Makeover

Happy 2007! As you can see, dear reader (or readers, if I'm so blessed), though I neglected my blog for a couple of months, I have just given it a makeover for the new year. Not an Extreme Makeover. Just a little rearranging here and there. But oh! the difference to me, to quote Wordsworth loosely. I absolutely love playing with colors and design; so imagine my delight not only at discovering that the new Blogger enables more customizing, but also at happening upon a great site called HTML Station, which is beginning to unlock the mysteries of hexadecimal color codes for me. Whoo-hoo! (And I know I am the biggest nerd for being excited about this.) There's no telling what I might do next--maybe I'll actually learn how to write some of my own HTML code in the not-so-distant future! For now, I'm just happy playing with hex colors. (It sounded a bit like some kind of witch's curse to me, until I remembered that "hex " also means "six," as in, an alphanumeric code of six characters, based on the RGB color spectrum.)

I'm not just hexing around, though. I've also worked hard to create a color scheme that is (hopefully) more visually stimulating and appealing to the eye than the original. In addition, I've changed the typefaces to improve readability. *I* think Arial is a much cleaner typeface for body text than Trebuchet, its default predecessor; and Georgia gives the headings a bit of classy pizazz. However, it is my hope that even if you could care less about all this typeface babble (yes, I am a typeface geek as well), it will translate into better readability for you. So let me know what you think of Becoming Aly's new look--leave a comment. Constructive criticism is welcome. Rotten veggies or other forms of libel are not. As I become more HTML-literate, I will do more renovating.

And now I'll try to set aside my refurbished cliches and be serious for a moment. This is about more than just a visual makeover. The beginning of a new year is a popular time to reflect on what one has accomplished in the last year and what one hopes to change in the future. For one thing, I hope to establish some sort of regularity with my posts. I regret that I failed to post even once in December. But I have to remind myself that life isn't Hollywood cinema. I won't always have the time or energy to record every single discovery or achievement that excites me; forget the breathtaking orchestral score and the enhanced visual effects. Therefore, my blog will never read from beginning to (current) end in a perfectly seamless sequence of events. Rather, it's more like the pewter ashtray your Uncle So-and-so (who never remembers that you hate pewter and don't smoke) gave you for Christmas three years ago: it's just a hold-all for keys, after-dinner mints and spare change.

Keys, after-dinner mints and spare change have their place, though. I would like to share a few things I learned in 2006, which for the sake of my dear reader(s) I'll summarize:

About rhetoric
My first two classes of graduate school were surveys on rhetoric. I could go on and on about all the (truly) exciting nuggets I took away from them; but I'll spare you. The broadest, simplest definition of rhetoric is that it is the art of communication; and after reading all sorts of takes on it, from the philosophical to the sociological to the literary to the technical, I've learned to examine words and images in an entirely new way. My new favorite word is intertextuality. I can relate everything to intertextuality. Human existence is intertextual. And now I can see that I'm beginning to frighten you, so I'll leave it at that.

About working and going to school
As far as I can tell, there are no magic formulas for making it as a working student. The number one principle is perseverance: NEVER GIVE UP. I could tell you that I've learned the dummy's guide to slapping together a website, shooting and editing a video, writing a coherent paper about methodological and philosophical hermeneutics, reading 200 pages a week and commuting to night classes twice a week, all the while rolling out of bed and dragging myself to work five days a week. But the secret to all of those great mysteries is very simple and very boring: STAY UP LATE.

About myself
I am not as objective as I'd like to believe. Both personal experience and my study of rhetoric have taught me that no matter how much knowledge and insight I may have acquired, I can still turn up a blind spot the size of the Western Hemisphere.

Also, I have had no success at pigeon-holing myself. Maybe this is a good thing; but I'm slightly obsessed with naming and identification. Therefore, I get frustrated when I can't seem to fit all my scattered interests into one hat box and tie it up with a pretty ribbon. I've tried and tried, especially after my study of rhetoric, to find the one magic word that sums up my talents/interests/career direction/whatever. Communication, maybe? Or interpretation--not lingual translation, but interpretation of life through art, interpretation of cultures through diplomacy... I dunno. I'm almost as lost as you probably are, trying to make sense of this existential drivel. What I've decided for now is that I cannot and should not pin down my future. All I should focus on, as I said in my very first post for Becoming Aly, is learning to be myself. And this includes learning to be an artist, learning to be a communicator, learning to be, rather than aiming to produce art/communication/whatever and getting frustrated when I fail. As one of my former pastors has said, we're human beings, not human doings. Mainly I should just learn how to be alive. Living and being alive are two different things, I think.

And so, in conclusion...
If I can't change my situation or my circumstances, the only thing left to change is myself. Namely, my attitude. There's truth in the saying that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond. So, I hope to make over my attitude in this new year.

Both myself and my blog are works in progress. Stay tuned--but don't hold your breath. I'm just growing like a blade of grass. Slowly.