It’s been a little over a month since I updated farawaywords, and I assure you that I have a good excuse…well, just look around! This would be the 11th iteration of the website, and it’s brought me a lot of pride. It’s the second layout that hasn’t been a copy/paste/edit, so what I mean by that is, it’s the second kristopher-developed theme. Cheers!

The name of this theme is Reformation for the fact that this theme not only has a completely different look & feel but a different methodology behind its creation. The type being manipulated in the header is Helvetica Neue, meanwhile the types used for the website are Century Gothic and Helvetica / Arial. I wanted this theme to stray away from heavy image use, especially for the header and menu text, and I think I achieved my goal but the viewers will be the judge of that. There are two accent colors, mostly used for main headlines and links- the hexadecimal representation of Pantone 7546C (main headlines, non-links) and Pantone 652C (links). I’ve added a new feature to entries, the ‘Entry Abstract’ which from now on should have a summary of the entry. I finally re-added my flickr feed, so that’s exciting from my standpoint. I’m going to re-write the About page, fix the Links page and make sure that the Writings page is up-to-date.

Also, a new goal as a blogger is to write a weekly, or perhaps bi-weekly article relating to design. I feel like I’ve been writing too many angst-filled rants and it’s time to gain some active readers!

Why have I been gone?

There’s two reasons as to why I’ve been absent.

The first reason is that I’ve been extremely busy with college, and granted my work load isn’t as much as the foundation kids, it certainly hasn’t been a light or easy load. I’ve been doing a lot of programming, print screens as well as feeling the cruel touch of perfecting my execution skills.

The second reason is that I’ve been avoiding farawaywords and have actively writing in my journal. Not everything I write in there is significantly long, a lot of things are a few sentences of thoughts that I just needed to write so I could get them out of my head. I’ve been doing this and purposely avoiding faraway because I didn’t want people knowing what’s been going on with me for the last month, at least not inside my head.

What HAS happened?

I’ll do a quick recap of what’s occurred the last month…

• I’ve been single but have been going on several dates
• I’ve been going to college and received A’s on my midterm projects!
• I had food poisoning and have been sick for the last two weeks, but I’m getting better!
• I’ve been baking lots of cakes
• I do not have AIDS/HIV

I don’t expect myself to be getting any breaks from classes, considering that the semester ends in roughly three weeks, more or less. I have my final projects and essays from four (out of five) of my classes so far. And only now, when I type that out, do I really feel the full effects of what that means. I would say that my progress is behind what it should be, so I’ll have to make up for that quickly.

This last month I’ve spoken with my mother more than I have most months, and by spoken with, I mean in-depth conversations that have an influence on me when they’re over. I feel myself listening to my mother more, as if a part of me is finally saying “Wow, she’s right…” It’s also made me feel somewhat retarded too. Of course we spoke of my break-up with Brandon, and I explained to her how I felt bad and wanted to talk to him so I could just make things better, and she shot that idea down, saying it wouldn’t be fair and I should just cut him out now. In a way I agree, a part of me disagrees but that’s because I want to believe that ex’s can be friends, close friends, but looking back it took me several years to talk to Corey and Brando without feeling bitter, it would take me even longer to talk to Brandon and not feel bitter or angry.

Then I told her that by going out with Brandon, I ruined an opportunity I had with someone else. In a nice way of saying it, she called me a fucking retard (remember, that’s the nice way of saying it). I don’t disagree with her, I really regret that choice but nothing happens from regretting things. It’s already been done. But what I can do, is change things…or at least I think I can. There’s a piece of me that wants to believe more than anything that I can get another shot, so I’ll just go with the flow and let things speak for themselves.

My mom also decided to explain to me again the story of my upbringing and why exactly I was sent to live with my father. She also told me that she regrets not being able to give me what my little brother and sister have. I told her that regardless I’m grateful, and she’s given me more than she thinks. Looking back to what I used to be like in eighth and ninth grade, I have changed incredibly so. I can really say that I love my family more than my friends, at least my mother, step-father and siblings; which is a drastic change, considering I told my mother that I didn’t need her since I had my friends. So on that note, i reiterated to her that I was grateful and that I love her for all that she’s done for me.

The last few weeks I’ve been going out a lot, not with several boys, just one. His name is Chris, I know, it’s such a laugh: Kris & Chris. In any case, it’s been interesting and somewhat positive but we both discussed not wanting a relationship since we both came out of a serious relationship. I wonder if I’ll ever want to have one with Chris, and I don’t think I do only because I just don’t want a relationship right now…at least now with someone I just met.

And I will leave you all with a nice little work I programmed in Processing: click here (opens in a new window)