Love and Loss

Today I can't seem to push away all of the thoughts that linger in my head about some of the people in my life. I feel like I can't trust anybody. When I don't express these feelings with anyone they just build up inside of me. I feel like I don't have anyone close to me in my life.



I mean I have friends and I have family, but I just don't have deep feelings for anyone anymore. Its like the more I trust people the more I get hurt. The deeper I push myself into relationships of any kind, the deeper I get my feelings hurt.



I don't want to hurt anymore. I don't want to be unhappy.



I love myself so much. I care about me, so why doesn't anybody else?



How can you come inside of my life just to leave?



I want everybody that has ever hurt me to know that I hurt, too. I wish I could be like Alicia Keys' song "Superwoman" all of the time, but I can't. Its like I try. I try really hard, but its never good enough. I just don't know what to do. I'm crying right now.



All of this love is sitting inside of me and it can't wait to get out. I feel this really strong feeling, but I don't know if it is love or pain, because I have both of them.



God help me.

Now you see it, now you don't

Adding all of these women to my wiki is becoming more straining than I thought it would. I can't just take a woman's name and add it. I have to research them to see if the names that I find fit my category. They aren't always a woman just because they have feminine names, and they are always writers just because they have one or two printed works. Sometimes the written works are speeches or someone elses writings about them.

I wonder if anyone else is having the same problems that I am. The process is quite fun and educational but it takes a lot of time. Yesterday, my mom asked me how my classes are coming and I told her about the wiki that I am creating. She became very excited about it, but I won't let her look at it yet. "In due time", I told her. I don't think I will show the wiki off until I'm done with classes. That's fair right?

Slave Women Writers

Today during class I started adding data to one of my pages. I began to write on my page about slave women writers, although this is supposed to be for writers I also included women like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. I included them because their writings were very limited during the time they lived. Harriet Tubman's spirituals were a way of gathering slaves together, and this was an oral tradition. Sojourner Truth gave abolitionist and black women equality speeches, which were also orally presented. Paper and publishing was limited to both of them so I included them anyway.

It's only up from here because I've been to the bottom and I'm not going back. I got some positive feedback in class today about the front page of the wiki, and now I'm not as discouraged as I was before about the design and the layout. This is an educational wiki, so the information is the important thing, and not the layout. Now that I've got this boost of energy, nothing can stop me!

Design Versus Data

I think we are all having very similar problems. It seems that we have great content and information for our final projects, but we run into a block in the road when the servers don't do what we want. We all want our wiki's to be attractive and organized, but its hard! The easy part was collecting the data, and the more difficult part is trying to organize it in the way that we want it.
In reference to collecting data, I just realized I had this book called the "Call and Response Anthology", and it is perfect for my final project. It has various short stories, essays, and poetry written by the same group of women that my wiki is about. I am going to use this book as one of my main sources.
After I leave class today, one of my friends is going to come to my apartment to help me with my project. I think if I had someone with me while I am working on my project, I won't get distracted or discouraged and give up working on it. I don't know exactly what happens, but I sit down to work on the wiki, and I have these great ideas but something doesn't go the way I want and I get frustrated and give up. I know that if I have a plan to work on the project with someone, I will definitely get some work done.

Color is better, right?

Today in class I worked on making my wiki more attractive. I changed the color a little. It was white, and I couldn't keep the template that I liked to stay saved on the wiki. Somehow I figured out how to make the background gray though, so that's good.

I also worked on adding pictures. I didn't think I could add pictures unless they are mine, but I found out that I can. I have to give credit to the source of course, but I don't mind doing that. Wiki building just takes a lot of work. I can't wait until it gets so good that I can tell my mom to look at it!

Adding Links to the wiki

I just added links to my wiki. I don't know why, but I always feel like I am behind everyone else as far as building my wiki. I hope not. Anyway, I want to add color schemes and pictures to my wiki. I tried to add a new template and different colors, but they were only available to me for three hours unless I upgrade to silver! I also wanted to change the name of my wiki, because in the instructions it said that I could, but for some reason or another I can't change the name.

What is really in a name anyway? Everything!!! The name has to be perfect, because the wiki won't be perfect unless the name is perfect. I've emailed the pbwiki.com hosts to get this taken care of though.

Even though little things keep happening, I am not letting them stop the final project. Things are going to happen, and I realize that now. Its not ideal, but its okay. I recognize that I don't want it to happen then I simply move on.

I added time periods to the wiki and new pages from each of the time periods. Its going to be a successful wiki...I just know it.

Me, myself, and my wiki !!!

I came to the realization today, that I need to have some alone time with my wiki. I've just created it and already its being neglected. If I just spend time fooling around, I will begin to just figure it out. I wrote an email to my professor today that said when I began to create my wiki , I felt like "a fish thrown into the Atlantic Ocean". She immediately came to my side to assist, but I told her that I probably just needed to spend time fooling around. I will probably even mess up, but that is the only way to really learn.

I have found some examples and tips that pbwiki.com has for new wiki users. I just had to find them. I'm sure I will improve each day. What's wrong with a fish being thrown into the water anyway?

Time to Face the Facts

I've recently come to the sad reality that I will not be able to write very detailed biographies about the authors that will be included on my wiki. Honestly, biographies at this point, might not make the cut right now. I just got done reading a rather lengthy biography about Toni Morrison on wikipedia, and I don't think I will be able to do that for her and the other writers before this project is due.

What I think I will focus on over this next month is organizing the authors into various era's and time periods that they belong, and simply listing their works. There are just so many author's, and I want to make sure that I have enough authors included to compete with other databases. Possibly, I can have the best database of African-American female authors.

I don't want to totally forget about the biographies, but I will not include them before this class is over.

Another thing I want to include on the blog is literary readings of African-American females. As we all know, there are various ways in which one can interpret a piece of literature. I will discuss the different literary theories like feminism, black feminism, African feminism, womanism, and Africana Womanism. After being introduced to all of these theories, in my Africana Womanism class I was encouraged to make this wiki. Including these theories will make the wiki whole.

So Indecisive.

I can't believe I'm so indecisive.

I think I'm going to use pbwiki.com after all, for my project. If someone asked me "Didn't you say you weren't going to use pbwiki.com?", I would simply say "No, I didn't say I was going to use another server, I was just searching." My last post just gives it away that I'm an indecisive person. I couldn't really find another one to use, so I just went back to pbwiki.com and started writing on my wiki.

I developed a policy on my wiki called "TP", which stands for the truth policy. I only want facts displayed on the wiki, since it is for educational use. It will be good.

Back, back, forth, and forth....

I just realized that I don't have to use pbwiki as a wiki server. It was a great suggestion, because I didn't know of any other servers. I just googled wiki servers and many popped up. To be honest, pbwiki seems a bit complicated and I want something a lot easier, and free. I think that there are more tools available on pbwiki.com that they share with the paid members. I'm not willing to invest money in a wiki, so I need to find something that is more conducive to what I am looking for in a wiki server.

One good thing is that I think I have quite enough information to get started, so once I find the perfect wiki server, I can get started uploading information.

Getting hints for my wiki everywhere.

Today in class, I milled around on facebook for a while before I actually got started working on my wiki. I have created a wiki at pbwiki.com called blackwomenwriters.pbwiki.com. I wrote a few sentences on the front page just to see what it would look like, and it still looks quite dull to be honest. The whole wiki making process seems to be quite consuming. I now understand why Dr. Strickland is giving us so much time to complete our final projects.

I want to have a great wiki. Something like a database where people can go and look up African-American women writers and it be fun. I want to have information and fun stuff also. At the beginning of class when I was dabbling around, I was on facebook taking these quizzes that were really fun. I want quizzes on my wiki, too! The good thing about playing around on web 2.0 websites is that you get ideas for your own wiki.

Of course I want the wiki to be colorful, and I want to have separate areas like a photo gallery, a media area where there are constant updates, an about me sections that explains why I chose to do this; But at the same time I want this wiki to be educational. When I initially set up my wiki, I had to choose what type of wiki this would be. I eventually choose educational, because this project was initially for class and also because I want people to come here to learn.

To be honest, I am a little scared, because I have never done something so major on the Internet before. But I won't let that fear hinder me from creating a masterpiece. I am a procrastinator, but one thing I know about procrastinators is that we get the job done. Being a procrastinator makes you think a lot. I envision in my head how I want things to be when I get done before I actually start them. Once I have that vision in my head I can start to really get things going, but I usually do things in like one or two sittings. So I will use my blog as my thinking area, and then I will have an awesome wiki!

pbwiki.com

Oh my God! Guess what! I just created my very own wiki. I can't wait to tell all of my friends and family, I'm sure they will be so excited!

On a more serious note, I am happy that my dear classmate Juanita told me about pbwiki.com. Basically, this website guides you through making a wiki whether it is for individuals, a company, or educational use. I am so glad that I am able to place all of my information that I acquire on an actual site. This will make the whole project much easier, more organized, and more presentable.

Instead of just collecting data and saving it to my email, I think I will begin putting all of my information together sooner rather than later. I really am excited! :)

Wiki Building for Dummies

Okay we are all on our own now. I want this project to turn out successfully, but I'm unsure. If there is a website that everyone is going to to help them in the wiki making process, please fill me in! Has anyone found any especially good sites with wiki tips, or how to build a wiki?

Daily Blog Tips

I recently visited one of my favorite blogs, which is Daily blog tips and it gave me a really good piece of advise. It said to use names as much as you can when writing blogs. For example, if you are in a large room with a large amount of people you would use someone's name to grab their attention. This is the same way with blogs. If you are speaking to someone that posted recently, or if you are addressing the person that created a wiki, you should use their name.

By using someone's name on the internet it makes them respond more easily. When you think about it, how could you respond to someone if they don't use your name or address you. You can't in my opinion.