Rime of the Ancient Mariner, or The Albatross Returns

Now that House of Usher is done, we are moving on over to the Rime of the Ancient Mariner build. I love Samuel Taylor Coleridge's wicked sense of doom and gloom. We have all felt the weight of that albatross from time to time.

In my renaissance, I have been connecting with old friends in SL. Many of them are wearing the weight of those virtual albatrosses (albatrossi?). As budgets get cut, monies for virtual education are slim to none, and it gets hard to make a case for supporting virtual worlds when supporting the real world is hard enough. It is challenging to see value when the fog is thick and the seamates are dropping like flies all around you; it is easier to just to jump ship and swim to a safe shore where the birds are cute and don't smell like dead penguins.

However, there is hope. There is ground under that fog; there is light. The Mariner came back to tell his story. There was no dead yucky bird grossing out the bridal party; no - he lived to tell the tale.

We are all in a storm right now. But, there is hope, and we have a tale to tell. Our students need us to be creative all of the time. If we give up during the worst of times, our hope for the best of times is slighted. We need science folks to keep thinking about ways to cure the ills of the world; we need engineers to think up better and stronger bridges; we need people to find better and useful ways to communicate. It is only through the storms that we generate the best tales.