Kimberly Hirsh

#100DaysOfCode 1/100 Completed @freeCodeCamp Basic HTML & HTML5, Basic CSS, & Applied Visual Design.

Got excited about things that are more widely used than the last time I worked with CSS: border-radius, variables.

Had some trouble wrapping my head around HTML5 forms, since I’m a dinosaur and still have CGI code in my head… But I finally understood that label encompasses, you know, the label for the actual input element, and that name tells you, when you receive the submission, what the submitted input actually is answering… I think that in my own code, though, I’ll be commenting a LOT to keep all of these bits straight in my own head.

Drawing with CSS is blowing my mind. CSS interactions… I think if you couldn’t do it with CSS in 2002, I probably don’t know how to do it. Exciting to learn new stuff!

I’m publicly committing to the 100DaysOfCode Challenge starting today!  #100DaysOfCode

I did my first coding in BASIC as a reader of 3-2-1 Contact Magazine in the late 80s and early 90s. My dad was director of IT at a law school in the early 90s and responded to every complaint I had about not having access to Prodigy or AOL by telling me that the Web was where things were happening, not there. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but in 1995 my mom bought me a book about programming HTML for Netscape and I started building websites, first for local non-profits, then as fan endeavors. Sure, I ventured into the world of WYSIWYG page editors like Geocities, Angelfire, Microsoft Publisher, Adobe Dreamweaver, and Homestead. But I always came back to hand coding. By 2001, I had a personal domain and was using HTML, CSS,  and Javascript to develop a whole suite of fansites. I installed and troubleshooted Greymatter for my blog, but all the other pages were handcoded. I learned the basics of PHP so that I could serve dynamic pages and only have to update the content within a page when I wanted to make a change, and have the header, footer, and menus all be consistent throughout a site.

And then came WordPress.

I love WordPress.

But it made me lazy. Kind of.

Using WordPress is, I realize now after helping others with it, its own set of skills; it is not without a learning curve. But it doesn’t require me to know or use much code.

And I miss code.

Plus, WordPress is so much more customizable if you can code; you can create your own themes and plug-ins. Instead of shaking my fist when I want a functionality that’s not there, I’ll be able to build it. And, obviously, getting the skills needed for front end development has many benefits beyond just customizing WordPress.

The web WAS my job until 2015, but since then, all kinds of amazing developments have occurred and become widespread. (CSS Flex! CSS Grid!) I don’t know how to use them, and I want to.

So. To that end, and because I actually find coding relaxing - I once spent several hours of a vacation working through Codecademy courses - I’m committing myself to the #100DaysofCode challenge. I’ll be going through freeCodeCamp’s Responsive Web Design certification, because I’m rusty and want to get back to basics.

If this is something you have always wanted to try, why not start now? Join me!

Aquariums (American English plural) always feel like transcendent and magical spaces to me.

If MAGIC is aligning ENERGY with INTENTION in order to bring about CHANGE, VOTING is a MAGICAL ACT. Thank you for voting, for using your power to make the world a better place.

Brown Point Shoes Arrive, 200 Years After White Ones

Ballet dancers of color have long painted, dyed or covered point shoes in makeup to match their skin. Could this small barrier to inclusion finally be disappearing?

www.nytimes.com

When we would talk about examples of white privilege in our Project READY work, the fact that I can buy dance shoes close to my skin tone was one of my go-tos. It seems like nothing until you realize that dancers are spending hundreds of dollars and hours to modify pink or nude shoes.

Hi friends.

Here I’m declaring my intent to participate in #AcWriMo.

Here are my goals:

1. Revise and submit an article I've been working on for a long time.

2. Write the introductory overview to my comprehensive examination literature review package.

3. Create preliminary bibliographies for my comprehensive examination literature review package to share with my committee.

I recently wrote a six-page prospectus of my dissertation study. While it grew out of all the work I've done so far, it means that the many words I've already written and the unwritten-but-outlined parts of my comps either won't be used for this purpose or will be very much downplayed. I'm not starting from nothing, exactly, but there's a lot of work to do and not much time to do it.

To determine my goals, I looked realistically at my time constraints.

I have childcare five days a week for four hours a day. The first 30 minutes of that is usually settling in and the last is settling out, so really it’s three hours a day. I have a standing weekly meeting for the grant project that employs me, and writing isn’t the only work I need to get done in my childcare time. Because of travel, Thanksgiving, and meetings, I’ve only got 15 guaranteed writing days in November. (Other writing days are catch-as-catch-can; occasionally a grandma will offer a few hours of childcare or W. will take a long weekend stretch to solo parent, but those times aren’t predictable.) So aside from my task-related goals, I’m setting a goal for 15 hours of writing time this month. I’m not sure how long this overview needs to be, which is why I don’t have a word or page count goal.

Anyway, you heard it here: I’m doing #AcWriMo, but on my terms.

I was talking with some fellow co-working moms about matrescence and how it kind of shakes up everything you thought you wanted to do and how to figure out what to do next. I mentioned that I know a lot of books to help with this. (I didn’t mention that I’ve never finished reading any of them… which is kind of symptomatic of the problem they’re designed to address!)

But ANYWAY. I thought a blog post full of them might be helpful to more people than just other parents acting as primary caregivers trying to figure out their next steps, so here they are.

How to Be Everything: A Guide for Those Who (Still) Don’t Know What They Want to Be When They Grow Up by Emilie Wapnick. Also check out her website, Puttylike.

Refuse to Choose! Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams by Barbara Sher

The Firestarter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide to Creating Success on Your Own Terms and The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte

The Renaissance Soul: How to Make Your Passions Your Life–a Creative and Practical Guide by Margaret Lobenstine

Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans

Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One by Jenny Blake - this one’s got a tie-in podcast!

Hi yes @sfosternyc is 100% my pretend Broadway BFF.

Me: I think I’m going to embrace my age. I’m thinking of reading Marion Zimmer Bradley and Mercedes Lackey.

W: Are you a middle aged woman in the 1980s?

Hi there. I’m just over here working on my comps (makerspaces, gaming, fandom, theory, methods) and thinking applying @CrystleM’s dissertation work to the cosplay affinity space might be a good dissertation plan… What are YOU up to?