Author: cwarren8

Ok. I totally get the way we are going through material. The spoon feeding is fine with me, I have no problem being coddled. its nice.

Unfortunately, when I go home and look at my notes and computer I feel completely overwhelmed. I stare at the screen and go DUUUUUUUHHHH.

I did go out to the site and took a quick tour over the weekend. took some snap shots on my phone and sat down and tried to make it work on my computer and simply got it into a tangle.

I tried recoding the sample project, and copying code from the photo example, and made it look like stupid.

Then I cried.

Its like I am being gently encouraged to run towards my goals, and my argument is that I just learned how to crawl. I know when I get some stuff done I will feel awesome, but right now I feel like an idiot.

I am NOT looking forward to the deadline screening towards me. I have no idea if I can finish this in time.

1) can we have room open early? I would love some time to work before class and ask questions. Last week class was open early, made me kick myself as i was not prepared to take advantage of that rare time when fewer people are asking questions.

2) I think I have refrigerator amnesia; well in the fact that when I’m in class I can do stuff but when i go home I cant seem to recall anything. I feel like a drooling idiot last week.

I can recall a friend of mine who had surgery and was also going to grad school AND also worked full time. She told me that when she was home she was going to do SO MUCH homework. In reality she admitted later that she did nothing at all but heal from surgery.

I am not as clever or hard working as she is, but feel a lot like she did. I have to try harder.

You ever have those days where you regret getting out of bed?

So I went to the ad club event, to see what it is and to have the adventure. I like the idea of being a person who goes to meetings like this and sees new things. Unfortunately I saw more than I wanted to, but that was before the meeting.

So I was horribly early, as is my habit when I have no real idea where I am going. Wondered around the neighborhood for a while and then tripped and fell down.

Yes I landed hard and stupidly, right in front of a homeless person. I blew up and swore then apologized as I was embarrassed to trip and fall in front of someone, seems like a lot of drama to impose on a stranger. The homeless person didn’t think so and immediately started to yell at me.

I think she was more offended by me saying “sorry” after swearing, and she found that offensive. I was confused and apologized again for some reason, which really set her off. Thats when I saw the guy down the street taping me on his phone.

So I did go to ER and get it checked out on Friday (another tale of drama), got a brace and a note and a lot more embarrassed. I didn’t really study last weekend, am far behind than I wanted to be, but am dedicated to starting to work as hard as my hand will allow to catch up for my injury-weekend-adventure.

I think next time I would rather stay home and do homework.

Week 4 – WoW

All I could think last week is that everyone else in class is more awesome than I am. They seem to get their act together faster on their sites, and make things look like grown ups have made them. I feel like I am fumbling along.

I think I like the idea of flex box. It appeals to the lazy side of me, and it seems like you can do more for more platforms (with a lot less work). I wonder why they teach you the float method at all? <<sigh>>

I feel like the exercises are doing me good. I have had too many classes where they talk to you too much, and my brain goes asleep. The occasional (1) here is what you should know , (2) apply what I just showed you (aka”Try It”) helps me retain this more (and not just zone out in class).

I was happy that we are picking up steam in class, but the most exciting thing last week was the automatic BIO GENERATOR.

HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS AWESOME THING. There are so many sites that say “write something about yourself” and I have no idea (or no desire) to share a bit, NOW I HAVE A TOOL TO HELP. This is great!

Additional item was the miasma that that is font choice. Yet another piece of your choice that can make or break the look and feel of your website. Yet another small tidbit that people over-choose when making (or not making) choices in their site.

Yet I am not surprised that such choices are made. In some places there are no choice because the font choices and sizes are already made in advance by a company “style guide” which tell you the format that is acceptable. This can be limiting as it is comforting as you are not flooded by well meaning employees telling you to change this or that. Those rails can help you finish your projects quickly as well as protect the overall look and feel of the site.

The other sites I have seen are made by a committee of managers, with a lot of political wrangling behind closed doors for each and every centimeter of the page. No wonder those sites look like a Jackson Pollock.

What I recall from this week was a contrast from last week. Our first assignment was to create a “future resume” and when I started it I felt panic as I did not recall how to start a page, make sections, put things together or make it look good on the page.

I can do this, at least for the second week!

The second week I brought my binder and my Dreamweaver text book to class, but found that I didn’t really need it (yet). This made me feel pretty good. It wasn’t fantastic coding, but it was up within the time limit. I felt pretty good about that.

I am looking forward to learning more. The pace is nice and slow at first (as it should be), but I am looking forward to coding my first project.