The page title may seem a little silly and extreme, but it's how I felt after completing the assignment of changing my gender and race.

My female self, who I identify with, is represented with this avatar:              

                As J1, I was able to represent myself as a white female with redish hair and a slight tan, nothing extremely different than how I look during the summers.  The avatar does not look identical to me, but it does represent me much better than a male avatar.  With J1 I am able to go about as I would in real life, I do not have to tailor my speech/language, nor act as anyone other than myself while in Second Life.  

    While my male self, with whom I created for the assignment, is represented with this avatar:

     Meet G1 Unplugged, my male 'alter-ego.'  I created a whole new avatar for this assignment for a few reasons:

1. I was very resistant to changing my identity.  I have none of the desires discussed by Shannon McRae in "Coming Apart at the Seams: Sex, Text, and the Virtual Body."  The desire of exploring my sexuality and engaging with people of another sex/gender identification.  Her article discusses how people masquerade as the opposite for their own personal reasons, for example "one female player, who in real life is male, identifies as straight and who has never had a male lover in reality, has found netsex with another person playing male to be intensely transformative."  She develops the argument through the "Lacanian truism that desire arises and perpetuates itself in lack," which is seen in in Lacan and Freud's arguments.  However, I have not felt a lack in myself or any hint of a desire to change into the opposite gender or race.  I  am comfortable in my skin and very uncomfortable with presenting myself as something other than who I  am.  Yes, J1 does not look like me identically, but she is a closer representation to myself than G1 and therefore does not make me feel that I am falling under the concept of dissumulation, a concept discussed by Baudrillard.  Dissumulation is a concept about representing yourself falsely. 
2. I did not want my username to be linked to my original avatar that I want to keep separate, and more like myself.  I would rather not have people associate me as a liar or confused about my identity. 
3. I thought creating G1 would be a handy tool for future assignments as a way to compare and contasts my experiences as a male and female.  I  identified this as a learning tool, and understood that since I  must become a male, I  should be open-minded to the lesson(s) to be had, for this assignment as well as future assignments.
4. Lastly, I realized that it would be easier to make myself appear male without having to alter my body and clothes, if I simply made a new avatar.  Cheap cheaters way of making myself look better, in world, compared to if I  editing my existing avatar.

The experience of changing my race and gender was very challenging, because of mental barriers.  However, once I was able to get past those barriers, I was able to play the role of a black male.

I spent some time going through looking for clothing, but became lazy and instead of being in a suit, I decided to go topless and keep the rest of the newbie clothing and features I had been given when I created the account.  I did find an interesting place called Freebie Haven, it had an interesting set up and an assortment of freebies, as well as low-cost items. 

There was one place, a club that I really felt welcomed by the people and able to really interact as G1.  Through my chatting, I realized that I was constantly questioning whether or not I sounded like a male.  I believe I pulled off the image of being a male easily, but I was not sure conversation wise.  I judged that I was doing okay when I was asked by the group if I enjoyed the music, and I stated that I did not have sound turned on due to my roommate being asleep…a response I received “well turn on the sound and wake his ass up”…I found it funny/ironic that it was automatically assumed since my avatar was male, I was male, and therefore my roommate had to be a male.  I laughed at this, but it made me feel good that I was passing as what I needed to. 

During my time in the club, which is where I spent a good amount of my hours after realizing the amount of knowledge and acceptance here, I discussed some of the things that we as a class have discussed: relationships, SL verses RL, sex, identity.  It was very interesting and enlightening.  During this time I had a personal IM going on with one of the members of the club, a woman from Australia.  I am posting our conversation here, I obtained her permission to use the conversation although I was to be undercover because I really felt that the conversation spoke to many of the topics in our class and could be used for other assignments.  I thought the conversation also helped to represent my language and how I began to be more of myself, but as a way to stay in character I tried to only ask questions and stay away from my personal life.

The experience itself forced me to represent myself as someone other than who I am, and I was only able to do so by thinking of this as a role in a play or movie.  And in doing so, I felt limited by my role because I needed to achieve a certain persona to be interpreted by others.  This experience was made easier by the club that I settled into, the other clubs I visited were less interactive with me (unlike when I am a female and people try to get me to chat or dance with them).

I can not concluded whether people reacted to me truly differently because I was a male, or if they simply reacted differently to me based upon the area I was in because each area has its own "thing."  The jury is out.

I do realize thought that many people see the internet, and SL in particular, as an extension of themselves as Person1 mentioned.  This extention connects to the readings of Kenyon, Lupton, Gonzalez, and Dvorsky.  I believe SL has the possibility of growing into the Matrix, but that it is still in the first steps of creation.  I link SL to the Matrix, because it has the potential to become very addictive and begin to take over people's lives, just as in Choe Sang-Hun’s article about people dying in South Korea from their addictions to internet gaming...to some people SL is an extension of themselves just as games and guilds have become extensions.  The addiction will not be stopped easily or soon, because society is addicted to technology and advancement, sadly these addictions are still under the copyright confusion discussed by Jones...Copyright, who owns my avatar me and what I do?    SL  is free, but my avatar was created by someone and the things I do in world are scripted 01010111100...are my actions someone else's property since SL is technically not mine?...This is all very confusing, just as being a man was, my only regret was that I didn't get the chance to pee standing up while being a man and writing my name in the snow...