Well I finally got around to customizing my website. Only took me 3/4 of the semester. I think the thing that was most difficult for me when I was trying to decide what my site would look like was the idea that it was still for school. Although all of the classes I am using this blog for have said that I should make this website my own, and that I should use it to suite my own needs, I haven’t really been doing anything for my self this semester so it was difficult for me to try and make this site something for me and not something I’m just doing for a grade. When I started the semester I wanted to get things out of my classes. I wanted to learn about how we have learned to tell stories in the digital era, and I wanted to begin to develop professionally in the digital era. But in just a couple week all I wanted was for the semester to be over. I think now that I’ve gotten to a better place with my mental health its a lot easier for me to step back and do things for myself. My grades may suffer this semester but I think overall I have taken some steps in the right direction.
My site’s current design is meant to reflect the place where I am in my life right now, I’ve lived 20 years without really making decisions for myself in any measurable sense, this whole time I’ve been almost blank. Now suddenly I’m faced with many decisions all at once, but I’m still blank, and I’m forced to adapt very rapidly. I think people need to be afforded time to figure themselves out in this very delicate and formative time in their lives, and my site’s design reflects this; I am still figuring myself out and I think my site is in the same place, it still needs some time to really take shape. Until then I’m going to explore more of my interests through school, and really try to get a grasp of who I am and what I want going forward.
The final project is coming up soon (I know, this was a week 2 assignment and I’m just now completing it, amazing) and I’m thinking about what I want to work on. When I came to UMW I wanted to major in art and paint my life, two and a half years later and I’m a music major and I haven’t made proper art in almost a year at this point. I love art and music but everything seems to be trying to stop me from making them, and I think it has been so difficult because I haven’t been creating with a clear direction in mind. I’ve had an easy time making music this year, I’ve almost finished writing a song for string quartet, and I think its because I’ve had a good direction: I’ve been making music with the intention of connecting with the world around me, despite being in a pandemic. I’d love to make more art with the intention of connecting to others, I’m just not sure how to connect through paint and graphite. For the final project I want to explore how to connect with others through different media then I am used to, or perhaps how to connect media to better connect with other people.
