Seeing Double

        As of last week, I have officially created a double of myself for my English class. No, not a feat that was accomplished by cloning, but in a virtual world, called Second Life. Second Life allows its users to create avatars, the name of the virtual people created, so they can interact and explore all the virtual places. Last Wednesday, I created my very own avatar and named her Cinderella Caffarelli. Afterwards, I then had the probability of own online persona, but it was not “me” yet.


       Upon first creating my avatar, it had no resemblance to me in real life, but Second Life allows the user to manipulate and change about every aspect of the avatar, if they desire. After Cinderella’s creation, it took a few days of manipulating all her changeable aspects to mold her into the best online representation of me. I changed not only her clothes, to ones I liked, but I changed her hair to be long and curly, and customized many other aspects of Cinderella, to resemble me. I gave her all the features I could that I have in real life and then with the press of a button to save my changes, I looked into my own “online” face. I wanted “virtual” me, Cinderella, to look as close to me in real life as possible, because I just wanted to see if it was possible, and though a few aspects are different, we do look alike. I feel strange about having an "almost" twin, but a least I get to control her.


       I picked the name Cinderella for my avatar because I liked it and wanted her name to be creative. Granted, that the name might not be gender-neutral as my teacher desired, but I wanted to be creative. I am going to enjoy “seeing double” of me!