Avatar

This techno word is not new. Pandan first came across this word in the 90s. At that time, YM was the craze and people used avatars to represent them in the chat rooms, most often in the form of customized animation. You choose the face, skin color, clothes, hair, makeup, shoes, accessories and so on. You play God, so to speak. She did this, and that was that.
After watching the blockbuster Avatar recently, she kept on thinking about the word. A quick Google returned a lot of results linked to avatar. Most often, she ended up on some websites that said ‘Create Your Own Avatar’, which was tremendous fun since she got to choose from so many avatars, ranging from plants to sci-fi goddesses. Kinda like escaping from her real self and drifting away, getting sucked into a vortex of her own make-believe world. Hmm…if only that is possible, like in the movie Avatar.

Well, anyways, Pandan was able to recap that an avatar:

1. Is an icon that represents one in the virtual reality (kinda like how a metaphor or symbol is used in literary texts to represent an idea, or like a flag is used to represent a nation).

2. Has a Hindu origin – an avatar is a physical manifestation of God (but of course, over time, this term was borrowed by computer/IT geeks, much like the word Java. Ring a bell?).

3. Can be as simple as a pic of an insect. Once you chose it, it represents you. Kinda like your profile pic in Facebook. Some people put up pics other than their pics so those could be avatars, literally. Depending on whether you want to stay virtual or real in Facebook. Facebook can be real or virtual, depending on one’s intent.

Over the years, Pandan has stuck to more or less the same avatars in the virtual world. One would be:

For obvious reason. Hint: Izzy

Another avatar would be:

For obvious reason, too. Hint: The blog.

The next one would be:

Maybe the reason is faintly obvious. Hint: If all else fails, this would be Pandan's full-time job.

And another one would be:

This would make some people wonder but Pandan guesses that she could identify with the dragonfly and its qualities. If she were to be an insect, this would be it. But wait a minute, this has been her avatar in YM for ages!

And that’s it, folks!

A recent attempt to create her own animated avatar (yup, after watching the movie Avatar) resulted in this:

Cute but not very flattering, eh? Wish the hair and eyes could be darker and boobs bigger. Oops. But that Starbucks styrofoam is cool :)

But upon discovering that she could actually choose the ‘princess’ category in creating her own avatar, she figured that having any of these avatars to kinda represent her would be super duper cool:

The Greek Goddess

(Oh yeah! She could create her own myth!)

The Native American/Dream Catcher Princess

(She'll have the wolves to help with the job.)

The Oriental Princess

(Preferably residing in Korea.)

The Mystical Princess

(But hey, she looks familiar, eh? The long-suffering, hopeless-romantic princess pining for Hang Tuah.)

The Ninja/Kombat Warrior

(Wachaaaaaaaa!!!!)

And lastly, The Fantasy-Futuristic-Lara Croft-Kinda-Tombraider

Uh, if only she gets to be in their shoes for a day, like that guy in the movie Avatar. *please slap her a zillion times*. A movie is a movie, dammit. Virtual reality. Reality. Never the twain shall meet. Get a life, Pandan!