Biography Center
Shakira Milev's Bio
Shakira's Story
My love of music started at an early age, as far back as i can remember. My father had a large record collection and my
mother tells me that as soon as i was able to speak i would be up on his lap singing along with songs as he played his
records. Dad passed away when i was only 4, and so my mother raised me along with my older brother and two younger
siblings on her own for the rest of our childhoods. Luckily for my mom she came from a large family and had brothers and
sisters who helped her along the way. It was one of her brothers (my uncle), who really became my greatest influence
from that point on as far as music was concerned. He was (and still is) and absolute massive music buff. He is one of
those people who can name any artist, any song, or any fact of trivia from just about every music genre going all the way
back to the beginning of recorded music. His vinly record collection is enormous, he had to move more than 5 times in
his life just to get larger homes in order to house all of his records lol. And then when cd's came along, he dove right into
that as well, i think he has over 20,000 Vinly lp's, and probably more than 5,000 cd's at this point lol.
During my formative years, that uncle lived right next door to us, and so of course i would be over there every chance i got,
borrowing albums to tape, or to just listen to him tell stories about the artists, it was like having Wolfman Jack living right next door, i absolutely loved that time in my life. We would sometimes shop for music together, but for me an even better
thrill was to go alone to a nearby used record store, and find little treasures on my own, and then surprise my uncle with them. Anytime i could find something he had wanted but didn't already have it was a big thrill. But what i love best about
that time was all the different styles of music he exposed me to. Most kids my age at the time would be locked into just what was popular on the radio, but i was into stuff well before my time as well, i listened to Blues, Jazz, Oldies, Cajun,
Country, and all the mordern rock of the time, so i was exposed to the best of all worlds thanks to him.
Fast forward to my early 20's, my thirst for music was greater than ever. I landed a job at a classic rock radio station, first
just doing secretarial work, but one day one of my bosses overheard me discussing music with one of the DJ's. I can't
remember what we were talking about, but my boss later told me that he heard me rhyming off musical facts and trivia
to the dj, and though i must have had a book in front of me lol. But i didn't, it was just the knowledge i had learned from all
those years hanging out with my uncle. So about a year later there were some personnel changes at our station and the
boss suddenly came up to me and asked how i would feel about being an assistant programmer, as in the person who
selects all of the music played on the station! Well there was no way i would turn that down, and so i took the job, and
ended up becoming the main programmer within six months, and for another 8 years :)
After spending my entire 20's working at the radio station though i started to get a little bored. In the last couple of years
that i was there new programming methods started coming into place, where basically the stations no longer selected
the songs themselves, but just played what was sent in to them from the record company heads. These days most
radio station are just automated and don't even need live dj's at all. Anyway that's another story lol. But, as for me, i was
about to turn 30 and decided i wanted to change my path in life. I was engaged to be married the following summer and
we were planning on starting a family. My fiance had his own business, so i planned to leave radio and go back to
school to take some business classes and things of that nature to help with the business.
Then in July of 1997 my life was changed forever. I was invited to a girlfriends baby shower, so i went and had a great time,
and when i was ready to go home i called my fiance who came to pick me up. On our way home we were hit head on by a drunk driver, my fiance was killed instantly, and i was nearly killed and spent two months in a coma. When i eventually came
out of it i was heavily medicated, and still in a fog for a few days, but when i was finally able to have a coherent conversation
my mother had the misfortune of having to not only break the news to me about my fiance, but also the fact that i was left
paralyzed from the waist down. Obviously this was shocking news, and very hard to deal with.
The next two to three years were a very dark time for me. I was deeply depressed, and really didn't have the will to go on.
To make matters worse, during this period both of my grandparents on my mothers side, whom i loved very deeply passed away as well. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that i knew how much my family loved me, and needed me to recover.
But soon after my grandmother died, i started thinking about her a lot, and remember how alive and vibrant she was when she
was younger. And i remembered that she also had a deep love of music. And then one day while i was thinking about her, i had
the clock radio beside my bed and, and as if it was magic, my grandma's favorite singer of all time came on, Roger Whittaker,
and it was a song i remembered she would play a lot, and one i liked too. And it put a smile on my face and really made me feel good
hearing it. So i started getting back into my music to lift my spirits, digging out my old cd's and finding songs from my childhood that i hadn't listened to in years, and it started working! Music was the thing that was rooted in my to my childhood, the thing that
i could use to get over the depression, and every now and then i'd even put on some sad songs just to have a good cry and get
things out, but for the most part i would listen to upbeat, positive and happy songs.
So once i started to finally come out of the cloud of depression, i realized i would need to start planning a new path, i didn't want
to just collect disability all my life and sit at home crying. So i spent a couple of years learning how to do website design, and
eventually got good enough to make a living at it for about 5 years. But, i eventually got bored doing that, as i was working from
home, and what i really wanted was a real job again, out in the real world, around other people, so i found one and went back to
work, and since then have changed jobs a couple of times, but i'm doing ok.
Now, as for SecondLife, and Rob's. The way i heard about SL was through an article on CNN's website. They had a feature on it,
and on a particular girl who was handicapped in RL as well, and this girls avatar in SL was the same as she is in RL, she was a little
bit chubby, and kept her RL look in her avatar, including her wheelchair. The writer of the CNN article seemed amazed that in this
fantasy world, where one can make their avatar as pretty or appealing as they like, that this girl was happy being herself, just as she
is in RL. And so needless to say her story touched me. And so i decided to download it and see what it was all about. Originally i thought
i would do the same, and find a wheelchair and be true to my RL self in the game too. But once i started playing it and had the freedom of actually being able to walk (and fly!) around, i just loved it so much and felt so liberated again that i decided to stay that way. I don't
hide my disability or anything, but don't advertise it. It is kinda nice to just be one of the gang and not stand out in any way, as people in my situation sometimes feel we do in RL. But those who know me well in SL know about my situation, and i belong to a couple of SL sims for people with disabilities where i have met some very nice people.
As for Roll Over Beethovens, after about a week of exploring everything in SL, and messing around trying to get my avatar to look how i
wanted it to, i started looking for things to do, and since my main love is classic rock i typed "classic rock" into the search field, as i imagine
most of us did at one point, and Roll Over Beethoven's was at the top of the list, so i visited, and at first felt like an outsider so just kinda stayed
mum and danced and listenend to the regulars talking, and i noticed quickly that there were a lot of them and they they seemed like genuine
friends in the game, just like people in a real life bar would be. But after a few visits a few people started to remember my name and my avatar
and i started feeling like one of the gang, and it quickly became not only my favorite place to be in SL, but the only place i really want to be,
and i guess the rest is history...
I’m the youngest of 20 children and was born in a covered wagon heading west on I-90.
