I hate to admit it, but the process of integrating CSS into my simple HTML website was an extremely emotional and frustrating one. And I’ve decided that it’s all Serenity’s fault! Our professor set us up with a beautifully formatted HTML skeleton and an equally perfect corresponding CSS style sheet. Everything in these two documents were grouped and labeled for maximum manipulation and efficiency, so in playing around with it in class last week, it felt like a breeze! I was like, “Hey, self, you’re really getting the hang of this whole coding thing. Go you!”
This false esteem of mine got me thinking I was over the hurtle and landed me in the dangerous territory of excessive boastfulness.
The next day, from approximately 1 p.m. – 6 p.m., I sat alone in my apartment trying to recreate the magic from the day before. You guessed it: there was no magic in my apartment that day. I would think I was doing something completely right, but nothing was going like it should have; nothing was going according to all of my wonderful plans. I’d think I was on the right track, save, and reload my page, only to find NOTHING had changed, or worse, something horrible had happened. CTRL Z, CTRL Z, CTRL Z.
Suddenly, I thought I found a solution to one of my (many) problems! Bootstrap, whatever the heck you are, you’ve ruined my life. When building the Airbnb site through Code Academy, I could neatly trap content into little pretty columns and rows with a simple piece of code. Silly me thought I could do that on my own website. But something about using these bootstrap terms didn’t compute (puns!) and there was a period of about an hour where I was staring at my code, wondering why it worked for Airbnb, but not for me. I eventually gathered that these Bootstrap terms weren’t being recognized. I lost some hair over this issue, for sure.
When I finally emerged from my bedroom, I was a shadow of my former self.
Not having had any human interaction during the daylight hours, and constantly hitting wall after wall of errors, my spirits were broken.
Out of protest, I didn’t go back to my computer for three days, so angry and frustrated at this new language I didn’t fully understand yet. Those three days were great, ignoring the source of my rage. My confidence was back; I was feeling good.
However, I eventually returned to it, because I a) couldn’t accept defeat and b) technically had to do it for this class…but mostly the first thing.
While I didn’t solve all the kinks in my website, I have a finished product that I am very proud of after a few more hours of hard work. I did beyond what was taught in class last week and created something unique and useful! Happily ever after!