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© 2004-2008 Keith Ecklund

January 05, 2004

I’ve crammed as much computer knowledge into my head as I can for one night.  I’m reminded of the torturous French class I was coerced into taking one summer, as my deceptively cruel alma mater dangled a degree just beyond my greedy little hands.  It’s only three semesters of French crammed into four-hour classes, five days a week, for six short weeks, they said.  You can do it.  My advisor, bless his now dead heart, only smiled when I told him the plan.  His gray, bushy eyebrows lifted in obvious lack of faith.  The man had no time for foolish students who insisted on walking straight into the mouth of disaster.  He said nothing, but his eyebrows kept on climbing right up his forehead, distancing themselves from me and my impending doom.

The difference between computer code and French is that there is no logical way to attack French.  So I would just fill my head up with as much as I possibly could, then hurry to class and hope that a respectable amount of it would come pouring back out.  I felt like I was literally trying to regurgitate my way into a degree.  I’d stumble out of the room after the four hours, holding my throbbing head, vowing that I when I’d clumsily muttered ”répété, s’il vous plaît for the one millionth last time, I would go cold turkey.  No more French.  Abstinence.  Not one more syllable.  I was the original anti-French patriot, and I didn’t even know it.

My vow was easy to keep.  As a matter of fact, I am French-free ever since.  The language poured in so fast, that I’m afraid not a bit of it stuck.  If it did, it’s lost in there, and I’m not about to go looking.

Well, just like my French class, I sucked up everything I could tonight about rearranging blogs, figuring it would come spewing back onto the page with just enough orner et la beauté to earn me a passing grade.  And now that my night is winding to a close, I can see that arranging nearly incomprehensible code is not a whole lot different then learning French.  You breathe it it.  You breathe it out.  And then you push the “Publish” button and hopefully forget everything, because if you fall asleep and start dreaming the stuff, that’s when you start to get a little cranky.

So if anyone would like to put in their two cents worth regarding the design - feel free.  But don’t do it in French.  Just because I wrote a couple of phrases only means that I know my way over to Babblefish.



Cor blimey, luvaduck, I’m so impressed! I’ve been meaning to add some of those drop down menu thingies to lessen the amount of lists in the sidebars. Alas I wasted the holidays canoodling with loved ones and I’m now back to days filled with vicious deadlines so the chance has gone.

Daisy on 01/05/04 at 09:03 AM

p.s. I’m chuckling again, partly at the writing but partly at having a “Ding!” moment. My new excuse for failing to spend any time learning CSS (other than tweaks and fidgets) is that I can’t possibly be expected to do a day’s work in a foreign language and then spend time learning another one late at night. Hooray! Justification! Merci!

Daisy on 01/05/04 at 09:08 AM

Daisy, if I remember correctly, your site was one of those whose source code I stared at, saying to myself in the only language I know, “What the hell?” I learned just enough CSS to put an eye out, but didn’t have one single dream about html.  Life is good.

on 01/05/04 at 09:39 AM

Tell me about it!  I tried to create a “blog in a blog” and I’m still waiting.  I pushed the publish button so many times....but nothing.  Now I’m back to writing--right where I belong.

J on 01/05/04 at 04:38 PM

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