Zhaf and the Cellar

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Pointless Ads with Silver Linings 

It looks like some kind of jerk is putting comment spam in my blog. I hate that. And of course, they have hidden the spam in one of the posts made during the past three years, so in order to delete it, I need to sort through all my previous posts to find it first. Thank goodness I have my blog set to e-mail me with any comments people make, otherwise I would have never known about it. I just wish the e-mail would have had an indication which post received the spam so I could delete it. Maybe, I will try to moderate comments from here on out, but I would hate to do that because I don't want to make it any more difficult for people to comment anonymously. I don't mind anonymity; I don't mind negative comments; I do mind pointless advertising, which to my way of thinking, is much like vandalism.

The silver lining of searching through my blog posts to find repugnant spam is re-discovering how interesting and creative some of my previous posts are. Much of what I have written I had forgotten about. I found that I used to include many more hyperlinks than I do now: I may return to that again. I also used to set off blocks of quoted text to illustrate things that I was talking about. If I am going to do more of that, I am going to need to review some basic HTML tags. Like the blockquote tag, duh!

But most intriguing to me is noticing how my writing voice may have changed. Obviously, when I was in graduate school reading article after article, book after book, a more creative and advanced writing style was easier to create. That sort of voice came naturally. Now, nearly a year after things really began to fall apart in grad school, my blog has drifted into a more bland direction, mostly as a result of my personal problems and corresponding loss of motivation. The bloom is off the rose.

But maybe this just means that my blog, as a little writing project, has matured into something else, something that it was going to be anyway. I could improve it by writing more often and practicing more. Although my life has been significantly changing direction too, so it would make sense that my blog would change as well. One thing that is worth noting is that I started this blog while in college full-time, and for the most part, that has changed. Technically, I am still in college, but it is not like it was; it never can be.

:: z. 1:42 PM [+] Permalink ::

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Saturday, December 02, 2006

Checking In Again 

The end of school is fast approaching for the year. Finals are on Monday, and I think I am going to do very well and get A's in all my courses. Unlike the graduate school fiasco, I am getting the work done. Of course, the work is intellectually less challenging, and I find that is something that I miss (but just a little). And what the work lacks in the intellectual challenge, it makes up with it's demands on creativity. Once I really get my feel around the software programs--Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator--I think I will really be able to do something striking.

Getting work done outside of school has been a bit more of a challenge, but I am doing my best. Of course, I haven't really been able to do anything with my comic. Not only is it hard to figure out what to do next with the story-lines, finding the time and the motivation to do it, even a bad one that wouldn't require much effort, has been waning. But, part of me still wants to keep going with it, so I will.

In many ways, I feel (on a personal life assessment level) like I am back where I was when I first embarked on the whole college path ten years ago. My life is about the same, and it is hard to tell if I am making any progress with it. Yes, it is true I have learned many important life lessons. And yes, I have had some experiences that some people in this world never will have. Still, there is an emptiness of everyday life that grinds with a whisper on the edges of my consciousness. I am not sure it will help, but I am going to try and discipline myself to achieve some goals: eating better, exercising regularly, balancing work, school, and relaxing in healthy amounts. The improvement in health should assist with mood.

:: z. 6:58 PM [+] Permalink ::

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