Man oh, man.
I didn’t take a moment to write. That’s on me.
There's a quote I heard this week. A swan looks majestic above the water in a pond, but underneath the surface, they are paddling for their lives.
I feel like we all come across this point where we have to work 110% just to stay afloat and damned if we don't look majestic while doing it. So here we are.
Professional
I've always considered myself to be creative. I'm a perfectionist. If something I create isn't amazing then I didn't do anything to write home about. I need to work harder because no one cares.
We recently were given a license to Affinity Designer, which gave me an avenue to venture into creative design. Following this news, we also started to learn CSS which is a way to design our websites beyond just the simple words on the page. It started to make sense that we learned website design with our art design… speaking of art, I made some pieces to share as I expand my knowledge in Affinity.
It feels good to make a design I look at and proud that it is something out of the ordinary and provides a perspective I have on art. I’m happy to say that design and being creative are valued just as much as the code is in Perpetual Education.
Challenge-1!
We had our first of possibly many more challenges. The purpose of the challenge was to piece everything we’ve learned to this point into a full-on example demo.
Make an HTML website.
Have that website link to an about me page, projects page, and contact page.
Style the website using CSS.
Upload the website to the PE servers so that anyone can access the site.
Make sure that all links are worth accordingly.
I was able to complete it comfortably with no huge blockers and this made me feel confident in myself and my ability thus far. If anything, this activity made me realize I have a handle on the current concepts BUT my designs need work to be more user-friendly and inviting.
Definitely just wanted to get the concept of the assignment down and be able to do everything asked of me, but I understand that it’s not the best looking piece of work so expect my projects to level up as we go through the weeks in the coming blog post.
Now, what If I had a website that had all my projects ready to be viewed and can be edited with live results… well… we’re introduced to CodePen. Using this link you could view my page that shows some work we’ve done during the week while practicing using CSS. All web browsers actually come with some set styling when displaying HTML and that can get in the way or mix up what I want to do with my design. A reset helps alleviate this issue and puts everything to a basic style and gives me the keys to change everything to my liking.
We cover a lot of cool things this week that we could add to our websites:
iFrames: Being able to embed links inside of our websites, like maps, YouTube videos, and even this blog.
Hash Links: Being able to link to other parts of our page. Providing ways to move around.
Box-sizing: Something that is going to play an important role in the future, able to put content into a box and all the margin and padding surrounding that content is just a singular box.
Everything we are covering continues to feel like I’m in a game leveling up and getting new skills to fight the next boss. I’m pretty excited for the next week and see where we go from here. We are learning new things but it doesn’t mean we have forgotten where we came from, still learning HTML elements and how to apply them.
Personal
What’s up with me?
Well, life is full of ups and down, and that lives within me. Some days are great and some… not so much. I think a lot of what I’m learning is to be okay with myself and the work I get done. Being frustrated or getting anxiety from upcoming hurdles only makes things worse and there’s no need for that. Live in the moment and be happy where we are going.
Winning Time
This is a new HBO Max original about the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s. Key things I’ve taken from this show:
The NBA was struggling money-wise during this period of time. This is crazy considering how impactful I think it is nowadays.
It’s insightful the large hole the Lakers franchise was trying to dig themselves out of. [ They won 5 championships over the next decade ]
Jerry Buss is a legend. His quote on the show actually inspired the title of this post.
If you like basketball, business, and comedy I would recommend this show. The director gave the show a feel that it’s not taking itself too seriously at times with 4th wall breaks and comedic voiceovers at times. Really good watch so far, only 2 episodes out currently.
Elden Ring
Latest video game from acclaimed developer FromSoftware, known for making difficult games with no hand holding and only teaching by multiple deaths. It’s an open-world RPG game with loads of content to sink your teeth into.
It has never been so fun to die so much.
To be honest dying sucks but the feeling of accomplishment after completing something that took 20 deaths feeeeels soooo good and it’s unmatched.
This has been my little escape this week. Doesn’t matter what it is but hopping into this world for an hour or two a day gave me a lot less to think about and honestly a little relaxing in a sense.
Who Cares? By Rex Orange County
Thursdays happen to be some of my favorite days just because I know at 9:00 pm PST there will be a lot of new music released to my choice of the streaming platform. This week was no different but there was released by one of my favorite indie-pop or bedroom pop artist: Rex Orange County.
Some of my favorites: Keep It Up, Amazing, 7am, and The Shade.
Least liked: Shoot Me Down.
I really enjoyed this album but to be fair I’ve enjoyed all albums from him. This one in particular touches on topics of doing the same old thing suddenly doesn’t provide the same happiness it once did and the simplicity of what was done before is not good enough. Some of the songs have a more romantic element talking about the willingness to change for others even though they are special for being themselves, which presents this paradoxical love.
Overall the album has a soft undertone to it that seems warm and inviting; the melodic rhythms could attract you to the song but the lyrics will keep you listening.
Alright. That wraps up another week.
Once again I thank you for taking a moment of your day to read this and follow my journey. In a sense we’re in this together and who wouldn’t want a partner in crime?
🕵🏻♂️