Greetings!
Hello!
If you haven't noticed, this page is quite different than the ones before it. This is because the earnestness of this website has been... somewhat questionable in nature?
It is kinda hard to say. Regardless, I suppose an explanation is to be had.
What is this?
I feel like this question can be taken two ways. "What is this page?" and "What is this website?". I suppose I can answer both.
First, this page is a disection of this project, and what it meant to me academically and personally. What I enjoyed about it, and what I struggled with, stuff of that sort. For being a self-proclaimed "burner", I never wanted it to be such. I had always intended to connect it to my regular online identity post its completion. It was merely a burner for the time.
As one can assume by its url, this was a burner website for my English 101 Project. This project required us to select a genre we personally care about, and imitate it whilst also adapting it to a different genre or subgenre. I had always been infactuated with personal websites, the idea of creating your own space of self-expression where YOU are the one in control, and things like that. Always is a bit dramatic, but you get what I mean, for as long as I knew, I longed for it.
However, theory and practice are WAY too fucking different for my tastes. Decision paralysis plauged me. What if I do it wrong, what if I don't like it later. What if it sucks. A lot.
From how I speak, you might be able to pick up that this isn't my first rodeo when it come to this. This is technically my third website.
My first was under a username which I no longer go by for the most part, except in those accounts known by those who I don't want knowing that I'm like... super trans. But I suppose thats akin to a tangent.
This was a part of my life where a lot of myself was deeply repressed, more than even to my knowledge. I didn't wanna do it wrong. In consequence, it only had one page. That singular page had been updated a fair amount, but between school and my own indecision, it never got farther than a landing page.
In its defense, the one to superscede it is facing the same plight. It's still just a landing page I made a fewish(?) months back, and frankly, I think it looks less than stellar now. But it did to me at the time. I think my tastes are changing, and that's normal, I think.
My time on the internet as a producer of content and not as solely a consume has been tumultuous, due to these feelings. I don't particularly finish things.
But that changed with this project.
Unfortunately, I am a massive fucking nerd. Class rank 11/450ish, near 5.0 weighted GPA (as of writing! it might hit it soon!), I care too much. Its what I do. Knowing that this project was weighted so high (40% of my grade), I knew I wouldn't drop the ball on it. A real way to game my own inability to commit to a creative project.
The funny thing is, it really worked.
Although it's only 4 pages (including this one), I beat the "first page curse". WOO HOO!!!
In sincerity, its a very nice feeling. I actually finished a project for once. I get why people do this.
Through this project, I think I learned a lot about personal web development. How to pace myself mentally, for the most part. The grade was more of an afterthought, at least before the deadline! hahaha!
So I guess that's what this website is! A test, a project, an attempt, a success, and a part of me. I can't bear to completely conclude this site so soon.
Who am I?
My name is Isabelle, also known as calcgirl45 online. I love older tech, calculus, video games from times past (and I guess some that aren't...), and my wonderful boyfriend!
I think I've always struggled with self expression, and I think that my constant turmoil creatively really reflects that. But maybe I'm tired of letting that stop me! This webdev shit rocks, actually!
Um... Kinda struggling to see what else I wanna put here... Hm... You can kinda tell I'm freehanding this page.
I suppose I should list some of my favorite things, so queer autistics can look at this and go "she's so real".
Games:
- Undertale
- Deltarune
- RIBBIT: The Deltarune Mod (PLEASE PLAY, IT'S FREE AND ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. ACTUALLY LIFECHANGING. 10/10)
- Minecraft
- Peggle and Peggle Nights
- Stardew Valley
- and My Singing Monsters! (Almost 1.3k hours as of writing!)
Music
- Lemon Demon
- Will Wood
- Glass Beach
- Toby Fox
- Weezer
- FLAVOR FOLEY
- Tally Hall
- They Might Be Giants
- Whatever I find on the internet that get stuck in my head...
- And whatever my boyfriend tells me to listen to... He's really good with playlists :p
The Project, itself
The main goal of this project was to highlight rhetorical features, and rhetorical situations. I am not going to personally explain these concepts as that sounds...
a. boring as hell
b. I'm not THAT proficient!!
Anyways, this projects had 3 parts.
Part 1, reflection. Honestly, the part I half assed the most. This part asked the assignee (student? what term do I use lmfao) to well, reflect on what they gained throughout this project. In earnest, I typed it in one sitting, as this part didn't have mandatory revision.
Regardless, I got full points on it!
Part 2, imitation. This MIGHT be a hunch, but I think you might have already seen that! Lucky me LOL
This was the part I put the most effort into, as I did BASICALLY code a whole website for somethat that's typically MLA formatted.
In a sense, this section was an excuse to go "all out". I chose this medium for a reason, so I better flex its usecases!
It was also the PERFECT excuse to use some code snippets I had collected throughout the year... (no "s" yet... I think?).
Although I know its logic is flawed, sometimes I am pervaded by the argument of "using someone else's free assets is lazy". Well first off, it isn't, jackass. Sorry, that was mean. If you do earnestly believe that argument, THEN you can have that. Anyways,...
I ignored that for this assignment. Forced practicality is nice sometimes. If anything, it fits the vibe better, as the personality is concetrated into the text and code choices! I think, at least.
Originally, this website was just one page (the index), and it was bare CSS and HTML. The only "assets" were screenshots from Undertale, no backgrounds.
After getting full points on my first draft evaluation, I decided that it just needed "more". I spoke of the medium in my analysis portion, but where is that uniqueness on my site itself? So I got to work.
First, I picked out 4ish backgrounds, one for each UI element, and tested out what "vibe" I was going for. Eventually, I settled on what you see on the index page.
It took a lot of fiddling, but I eventually got it to a tolerable state, which becomes a good state in my head after a week. lmfao
Then I decided to incorperate tooltips, using a code snippet I'd been foaming over. It was a creative way to add side tangents, I think at least. It also strengthened my connection to the medium, which I think I needed.
After this, I got to work making the two other pages. I wanted this website to feel like a page ripped out a book, floating as a part of a whole that does not exist. An exerpt for a nonexistant text. I was always a sucker for that concept, anyways.
This too, was an excuse to use my backlog of resources. Decided to make something really cute that I earnestly still go back to, just for the fun of it. I've been huge on the theming of apples lately, so it was an excuse to do some more of that.
I guess you can say I'm... applecore, heh.
ANYWAYS, with those two pages, my imitation was complete. I think I sold it pretty well, and I suppose my instructor did too.
The third part was analysis, the part I personally care for the least. That's bias though, its the one part I didn't get full marks on.
Ultimately, it was an merely me rambling (hyperbole) about the medium and how it connected with the rhetorical features I aimed to imitate. I think I only lost 5.5 points on it, so I'm not too butthurt.
I have less to say about it, as it spoke for itself.
In the end, I got 193.5/200, so effectively, 97%. I beat the (former) valedictorian (the semester hit the transcript), who I know in person. I can't complain about that 6.5 points that are missing, as I personally KICKED ASS this project.
That concludes my thoughts on the project.
What's next?
As of writing, I have not put the actual essay onto the internet, but soon after this hits the website, or at the same time, the essay will be made viewable.
Besides that, I think I'm just gonna start doing things more spontaneously. It doesn't need to be good, it just needs to be. I think that's what I ACTUALLY learned from this project.
I'd like to thank my teacher, and my wonderful boyfriend for helping me realize this creative vision, as I don't think I'd have the confidence to pull this off without them.
With that said, Isabelle, signing off!