigh* ;)

Hunka Umpa Lumpa

I have a new beau. *giggles*

I met him last night as I was skating the Relay for Life trail. He was standing there at the edge of the bridge next to a luminary, followed by his brothers. He was leading the troop shirtless, revealing his hunky physique. His spiky hair reaching up over his head. His outtie belly button sticking out from his blue pants. His big black shoes supporting him solidly on the ground.

I fell in love at first sight. His name is Umpa Lumpa.



I stood there for a long while, mesmerized by this vision, before I pulled myself away to continue on the lap. But I couldn't stay away. During my next lap, I paid the luminary next to him -- my second luminary. (My first was near the auctions where I started my laps.) Paul was in IM with me so I tp'd him over and he paid the next luminary in line before going to bed.

After Paul left, I stood there a long while again with my new beau.

Today, I went searching for him in Madcow Cosmos's teapot shop, but he was nowhere to be found. So I pleaded Madcow to let me take Umpa home, and Madcow sent him to me without a dowry. He said that Umpa was made for the RFL, so I should just send them my Lindens instead of paying him. So, I went back to the RFL trail and paid a third luminary up the hill from my first one.

Now, Umpa and I sit by my waterfall watching the sunset. Don't we make such a cute couple?



PS: Lora, notice the big hands.
PPS: Yes, Howard, another boyfriend for my collection. I now have three in my inventory. :D