So I guess this is my first ever blog post. My original plan was to have some sense of order around here before I started with my first post. However, I have since come to know that the few technical skills I have when it comes to web design, namely php and SQL, are completely useless in Neocities, as they are not supported. Back when I was in High school (getting close to a decade ago now), I used to be able to program in these languages. So now, that leaves me in a much less fortunate position than I thought I was in. And with that comes the challenge of learning JavaScript. Which doesn't seem all bad, honestly. If I were to actualise all my ideas for the site, then there would come a point where I would need to learn that anyway. So long-term it ain't so bad.
Despite that, I can't help but feel like I have bitten off more than I can chew here. Although I think that with a lot of long-term projects I take on. I don't need to see immediate results in order for something to be worthwhile. Furthermore, just because there are some minor setbacks, that doesn't mean that it is impossible, or that I am not going to do it. Because I 100% am. I adore Neocities, from the creative corners of the internet that people have dividiously carved out, to the philosophy. I love the stance that places like Neocities takes on Information era creativity. In a world of white noise stimulation, I think that places such as this are a much needed breath of fresh air. And not only do I appreciate them, but I wish to acitvely support them, as well.
Anyway, enough of my preachy, pseudo-intellectual ramblings. I guess it's high time I should talk about things more befitting of a "blog", at least in the classic sense. It's a very strange time in my life right now. I currently have a trip planned to Malaysia, and I will be departing for this faraway place in less than 10 days now. And that is a very, very strange feeling. I feel it is hard to process in its entirety. Apart from isolated moments that suddenly reveal the expedition's momentousness to me, I feel a surprising lack of worry towards it. I am excited, and right now that is all I feel. Especially because it will be the first time I get to meet my girlfriend. And that makes me very excited. All the things we have planned and want to do together makes me fill up with aniticipation. There are a bunch of fun things that we have planned. And I guess I may talk about that more once I have actually had the holiday.
Going back to the site. I have been ill for the past 5 days. I think it might have been COVID, however I haven't had any tests at hand. Furthermore, I haven't been out anywhere significant over the past week, nor has my dad who I live with, and his work does not necessitate any other human contact. And since the UK is of a collective mindset of COVID ambivalence, I simply did not feel like doing one. Had I needed to, I would have. But from a personal point of view, I have frankly exhausted all the fucks I have to give about COVID. But this illness has set my progress back for a lot of the things that I want to do. For example my website, a few books I have been reading, shows I have been watching, My Japanese learning, etc. I will probably make blog posts about all of these things in the future, as talking about all of these is way beyond the scope of a single post. However in keeping with the first point I was trying to make, it has set me back even further in creating a bread and butter backbone to this site. And the further php issues has only confounded this issue. I'm the kind of person who likes to try and see things big-picture, I'm terrible at planning out fine details in my mind. However, I have tried to have a loose mental roadmap of how I want to approach building the site. In the hopes that it would keep me from getting sucked in to unneccessary rabbit holes at the expense of my time and the overall site. However, this new issue I feel has flipped the issue on its head. And while I wanted to originally prioritse basic function over anything either visual or entertainment. I feel that now, because of my lacking much of the needed knowledge I require to construct the site according to my vision. I feel that I should now focus on mostly visual things while I learn how to setup basic scripts and functions in order to get most of the site running how I want it too. Like for example, I wanted to originally categorise all my archive stuff, and blog posts into a database so I can pull and sort them easily, rather than handwriting all the relevant information via HTML. There probably exists a much more elegant system in order to achieve this. But now, I am aware that I cannot do that, so now I will have to find a method that is achievable through Javascript. Which of course is contingent on me actually knowing anything about Javascript, which I don't. So yeah, I guess back to the drawing board.
So, to draw my thinking to a close about that, I can't work on function right now. But, I have a very clear picture of how I want things to appear on the site. I want every section of the site to have it's own unique aesthetic, each one something that I find very personal and pleasing to me. So I guess for now I will focus on that while I brush up on my web design basics. Also, I had a lot of fun writing this blog. It feels very natural. And I doubt anyone will read this but I hope anybody who reached the end found something useful out of this. Writing a blog is very similar to writing a journal. And keeping journals is something that I have always liked doing.