school's out for the summer?

This is the last week of website design. Next week I have finals...then SUMMER.
I'm so ready for summer, but at the same time this year has gone by pretty quickly.
Also with the end of website design will come the end of this blog. I guess at some future point I might blog again, but right now I don't think I have anything to blog about. Considering that only other people in my website design class read this blog, I believe, it probably won't be that missed.

I always really love summer break. But for the first time in years it feels kind of bittersweet. It is what it is.

Peace,
Sleepless Sophomore

thoughts

im tired.
i had one of those weekends that was super busy but still i feel like i didn't do anything...you know what i mean?

anyways, im trying to not be too stressed all of the time. im almost done with school and then i have like 10 days of relaxation before i start my summer job.

so im just trying yo "think happy thoughts" and get through the rest of the year. mehhhh.

DessertS

More like StresseD.
I just think its funny that desserts is stressed spelled backwards. Its so fitting.

Anyways, my website for SWADE is coming along. Its not ready to share yet, though. I'm working on it, and I should be done in the next 1.5 weeks or so.

I'm so happy its Friday!! :)
The end of school is always so stressful and busy. This weekend will be no different. Tonight, I work from 4-6. Saturday, I work from 8-2. Also that morning, my Dad is picking up my new (to me) horse trailer from Rockwall! I'm really excited-- it'll be so nice to be able to take my horse myself rather than try to find a ride to all of the shows. Also, I'll finally be able to put my truck to good use, haha!
I also have to do homework and study for my AP exam next week, do something for my Mom om Mother's Day, and complete my application for the Mentor Program at the North American Young Riders' Championship in July. If I get it, I will go to the show and work under onw of the officials for the week. While I'm not working, I can watch the competition and help the people competing from my area. I think it would be a really awesome experience, and it would be nice to see how it runs before I (hopefully) compete in the championships.

I don't even want to think about what I'm forgetting that I'll have to do this weekend.


Pretty please just give me summer now........

.................

...Ive been sick for a week now. sweet.
But, life doesn't stop when I get sick. Oh, sometimes I wish I could just stay home for a day but that's not going to happen. I hate catching up at school and I would rather suffer through the day then not be able to ride my horse.
Speaking of, I had a horse show in Weatherford, TX over the weekend. It was really good! A ton of people from my barn went and there was the party/auction for Young Riders on Saturday night. And, my horse was good all weekend. I ended in 6th place, which I'm happy with. I'm sure not being sick would have been helpful, though.

I'm SO READY for Summer. It's already May...so less than a month...less than a month...less than a month....

busy, busy, busy!

I have been SO busy lately! At least, its been a good busy for the most part.
Saturday, I had work from 8-1. But, I did get to ride three horses during that time, and two of them were good, so it was a good morning. I grabbed lunch at Subway and headed up to another barn in Las Colinas. I was riding a horse for my friend while she recovered from a small surgery. Winston is a huge horse-- 17.2 hh, which is over 6 feet tall at the top of his shoulder (withers). But, he's super fun to ride. Then I was supposed to babysit from 5-10, but when I rang their door bell, the dad told me that actually they didn't need a babysitter. I would've been nice if they could have called me before I went over there. So, instead I stayed home and had a House marathon. Not a bad night.
Sunday, I went to a 8:30 service at my church, hurried home and changed clothes, went to my barn and rode Michi, got a Coke from Sonic (caffine needed, as I woke up at 3 am), and drove up north to ride Winston again. Both horses were good and the weather was great, so it was nice.
I stopped by Panera to pick up lunch on the way home. Then, I picked up my Dad and we went to look at a horse trailer in Rockwall. I liked it, but because my parents are buying they get the final say, haha! Finally, I headed home.

Phew, what a weekend. Busy, yes?

And this next weekend I have a horseshow in Weatherford at Greenwood Farm--it's my favorite show in Area V, so I'm really excited! I also figured out that I won't have an open weekend, or even day, until May 30th. I've just gotta make it through this homestrech to Summer......

project

I decided on a client for my website project: the SWADE club at ESD.
Everything's still in the planning phase, but updates to come.

CSS Thoughts

In website design we are working with CSS coding instead of HTML now. Its cool that you can see the code and the design at the same time. And, it is easier that you can have a template for a bunch of pages. It is still a bit confusing, as lots of the CSS stuff is different from the HTML stuff.

On an unrealted note, I'm glad its Thursday. I really havent slept much lately. And I'm ready for Summer. Now.

PONIES

This past weekend I had a horseshow outside of Shreveport, LA at Holly Hill Farm. I was lucky we had great weather-- I heard it was rainy and gross in Dallas! And, my horse was a rock star all weekend :) I won my division! And, my dressage test wasn't nearly as good as it could have been, but I still got my lowest score ever-- a 27.4. Both of our jumping rounds were double clear. Holly Hill always organizes a great show and I had so much fun! Also, it was really good that every one from my barn placed-- so it was a great weekend. Here are pictures by Jim Stoner, an amazing photographer who frequents horse shows: Michi and I at HHHT 4/10

IdeaS

Ideas of "clients" for website design:
SWADE
Student Council
Spanish Club
Photography
Itinerary

Thoughts? Comments? Revelations?

Let me know.

new project ideas

In website design class, we've learned how to use DreamWeaver. It is a lot faster and easier to use than typing in all of the codes for a HTML page.

Our next assignment will be creating a website for a club/teacher/activity at ESD.
This will makes us design for someone besides ourselves. The only other criteria for the organization we pick is that the website can't need regular updates, as that would become a total pain once the semester is over.

I've come up with a couple ideas for "clients." More later when I make a decision ;)

Pirates of Silicon Valley Essay

Neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs had a traditional success stories. Their companies were both total gambles in the beginning, but have gone on to become huge successes. Both men were willing to take the risk of failing because they knew that it was worth trying. However, they both have also been quite lucky.
Of course, both men had genius ideas and brought marketable and useable products to the market. However, they also both started their companies on the cusp of the technological era, so their timing was perfect. Even though success stories of that scale aren’t typical, the “American Dream” of using ingenuity and hard work to become successful remains alive.
Since the Internet has become so widespread, other individuals, such as Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google, and Mark Zuckerburg, creator of Facebook, have also become very successful with products that were unheard of twenty years ago. These new ideas have become global phenomenon. Certainly the huge accessibility of information over the internet makes it a great place to release a new idea. However, the more common it becomes, the more flooded the internet is with thousands and thousands of websites. The more competition, the harder it will be to succeed as a new company.
But, as the past has certainly proved, these new, great, ideas cannot be predicted. Some will thrive while others will fail. It is impossible to know what will be the “next big thing.” Because of the uncertainty involved in a free market economy, there will always be a place for ingenuity and hard work. That will never go out of style.

dreamweaver

In website design class, so far we've only made pages in HTML, using just notepad. This week we started using Adobe Dreamweaver. It is so much easier!!!
If you type in the content, it does the tags. And, you can create one CSS document with the background, etc. to use for as many pages as possible. I think building webpages will be much faster using Dreamweaver. But, we'll see if it turns out that way :)

life, etc.

I'm not really sure what I want to write about in this post. So I might ramble, a lot. A preemptive apology for that.
Good news: This is a three day week for meeee!!!! woohoo!!!! On Thursday, I have a sophomore retreat and Friday we have off for Easter break. We also have Easter Monday off. I also have a horse show on Saturday. I will be running Training level for the first time in almost a year! I'm so excited--and I know that my horse will be great! Hopefully I can report with pictures next week :)

Meh news: I'm tired. No suprise there. And I'm just ready for summer. I'm ready to be tan, spend all day working at the barn, not have anything to worry about at night, relax, hang out. I don't have anything special planned. But I love the freedom of summer, and it will be even better now that I have a car. Oh, and this should probably be in the "good news" but I got a truck last week! I feel kind of rediculous driving a huge pick up truck, but I need to be able to haul a horse trailer...so I need a big truck.

I don't know what else to write about. Comment with ideas?

More Tables

My blog yesterday was cut short by the bell, so I'll finish it today. In addition to the page on how to design tables that we had to create, we also have to make a personal page that uses one big table as the format. My page is about my horses. I acutally think its my favorite page so far--I like the color scheme and because the content is so interesting to me it's been fun to write. Here is a link: Web Page

Tables

But ones on webpages...not ones you eat off of.
Wow, that was a really bad joke.

Back to the topic, creating tables on webpages is rather confusing.
There are a ton of tags just for one, small table. And they have to be in just the right order.
But I think I'm getting the hang of it--after a few failed attempts, I've used all of the tags that we need for the assignment in one table or another.
More later.

back to work...

Spring Break is over...meh.

4th quarter has started, and I know its going to be a really long strech to summer.
Not that my spring break was super great or anything--I stayed in Dallas. I did get to ride a lot, but my horse show was cancelled (beacuse of snow--in MARCH--in TEXAS!!) And I'm not saying my spring break was bad--it was just kinda boring.

But that's ok. I'm stressed out enough as it is.

Now I'm just trying to make it to Easter break--5 1/2 school days left :)

the origin of "sleepless sophomore"

I think the "sophomore" part is pretty self explanatory...I'm a sophomore.
The "sleepless" part kind of has two meanings. As any highschooler, I am overworked and have twice as many things to do as I have time for. I definitely miss the days when I didn't have to wake up at 6 while I had just fallen into bed at around 1130...or worse.

I am also an insomniac. I can't sleep. So even if I could have all to day to sleep, I couldn't. I can usually sleep for 4-5 hours, but sometimes I can't even sleep that much. It doesn't really bother me anymore, somehow I've trained myself to survive on that little sleep. And I never have to worry about missing my alarm ;)

There you go, any lingering mysteries behind "sleepless sophomore" have hopefully be explained.

html woes?

We have to write a blog entry about what has been giving us the most trouble in website design class. (knock on wood) I haven't had any big problems yet. However, my slightly OCD nature has helped me-- I really don't have a problem keeping everything organized and checking everything twice. So far, html has been about knowing the codes and making sure that everything is correctly written and in order. I kind of like that everything has to be just right to work. But, I have gotten frustrated when I can't find the little mistake that has made the entire webpage bold/underlined/with no spaces/etc.

It's also really nice that we can look at the codes on our older pages while creating new pages. I don't have to memorize every code, and I can look at what I wrote to get the right result if I'm having a problem.

The result of being able to make a web page that people all over the world can view is pretty cool, I think.

Annnnddddd...........
SPRING BREAK!!! WOOOO!!!
Can you tell I'm ready for Friday to be over already?? :)

Optical Illusions......

An optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a percept that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. There are three main types: literal optical illusions that create images that are different from the objects that make them, physiological ones that are the effects on the eyes and brain of excessive stimulation of a specific type (brightness, tilt, color, movement), and cognitive illusions where the eye and brain make unconscious inferences. (according to wikipedia)

I searched for optical illusions on the web and got some interesting results:

Illusions

More Illusions



The green circle doesn't exist, and if you stare at the black + all of the dots will fade away. But, really, all of the dots are pink. (click on the picture to see it work) Cool, no?


Enough of that for now...my eyes need a break!

Reasons to be happy

So...I've had a really bad week.
I'm thinging that maybe a list of things that make me smile might help (and sorry for being so cheesy!)

-oversized sweatshirts
-painted nails
-eating cereal dry
-hearing you favorite song on the radio
-and singing along
-or hearing a new song that becomes your favorite
-inside jokes
-my horses (x10000 at least :))
-walking my dog at dusk
-Calvin & Hobbes books
-sunny weather



I'll keep thinking

More Colors!

I've made a lot of progress on my web page on colors. I'm about finished. To complete this page, we had to use things that we learned from all of the other pages we've made. I used images and links, anchor links, inserted images, used horizontal rules, used more links, etc. But it's cool that what we've learned is useful and we build on what we've done, which helps me remember the older stuff.

On a similar note, navigating my/other blogs is becoming a lot easier than when I first started this class. Yay! :)

P.S. HAPPY FRIDAY!

colors in a new light...

...get the pun? Anyways, we are creating a web page all about color on the web in website design class. This is the first webpage that our teacher hasn't told us exactly what to write. So, we have to figure out what information we need on our own. It's a little overwhelming because I don't know much at all about these things, but I'm learning. I've got to get back to researching HSV color models...more later.

Olympics...and other stuff

I like the Olympics. They're the only sports event that I watch, besides hockey. It just seems like the athletes try harder than in normal sports seasons. And, most of the sports I never watch or care about otherwise. Anyways, GO USA!!!

Otherwise, I finished my Shakespeare project, and it was voted to be shown when we present projects to other classes! But, I won't be in school that day, so guess I won't present it again. I rewrote the last scene of Much Ado About Nothing as a western, and with different people reading it in hillbilly accents, it was pretty funny. Today we watch all of the movies during our English class...yay! Some of the movies are really good, so it's always fun to see what people come up with for the film contest.

In Website Design, we're almost done with our links and images page. I haven't had any big issues yet, and it's pretty cool to be able to make your own webpage. I like the class more than I thought I would. :)
Over and out for now.

Linksss..

SO we've started learning about links in my website design class. So far I haven't had any problems (knock on wood!) but we still have more to learn. It's really just remembering what symbols go with what, and that isn't too hard for me. I've got to get back to work! :)
more later.....

It's Friday! :)

I've made it through another week of school.
I'm so tired, and I have 2 tests and 2 quizzes today...uggghhhhh.
BUT, then I have a weekend :)
And next week I'm going on a field trip...I feel like a 4th grader again, but this time its to the SMU Library to research for my AP World History project. Which kinda scares me.

The next weekend is the first horse show of the year...I'm so ready to be competing again! I'm really hoping I can hold everything together had have a good show; it's my first show with my new horse, so I'm a little nervous.

More later...if I can get through the rest of the day..haha

more imagesss.........

So, we had time in class to finish up our assignments today, and I made another logo.
Here it is:

Which one do you like better??

more later...wow we've blogged a lot lately...haha :)

pretty pictures

So, I've been learning about images in website design class. I was really interested in learing about this (I also take photography), so it was cool to see some practical application to the pictures.

We created a logo in Adobe Fireworks. As I had never used this program before, it was pretty hard at first, but after figuring out how to use some of the tools, I had fun playing with it.

We also learned about how to put images on websites and which formats work best for what. We compared .gif, .png, .jpg, and .psd file types. They each have different uses, but for our example that we posted on our websites, I liked the .png file the best. However, I'm sure that the others have plenty of uses as well!

Here is my logo:


I think that I like it, any thoughts??

Using Phones in School...

And not worring about getting in trouble!

I'm supposed to blog about how I use my cell phone for school.

I do use my phone to aks my friends homework questions, but I'm not sure that really counts...
I also have all of my alarms on my phone and sometimes use the calendar.
I can also check my email from my phone, but I don't often use it for school.
I know I don't use my sell phone for educational purposes as much as is possible.
I could keep homework assignments, use the calcualtor, email teachers (more), take pictures of lecture notes that are on the board, and write assignments like vocabulary on it.
But, I'm not the more technologically inclined, so I tend to use pen and paper to write when I can, a real calculator, and study from books or notes I have written down. But, these ideas are worth a shot!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!!!

It's snowing...in Dallas!!!
It looks so pretty and the flakes are sticking :)
BUT...I'm in school. Ugh. Most kids are out of school...but not me. :(

So I guess I'll just keep hoping that school will get out early and enjoy the pretty snow. At least I have a four day weekend! I am so ready for it, too.



Pictures are of my school and the quarry. Doesn't it look like a Winter Wonderland?

Logo Love?

For website design class, I had to find five logos that I liked and explain why.
Here goes:








The Polo logo is in a very legible font. It is still effective and memorable with or without color. Also, the logo is pertinent to the company name—the polo pony is always associated with Polo Ralph Lauren. Also, whether the logo is tiny or larger, it is clear that it is a polo pony.

The Starbucks logo is memorable. The font is clear and it is clear that Starbucks is a coffee company. But, the Starbuck in the middle of the logo is unique, which makes this logo stand out. The green is dark enough that it does not overwhelm the logo as well. And, this logo could be printed in black and white without sacrificing legibility. And, the repeating theme on stars (3 of them) ties the logo together with the name.

The logo for the World Wildlife Fund is very simple, but effective. Writing could be added anywhere around it easily. The panda bear is easy to see, but also it is abstract enough that it remains memorable.

I love the Olympic rings. It is so simple and has become so iconic. It would be easy to add text around the rings, which is good. Also, even if the rings were printed all black you would still know that they were the Olympic rings. This logo makes something very simple eye catching and memorable.

Again, I like that the font is clear and easy to read in the Davidson locksmith logo. The way that the D is also a lock is really clever—I had to look twice but I remembered it. This logo works without color, which makes it more versatile.

These logos are all clear. The point that they bring across is relevant to the company or product and easy to understand. Also, they all have simple fonts for the text (or no text at all!). And, all of them would work just as well in color or black and white. Now I have to design my own logo...I hope it turns out well!

I love weekends...

...and days that pretend to be weekends, like tomorrow--no school! And, I am participating in a riding workshop with two Olympians this weekend, so I won't be at school on Friday. I am so excited! AND, my birthday is on Thursday...I'm really hoping that this will be a good week :)

Website Design Assignment

In website design, we have just finished creating basic HTML pages. I thinl that being able to make a website is an important skill, as the internet is so accessible. So, I think its good that I'm learning this (even if I might find it a teensy bit boring....). I haven't had any major problems with the codes, but I'm usually pretty good with remembering things like that. I think that this class is a good choice for my computer credit. More later.

Which Blog is Best?

Now that I have made two blogs, I have an idea of which blogging site I like better...and the winner is...BlogSpot! So far, I have found it simpler to use, easier to design/set up the blog, and it has sent me fewer annoying emails that WordPress.

In my website design class, we all just finished our basic homepages...more to come!

Starting a Blog

I have to start a blog for my website design class..so here it is. We have to set up at least two and compare the blog sites. This is blog #1 so I don't have anything to compare yet. So far this site has been pretty easy to use. I'm excited to see how it goes!

Maria