Chapter 9

I have been working on Chapter 9 for two hours this morning. I have gotten through 11 pages. On top of that, not all of my exercises are turning out correctly.

This is a new learning experience for me; I am usually not this uncomfortable, slow, or out of my element. I get more behind each week, which causes dread to creep up. I feel compelled to write about this so that I can try to assimilate this new experience into something I regard as positive. I'm the kind of person who still has dreams about not making it through a crucial class in high school, so this steady falling behind is a struggle. But what else can I do? I have to spend enough time to try to make sense of this. I was picking up little pieces of the puzzle as I went along, but now I'm wishing I could go back to the beginning of the book and start over. Then I would build a more complete picture. But how can I when it takes two hours to get through new material?

I have revisited chapter 6 in bits and pieces, but I think it would help me to read that whole thing again now. I think that is the compromise I will make. I will go back to Chapter 6, and then continue plodding along through Chapter 8.

Meanwhile, though I very much enjoy the Principles book, I am still in the middle of Chapter 1. I feel like my struggle with learning the rudiments of Creating Web Sites takes precedence right now. There will be more of a point to understanding the elements of design when I can actually apply them.