I have been trying to understand my reluctance to do a web page without instruction. I am suffering from guilt about not doing my work on time and in a correct academic fashion and it is plaguing me. Why am I balking so much about such a relatively simple thing. I know a lot of my feelings surround my need to be shown what to do and my lack of incentive towards experimentation with things I do not understand. For example, I had to read about powerpoint and then get a demonstration and an involved explanation before I was able to feel free enough to navigate the site alone. After the project was handed in and I looked over my fellow students work I realized that I could have done so much more. I knew about the techniques but it is almost as if I cannot do what I have not seen done. This seems to be a disadvantage in this particular situation which demand working with new and unknown technologies. Is my reluctance due to my preconceptions about technology or my abilities to use technology. Or do I feel apprehension simply because I am unskilled or untrained. I do not feel incompetent I feel frustrated becasue I know that once I feel OK I will sail along doing what needs to be done to accomplish the task. So how do I break free of this restriction. From the beginning I asked for help and the person I really counted on to help me, someone who actually has an operating web site made arrangement to help and then never showed up. When I asked my room mate he said he did not remember how and that I should try to learn it on my own. I asked a student in my media studies class who had said that she knew a lot about web pages but she was not interested in a collaberation and we were unable to meet for even the most rudimentary instruction. It seems as if whenever I tried to step outside of my rote learning practices I faltered and now I face having to do the task and no real confidence about the assignment. I have known from the beginning what I want my web page /newspaper to look like. if i could just do paste-up or even a collection of digital files I would be OK but it transferring it into a web page that is making me feel unabale. Anyhow, I am not letting this mysterious lack on my part stop me from trying my best. I have all of the componnenet parts to complete the task and I am going to spend the rest of my time learning as much as I can. My room mate has offered to sopend some time with me showing me some of the techniques but neither he nor I have ever used the linux-based openSuse OpenOffice Writer program which is the program for creating web pages on my KDE desktop.
Anyhow, I have an on-line exam all day tomorrow and then I am dedicating my time to manifesting my newspaper!!!!
Tags: term project
