The Adventures of Code

Long ago, back when I wrote random stories on a site called Quizilla (I'd leave you a link, but it's nothing like what it used to be) because I was bored in high school and really enjoyed writing. The nice thing about it was although it was set up as a site for quizzes, people wrote stories as well. Some that were quite interesting, if I remember correctly. Granted, a lot of them had some major spelling mistakes,   but fear not! I was one of the ones who spell-checked before publishing... usually. (Note: I don't plan on mentioning the stories I wrote because I was in high school and they pretty much sucked. Just... take my word for it).

A banner one of my followers made me for one of my stories.
Nothing special, but I was really happy for the support!

Anyway, I learned some good habits from this. First, I learned how to write for an audience. I knew I had to write stories that would intrigue the people who were already on the site, and from reading around, most of this meant chick flicks or vampires. I delved into both because coincidentally, I was going through my vampire phase. Two, I learned how to write as a habit because I usually would post a new section  every Saturday morning. I would sit at our family computer (ah, the time before my own laptop... good times) and crank out a chapter for a few hours. I wrote more in the summer, obviously, because I was free. After awhile, I became a beast at leaving cliff-hangers, but I never wanted to leave them for too long. I did end up with a few fans, and I didn't want to disappoint. Third and finally, I learned a bit about writing HTML.

Even then, I knew this was not much of an accomplishment because I would really just Google whatever I wanted to know. At the same time, though, I learned what made up my page and would change the font, color, background, and even some mood music to set the tone. I will admit I sometimes went a little overboard, but I would pull back if need be. I even added a few pictures and videos for good measure, all using the HTML code.

Fast forward back to present day, when I am now trying to learn more advanced code. One of my dear friends introduced me to Codecademy, which is a site that teaches you code in baby steps. I've fallen in love with it and do every lesson with vigor. I just finished the courses on HTML and CSS, which was half review because of what I've done before. I did enjoy CSS and am excited to continue learning random things!

Why bother, you ask? Well, since I learned HTML I have enjoyed playing around with websites and such. I also think that as the world becomes more digital, knowing more about computers is helpful. My laptop, Zachary, is also on Linux because of a few mishaps on Windows 7, so understanding a bit more code might also take away some of the fear of trying to fix my own problems. Finally, if I'm going to be a librarian of the future, I might as well keep up with the technology that will hopefully continue to integrate into my workplace. Really, that last one I just threw out there for good measure.