Category Archives: college

This is good for me.

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At least, I hope it is.

I can’t be too sure of anything anymore. I went from being confident in myself to learning too much and now I don’t know what I can really be sure of. It’s tough, but at least I’m not lying to myself like so much of the world. Seriously, do people actually believe all of the bullshit that they say? And that they hear other people say? I don’t know how you can take one person’s word over another anymore.

And that goes for the “highly educated” people, too. I mean, look at Michael Jackson’s doctors. At least one of them was found guilty of feeding him drugs. You can’t tell me that didn’t have ANYthing to do with money. Money was probably the biggest factor in it. He got rich prescribing drugs for MJ who then goes crazy and dies of an overdose. Poor bastard.

So we can’t even trust doctors, it seems. Sure there are some good ones out there, like your family physician. I don’t disbelieve you when you tell me he’s a good man and he takes care of you. But what about the rest of the world? To whom will they entrust their health to? Certainly not someone like Conrad Murray. Or at least you hope not.

So where was I? Oh yes, I think this blog is actually good for me. If I can get over the idea of having people read this. Even though it doesn’t seem like a lot of people do anyway, I just don’t want to embarrass myself like it seems I always do when I try something new. I just never really kept a diary (I tried repeatedly, but I couldn’t stay motivated to keep writing). I think this is the answer. The motivation I have is that the blog’s online and I don’t want my web presence to die out, so I keep writing… or tweeting… or sending pictures, etc. At least now I have a permanent home on the Internet.

I enjoy having my own website. Even if I didn’t build it from scratch. But I know how it works and I can maintain it myself. So there. And I’m not even halfway through my web design class. >-D

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What if I’m not inspired?

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What then?

I feel obligated sometimes to perform for the world. It’s just me, I’m sure. Then again, I have my doubts. The more I learn, the less I understand. Or something like that. The amount of information I am supposed to be processing is growing daily and I feel like I still have concepts from kindergarten that I haven’t firmly grasped yet. Can it be only me? I can’t believe so.

It felt great getting my AA. Once I knew my degree was as good as in my hands, the feeling was indescribable to anyone without a college education. Now, with my Bachelor’s program continuing on, I feel like I’m back to square one again. Feeling like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing but trying my best like I know how to do. That’s really all I know. And yet, again, I feel inadequate.

Some of it is the people around me. I am surrounded (and/or have been in the past) by who I consider intelligent, well-to-do, socially-acceptable people, and I continually feel like a failure. I never measure up, and what’s worse is that I really don’t have an acceptable outlet for my frustrations. I don’t feel like I can ever unload my feelings; they stay with me and will till I die. That’s not healthy. But that’s how I live. Cuz I don’t have a health care plan and I don’t have enough money to see a psychologist.

Which brings up a good point… what is the order of things that one is supposed to spend money on once one gets money after having not had money for a while? Right now, it’s gone rent, food, bus pass, fun, where saving for a car is supposed to be in there somewhere, as is finding a better place to pay rent. But I’m picky about where I live… it’s either nice or I’ll take what I can get… unfortunately that’s not conducive to getting what I really WANT, which is land and a place to build my own homestead. Maybe I’ll start a kickstarter project for building the house of the future. Hmmmm… good idea.

Thanks for the inspiration. I think that’s about what I needed.

The future of my online self

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This post is about what I want digitalRyan.com to become. Ryan keep left

I hadn’t quite thought about it to the fullest extent that I should (and probably never will), but I really ought to give some serious thinking time to what I want to accomplish with my own web domain.

Historically, I have wanted to host a website with the intention of showing off things that I found on the web. At the age of 11, I was designing HTML pages with Frontpage with all my Simpsons GIFs, WAV files, and writing Virtual Springfield walkthroughs… all for naught because I didn’t know how to register a domain much less get the content online. I resorted to very crappy Geocities sites which didn’t provide a fraction of as much creativity power that I possess now with all I’ve learned since then.

So now that I know how to publish a site with all the cool-looking widgets about my Twitter feed, Twitpics contributions, foursquare check-ins and badges, and blog posts… what next?

  • I want to detail the plans I have for my House of the Future (home automation with Aruduino, X10, and other electronics), so I suppose that’s a place to start.
  • I registered a Dozuki site on a subdomain to create online guides for God-knows-what, so I could work on authoring some sweet step-by-steps to show people how to do something.
  • I am passionate about a great many topics, some more controversial than others. I could start writing about those. Problem is, I don’t want to ostracize myself from certain social groups because of ideologies. It’s not that I’m ashamed. I just realize there is a time and place for all kinds of discussions and I don’t like being bombarded with people’s beliefs so I won’t do it to others.
  • I’m still in school – I’m using the back end of my site to practice in my web design class. CSS and XHTML is much easier to test when it’s live on a site and you can upload quickly via FTP.

So what to do? I guess I have all kinds of options. As Yogi Berra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

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Real world experience in my own world

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I decided a week or so ago to start building out this site (digitalryan.com) with the intention of having my own cute little blog site complete with dynamic updated widgets of my current social media accounts so I could use the web and have all my content (more or less) end up here.

So far, so good. I have done that, and have now begun my web design class which is teaching me how to develop xhtml and css. I am working through the textbook (in pdf format because I go to school online at phoenix.edu) and I love the fact that I can FTP my files to a real site and have a chance to experience this education first-hand. Not only am I learning and designing, but the pages are live on my site!

I know I’m just excited, and this really doesn’t mean a great deal to many that have been there before me, but I am really enjoying myself while getting an education. And that matters.

If you’re interested:
University of Phoenix IT Bachelors Program – Networking and Telecommunications

Web Design

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Typically I would be sleeping at this time of night.

I just finished my Business Systems class which was more of a pain in the ass than most of my classes so far. It was quite a relief to get it out of the way. I did enjoy the last three days of it, though, because my Learning Team and I really pulled together and got the paper and PowerPoint done.

My counselor recently enlightened me to the fact that I can take a week off in between classes. Thus, I am taking this next week off to prepare for my next class: Web Design I. I have already begun reading the very long PDF of one of my textbooks and I have high hopes for this class. Finally, a chance to learn what I enrolled in school to do.

Anyway, I’ll go to sleep and let Filezilla continue uploading to the back end of the site. I’m really enjoying having my own web space – another opportunity to grow online.