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December 14, 1998

Heavenly Awards

Iko the shiny-nosed programmer.. Don't I look terribly sleepy? I am. I had very little sleep last night, updating my site and.. well.. whenever I update the content on my site, I always seem to go through a period of surfing for awards and other webrings and submit my site. I spent some time finding awards that I've encountered before and liked and feel that my site, with the new redesign, is worthy of inclusion among them. Perhaps my new site design will get a nod from Design Diva. I submitted [woolgathering]. Hmm.. I applied for two web awards. I've been to Glenn's site before but never had the gumption to apply. I hope he likes the site design. <bites nails> I feel as nervous as I did when I was applying for college. I find my brain telling me different things. There's a voice in my head that is saying, "Hey iko, don't sweat it. Your design is really cute and I'm sure they like it." Another: "It doesn't matter what you get, iko. Isn't submitting it empowering? You did a great job and you're proud of what you've done. The gesture of submitting is more for yourself affirmation that the award." I hear Melanie Lynskey's voice[1] chimes in, "If you don't get the award, dearie, then they simply cannot appreciate your genius." Doesn't that sound awful? I don't think there is anything wrong with vanity, as long as you are willing to take constructive criticism, which I am. But I try to stay humble. Humility is a trait I admire in others and I try to be as humble as I can. The problem then becomes when it becomes too severe and I feel like I can do nothing right. I try to keep a happy balance. Be proud of your accomplishments, iko, because you did the best that you could do and if others recognize yourself for it, wonderful!. If they don't that's okay and live in the knowledge that you did your personal best. I submitted an entry for fiesty and received the award (yay! talk about fast service). A large number of fellow webgoddesses are associated with that. That got me thinking... I emailed webgoddess today to see if she wanted to expand the webgoddess community into something more than the webring it currently is. She wrote back to me saying that she was very busy and couldn't do anything of the sort really... but I was welcome to mail webgoddesses and see if any of them were interested in joining. I spent some time today compiling the email addresses of what I considered "active webgoddesses". The ones that update their content regularly or do some nifty programming tricks. I'm not exactly sure what to write to them, but the gist of what I'd like to write is to ask if any of them wanted to form an online community, where we would help each other and evaluate each other's sites, etc. Sometime so that we could possibly get to know each other better. Network stuff. Anyway, I thought about how I would word the email all day and I couldn't come to a satisfying message... so now I've got the email message of about two dozen email addresses of some wonderful web developers. Perhaps inspiration will hit me in the future. I also applied for another webring: GeekGoddess and quickly was accepted to that ring. It is the "smaller sibling" of the WebGoddess ring so, I felt sure that I would receive it. With a name like "GeekGoddess", I just had to join! I know it sounds strange to think of myself as a "geek" and I've been told by coworkers that I shouldn't think of myself in such negative terms... but I don't think it is particularly negative. I think it's an accurate description of what I am and what I do and my general outlook on life. It's the only explanation for my love-affaire with my computer. I can handle the truth! flaunt is another site I stumbled upon. The proprietress of the site is accepting submissions for a new site titled ember and I am thinking of submitting something. Ember.org is a project where the proprietress is collecting stories of "first loves". It got me thinking about first love. I remember when I was younger and at the time I felt like I was "in love", but I really wasn't. It was primarily infatuation and adoration but not what I now define as love. Mike is the first person that I really loved as a partner. [1] Melanie Lynskey is the actress that plays Pauline Parker in the movie Heavenly Creatures. Constant Reader, if you have never heard of the movie, go out and rent it now. It speaks to me very strongly and ever since I saw the movie for the first time, the two principal characters have made themselves at home in my head. I hear the two of them (Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, played by Kate Winslet of Titanic fame... you want to see good acting? Watch her in this. Her performance in Titanic isn't as wonderful as the performance she gives in this delightful movie) giving me advice, giving me pats on the back, etc. The movie has the two characters, intelligent and quirky and ostracized, becoming best friends and in the madness of their teen years, kills one of their mothers in hopes to stay together. I identify with them because when I was younger, I was set apart from other people and I like to think of myself as bright and intelligent and proud of it... that the mark of intelligence will be exclusion. That's not true, definitely, but I still like to think about it in that respect. Deliberate disillusion, I call it. In any case, the characters are now in my head and they rub my ego every once in a while with their pouty hautiness and self-righteousness. I generally am a nice person, however! We all have our little demons. My demons have huge egos.

© Copyright 1998, Eileene Coscolluela
[woolgathering]