Works Outs, Independent Study, and web editing

Once upon a time there was a girl with my name and appearance and she considered herself fairly in shape. When all was said and done this statement held up under scrutiny but she was by no means the incredible hulk. Then one days she discovered this blog and her life changed forever--or, less dramatically, for that day and maybe for her work out routines in the future.

I think I'll stop talking in third person now. So I did the suicidal sweat work out and then I did 50 burpees in total (5 sets of 10). I plan on doing at least 100 sit ups (no big deal for me, I have a bad back, so I've been doing sit ups to strengthen my core since I was 9) to have a well rounded work out. Triceps, biceps, shoulders, calves, thighs, and (in a bit) core. My goodness I am going to be hurting tomorrow. I think I'm going to start using this blogs workouts though because I am getting dead tired of my standard go to's. Plus many of her work outs count as cardio instead of just strength training. Awwwwesome!

Also, I have been working on my pieces for my independent study in bursts. I have completed 13 of the necessary 20--well the minimum is 20, I said 20-30 on my proposal but I'm thinking it's going to be more like 20 because I wrote 6 of my pieces before the semester even started (winter break was useful, but I'd hoped to get more writing done) so I've only done 7 during the semester. We are in the 5th week now so that means I'm only averaging 1.4 pieces per week (or approx 3 pieces every 2 weeks). so this means it will be at least another 5 weeks before I have reached my minimum, leaving me 5 weeks to edit and submit my final chapbook to my advisor as well as the contest we found. This is the schedule my advisor and I set up so I am on track, and honestly I think I'd only need 2 weeks to edit and put the chapbook together (without being stressed out about it) so I have 3 weeks of leeway. I guess I'm just worrying about nothing. The collection of thus far completed pieces can be found here.

In other class news, I really need to work on my tourism project this week since the love of my life comes home on weekends and eats all my time ;) I also need to start reading this dang book for my anthropology class. The take home exam on the book isn't due until late April, but I have a feeling I will need a thorough understanding of the book for it and it is not a topic I am at all interested in so it will be slow going with the reading.

In work related news, I rocked house today and solved some serious issues that my coworkers and the company we are working with for the website overhaul could not figure out. I got a lot of praise and I really feel appreciated at my job--a feeling I have never had before. I hope the awesome train keeps on rolling :)

HTML, my secret love

Back in my freshman year of college (which was not so long ago) I took an IT 103 class: generic html, make a website, learn some nonsense about bytes and get overly familiar with Microsoft 2007. Needless to say, it was boring and I hated it.

Flash forward to now, my senior year, and I am in an Electronic Literature class, which requires a website. So I revamped the one I made for IT 103 and discovered my secret, well buried love of HTML.

I've been writing for quite some time--poems, essays, flash, nonfiction, fiction, etc. I made a chapbook and will shortly be making another. This kind of creation is satisfying but familiar. HTML is exotic. I can type seemingly nonsensical code (after all, what is an "a href," really?) and then, after some mystical magical uploading, that code becomes a link, a picture, a table, a button, color, anything really. It is not hard and there are countless books on the subject. Mine was by Kamalajeet Sanghera--a name I know by memory because it is so wonderfully odd. it was tedious at the time and the work I was posting on the web was dull and semi-low brow for me. The topic did not interest me and thus HTML slipped through my hands.

That is different now. Now I know the subtleties of tables and borders set to zero. I know how to bypass the need for templates and create links to nowhere just to be a smart ass. My pictures are links to other pictures which may very well link to a poem. I have embedded video and fiddled with creative commons. I have photo manip'd (however badly) and saw my codings and tags transform from gobbledygook to glory on a screen. I do not know java and am by no means an HTML master (if anything, I am an apprentice--this is as nerdy as I will get, I assure you) but I have rediscovered the glory of learning and creativity--of design and html ingenuity. Throughout my college career (which is rapidly coming to a close) I have lost my wonder. Quite frankly, I am not even sure this mysterious "wonder" survived elementary school. But it has reignited and I am awed by my education. Should someone ask me the one thing I learned in college, the one thing I took away from my four years, it will be recapturing my imagination--even if I had to harness it in HTML.

I am an English major with a minor in history, in love with an art that has a tenuous connection to my field at best. But this is fine, I have the whole world of electronic literature unfurling before me--a new media (well newish anyway) gaining a foothold among those who matter (those mysterious "those" who determine your curricula for instance). Perhaps, my primitive HTML skills will not go to waste.

College, college everywhere

So for my final year of college I am finishing off my mandatory requirements with 1 class I do not like and 2 classes I do like. I also have random electives, but I don't really find any of those interesting.

Anyway, of the 2 I do like one of them is called "Electronic Literature" and I find it to be fascinating. The class text is written in Sanskrit and class time itself is so-so but the projects give me endless entertainment. I have rediscovered my lost love: html. I had forgotten how absurdly pleasing it is to write coding that looks utterly like gobbledygook and turns into colors and text and buttons etc etc. I created a website my freshman year of college for an IT course and have since added an ENGL 344 section. It will be hosting some of my old works as well as some originals. Check it out if you get the chance :)