Went to the first session of my web design evening class last night. I’ve been thinking about doing it for about three years. There isn’t an introductory course on the timetable, there’s ‘level 2’ and ‘level 3’ and they use Dreamweaver. When I first thought about doing it, we didn’t have Dreamweaver, and it’s so expensive couldn’t justify getting it. I’ve done a few websites, but self taught, and I’ve always used Frontpage, which we have anyway, I think it came with the computer. Then I got the student edition of DW included in Adobe SC3 which I got for my daughter when she started her graphic design course.
So I signed up for the level 2, hoping it would be OK. When I mentioned it at meditation group last week, one of my friends said: ‘You know all about that, you could give the course, couldn’t you?’ Well, nice of her to say, but of course I don’t, I’m pretty clueless really.
Anyway, went last night and of course I got there late, as always, only a few minutes but I guess the tutor had been saying something about the content, because he was saying ‘If anyone thinks this is going to be too basic for them and would like to switch to the Level 3 course there are some places available’. Then the level 3 tutor came in and said that she was having to start from the beginning anyway because she had some degree level students in the group who’d never done anything but were required to do the level 3 course, but that she’d be going through it quite fast. They said there would be no commitment to stick with it and we could swap back after the first couple of weeks if we decided we’d rather. I really liked her, so I thought I’d give it a try. I was glad I did because she’s great.
We spent the first half of the class going through all the introductory stuff about the college and also she spoke a bit about the history of the world wide web and Tim Berners-Lee. Then after the break she started us on html. I’ve never coded with html before, but it really is a doddle – well, obviously, what we were doing is very, very basic, but the basic concepts are really straightforward. She gave us an exercise to work through and some handouts. She also said at the end that the other class will spend 2-3 weeks going over what we covered last night, so I’m glad I swapped.
So, I have got another activity to add to all the others to try to keep me busy and my mind occupied and find ways of being happy and satisfied. Because I can’t see any way of changing my situation, for all the reason I gave yesterday, I have to find ways of distracting myself to try to make it as good as it can be. Of course, each new thing I take on leaves me less time for the others. But maybe out of all this mess I’ll find something worthwhile.