I did it, fellow recruits….I survived Bootcamp! Sure I felt like I was going to lose an eye after being attacked by a flock of wild WordPress crows, but they were no match for my semi-automatic CSS rifles! The intense 4 mile runs over GIF Hill provided a challenge, but I successfully ran the course and even helped my other comrades on their feet if they happened to fall into a few mud pits. Teamwork makes the team work! Speaking of my comrades, I now have a much better understanding of who some of them are; even some that were too shy the first week to speak up finally began showing their faces! Two weeks of the DS106 army’s obstacle courses have now been completed, and now it’s smoother sailing from here

Now to tell you a bit about how I designed my website. Since I’d already created a domain last semester and learned how to create subdomains with it, the first task of linking my DS106 blog to my main Miss Amber May site was a breeze. The challenge, however, was when I couldn’t find the same theme I used for my main domain (Atmosphere 2010) and I ended up having to work with whatever theme was the closest to it. In order to make the theme seem similar to the parent site, I altered some of the theme’s CSS to change the color of the hyperlinks. I was also successfully able to create a forwarding address to my school email, which is much more formal sounding than my other addresses. This address can be found on the contact page of my main website. The title of my site is called DS106: Miss Amber May’s Blog, yet on the course blog, it is only seen as “DS106.” I figured out that it is only shown like this because the blog doesn’t show the tagline of the site. I didn’t want to include “Miss Amber May” again in the title because there is already an image in the header that conveys the same message. Last semester, when I first began customizing my website, I learned that Akismet is a lifesaver! Before I added it to my plug-ins, I’d began getting spam message after spam message, and by the end of that first week, I’d had at least 85 messages from random bots wanting me to buy their products! USE AKISMET! Although my blog may look finished, it is in no way finalized. I plan to continuously add entries to it, add more plug-ins if needed, and change the overall look in the future depending on if my personality changes (which it most likely will!)

The assignments for this week were a bit tougher than last week, but nothing to lose my head over…yet. I decided to knock out the GIF first (the same day it was issued) so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it throughout the week. The image is called “The Django Stare” and I got the idea from watching Django: Unchained with a friend of mine last weekend. I outlined how I created this image in Photoshop on a separate blog post earlier this week.

The 3 Daily Creates I made this week were Sunday’s (Create a Pun), Tuesday’s (Favorite Monologue Minus the 3rd Word), and Thursday’s (Photo of Breakfast Beverage).

For Sunday (“Punday”), I thought of a silly pun introducing a few works of Vincent Van Gogh seen below. I got this idea randomly as I was drinking my Beverage of Champions (see last Create entry below.)

For Tuesday’s assignment, I recited my favorite monologue from the movie Angels in America and removed every third word in the statement. During this scene, Belize explains to Louis how he hates the way America works and how society is forced to succumb to big businesses and those with higher social statuses.

“You know _ your problem _, Louis? Your _ is that _ are so _ of piping _ crap that _ mention of _ name draws _. Up in _ air, just _ that angel, _ far off _ earth to _ out the _. Louis and _Big Ideas. _ Ideas are _ you love.”__” is what _ loves. Well _ hate America, _. I hate _country. It’s _ big ideas, _ stories, and _ dying, and _like you._ cracker who _ the national _ knew what _ was doing. _ set the _”free” to _ note so _nobody can _ it. That _ deliberate. Nothing _ earth sounds _ like freedom _ me.You _ with me _ room 1013 _ at the _, I’ll show _ America. Terminal, _, and mean. I _ in America, _, that’s hard _, I don’t _ to love _. You do _. Everybody’s got _ love something.”

The last Create I made was a photo called “Breakfast Beverage of Champions,” which is a picture of my favorite beverage…water. Okay, so maybe it isn’t my favorite, but since it’s all I can afford at the moment, then it’s the best drink on the planet!

This week was busy, but in the end I came out on top with a successful website that accurately reflects my personality, three sensational daily creates, and a GIF that could stop a varmint in its tracks! Bootcamp was tough, but I’m tougher! Bring it on, next week!!