Its the final week of class and my final week as an undergrad student here at York and I’m having mixed feeling about it.

Nonetheless, CT 101 was a cherry on the top of my final semester as an undergrad. CT101 aka “Digital Storytelling” class took me through an excursion I was anxious about in view of clear reasons. As I have referenced a couple of times previously, I am not at all creative or so tech-savvy by any means. Yet, I delighted in acquiring minimal technological complexities in this class *cough cough* CODING.

I became addicted with including GIFs and hyperlinking everything just to get my point across. CT 101 caused me to understand that the web is a foundation of limitless freedoms exceptionally assuming you have an inventive attitude. Beginning from making GIFs, images to tweaking my own site I didn’t see myself here prior to taking this class. The motivation behind this class was to extend our inventiveness even a little with every task. Prior too taking this course, I never actually thought about how memes and GIFs are “art.” After watching this video:

it prompted me to think outside of the box and look at what art really is. Arts is not just the Stary Night by Van Goh,

“The goal of art is to express a person’s truth, and if the purpose of art is art, then memes fit the bill.”

Prof. Seslow urged us to communicate our imaginative personalities on each blog entry. We were urged to utilize the immense choices out there on the web to be inventive, innovative, and expressive with regards to them.

Will Jida Styles Live On?

I hope to continue blogging on the site and expand on my creativity. I would like to set time aside to learn about the other features on WordPres. There are SO many plug-ins that I have yet to use and I am sure it will take my website to a different level.

Since I am using the theme “Ashe” I need to learn about all the features to use it to its fullest.I found this video on YouTube explaining how to use the theme:

Blogging is  very therapeutic for me. I don’t have anyone telling  what I can or cannot do! There are no rules, there are no actual restrictions. It’s just a little world I like to escape into.

Self-Assessment 

This is always a tricky part for me because when I am actually doing my work I don’t ever stop to realize how I’ve grown in my creativity. Before I go any further, I’d like to link all of my blogposts here to make life easier:

Blogpost 1

Blogpost 2

Blogpost 4

Blogpost 5

Blogpost 6

Blogpost 7

Blogpost8

Blogpost 9

Blogpost 10 Part 1

Blogpost 10 Part 2

Blogpost 11

Judging from my first post to the 10th post, I can firmly say that I have improved tremendously. As someone who couldn’t care less about hyperlinks and its importance to someone who cannot function without making sure her audience gets the full deal it’s surprising. With all that being said, I believe I deserve an A-A+. 

 

Tour of My Site

Homepage: 

About Page:

Blog Page:

Links To Fashion Page:

The Links To Fashion page are just stores that I believe have the best “modest” clothing or clothing that allows you to be different and play around with styles. I have copied in the images from Google and then hyperlinked the websites with the images so the user can be redirect to the shopping sites.

Left Side Widgets

 Home Decor Inspo:

and that’s a wrap of my tour, I hope you enjoyed the aesthetics.

I took the time and looked through some of my fellow classmates websites, and I am super impressed! The creativity is spot on and I don’t I would have been able to come up with some of these ideas.

Brandon’s website which is: Jaimuslux main objective is about music. Upon arriving to the homepage of his site, I automatically fell for the Dino trap and spent like 20 minutes playing the game while listening to the song of the week!

Brandon’s website allowed me to discover a new artist that I have never listened to before and I’m excited to discover more musics from this artisit. 

Another classmates website I surfed through was Alejandra: Alejandra’s Creativity.

Her thought of creating  a recommendation tab was vey unique!

I am usually busy with work and I don’t get to listen or discover the new musics that’s released and after reading Alejandra’s list, I added some new music to my library!

On that note, make sure to check out my new blog post @ jidastyles.com!

It’s not what you think guys- I’m back to talking about my neutral palette. My website is starting to come together, especially after posting my first blog post!

Synopsis 

Winter is finally here and I am all for winter fashion. I’m one of those that loves to layer clothing. Each season or year has its own trends and it seems like 2021 was all about brining back the 70’s-90’s vibes. I mean, the bootcut and yoga pants, with halter tops, and beaded necklaces are really giving off a vibe and lets not forget about the chunky bratz doll boots!

BUT, it can become costly while trying to keep up with trends. I believe having staple pieces in ones wardrobe is crucial. I’m talking about the solid color shirts (long sleeves, turtlenecks, basics crewnecks) and the solid color pants (of course neutral or black!).

I displayed direct links of where to shop from with some explanations as well and ended my blog post off with drakes song.

 

Hi besties, we’re in our final month of the semester and I’ve been avoiding my website

It’s not that I didn’t want to do it, it was just overwhelming because there is just SO many things to explore within WordPress!

But after two days of exploring (I still didn’t;t get through everything), I figured out somethings I liked and didn’t like.

I started off with my website using the new block editor instead of the Classic editor, but I felt like an odd ball and wanted to use the editor the Prof. Seslow suggested. BUT I ended up liking the new block editor because I became more comfortable with it.

As for plug-ins,

I downloaded a lot of Fonts, however, some of them were not compatible with the 2021 theme OR they were just complicated to instal *rolls eyes*.

However, I really want to change the fonts on my pages so I might take another shot at it again, to please my aesthetic urge.

I had a good experience while editing my website. I did come across minor obstacles that I was able to resolve myself. It just took some time to figure out as I was playing around with the different features.

Before playing around with the features, I thought:

So I Can’t Add GIF’s? 

I mean I was really confused because I basically live off of GIF’s. But then I figured it out!

First:

Second:

Third:

 

 

 

 

 

Guess whose the new boss baby in town? This gal!

I AM FINALLY A DOMAIN OWNER OF jidastyles.com! 

Thoughts before registering:

I was nervous. Although Prof.Seslow showed the class a demo of what how to register our domain name, I thought I’d still screw it up because I screw up everything else I try to do .

Thoughts While Watching The Demo: OH, it’s pretty standard. I was super excited when I saw that my domain was available. I was also proud of myself for getting it done and NOT messing up.

Thoughts While Watching The Customizing Part of Demo: 

Okay so this is the hard part. Although I already know the theme, it’s just a matter of how to make everything look appealing while intreating with the user, but that’s part of the process.

So we’re up to the part where we create a website and I’m just like

The moment I’ve been dreading BUT ONLY BECAUSE I AM SCARED *sheds a tear*. 

The first step before I even start anything is creating a domain. As google stated, a domain is supposed to be something unique or easy-to- remember…. so I’m going to attempt to be “unique” even though I am THEE most basic person ever, #simplicity. 

1. www.browngirlmakingherstory.com

2. www.herstrory.com

3. www.jidac.com

4. www.jidastyles.com

5. www.slayherstyle.com

Above are some examples that I brainstormed ideas for my potential domain. Essentially, these names are all trying to tell a story through a picture. I have two ideas as to what I would want to represent my “digital self.”

STYLE INSPO (WEST & EAST)

I would like to blog about the latest fashion trends and curate outfits. Each day would highlight  a different product to style. For example, “How to style a leather jacket,” and then follow up with a bunch of inspo outfits that have been worn by influencers, celebrity , *cough cough* ME.

I got this idea from my favorite stylist on instagram, styledbyflorencia.

HOME DECOR DESIGN 

OR I would like to blog about home decor! Yes, I’m like the grandma that loves going to Home Goods or Target and spending an hour in the store window shopping.

My favorite home blogger, Nabela Noor Home inspired me for this idea. I don’t live in a spacious home, but I am all about making use with what I have. In my spare time, I scroll through home decor pages on Instagram and just fantasize about how I would design and decorate my future home AND I AM SURE EVERYONE DOES THIS ON THEIR SPARE TIME.

50 SHADES OF NUDES? YES, PLEASE!

Yes, I said it. I LOVE neutral colors. The color palettes are very versatile for EVERY. SINGLE. SEASON. So I already knew that the colors will neutral. Maybe I will add random pops of color (slim chance, but willing to step out of my comfort zone). 

 

Although there are many sites that are all about style inspo for clothes and home decor, these are two of many things that excite me the most.

When it cokes to fashion, I always struggled with what to wear growing up in a South Asian as well as faith following household. But I finally mastered it. I aspire to to create modest fashion for those who are like me, which makes it unique in my perspective. I am excited but also nervous to have this kind of ownership. 

 

Self-reflection, great. Perfect time to boast about myself!

CT101 is one of the best classes I am taking thus far (as I mentioned like 190490182 times because that’s how serious I am!), but I just wish I was not taking this class with a bunch of other classes that follow traditional protocol when it comes to assignments. Taking traditional classes that have their own structure makes it difficult to think on your own sometimes because students are so used to depending on articles or a textbook for giving them food for thought. But in CT101, I feel free. I have the freedom to choose what I want to write about and then structure it the way I write it in the blog post.

Moving onto the grade. 

I believe I deserve an A-/B+. Prior to taking this course, I had no exposure to blog posting, WordPress, accessing GIPHY, or even creating memes. In my (1) first blog post, I have talked about my favorite app which is Instagram. In this blog post, I did the bare minimum by just screenshotting my explore feed and taking a meme from google🤦‍♀️. After receiving feedback from Prof.Seslow, I tried to incorporate it in my (2) second blog post.  I have added captions under all of the media so I can give more context on why I have added it or my emotions in general. Along with that, I have used GIPHY and Imgur for the first time and tried to take full advantage of it by being humorous in this post, because when one thinks of GIF’s they think about laughter. I am no comedian, so the GIFs really came in my favor.

Okay, so I totally didn’t see the third assignment and confused the fourth blog post with the third… So, I’m going to take an L on that but I will be making it up! My (4) fourth blog post is describing if whether memes are art or not and the answer is obviously yes but in this post, I stepped out of my comfort zone and embedded a Youtube video, “Are LOLCats and Internet Memes Art?” as well as quoting  Mike Rugnetta to elaborate on my answer.  My (5) fifth blog post was very personal and this is the assignment where I started to fall behind because it was taking me a while to complete. I wanted it to look like Prof.Seslow but it just was not working out. After setting some time aside during my day off from work, I spent almost 4 hours trying to put it together. Although I could’ve done better on the presentation, the meaning behind everything hit home *literally*.

There are so many skills that I have learned, but a pretty basic one that I now use religiously is command+k, this allows me to quickly paste my hyperlinks. During one of the sessions in class, I saw Prof.Seslow do this and was amazed.

Like it is something so simple but yet SO useful! Hyperlinking just go so much easier for me. Besides this, I started to use GIPHY much more as well. It almost feels wrong not using a GIF in my posts now because the animation puts everything in place. I am still working on how to embed the GIFs that are short clips of people talking from a certain scene. For some reason, it doesn’t work when I try to post it in my blogs.

What can I do to be better?

One thing I can work on is commenting on my peers’ posts or responding to comments in general. I often forget that after posting my blog I should look through the other posts and leave a comment. I have posted a few comments but it is not enough for my own satisfaction.

Overall, I believe my blog posts are getting better. When I compare my first blog post with the fifth one, there is a HUGE difference!

Although I have improved, I am still getting better. I am still trying to learn what it takes to make a blog post truly stand out. What techniques can I use? Which words are eye-catchers?

When  I used the mmm.page for the first time, I was completely lost . I had no idea on what to do and then told myself, “thank goodness Prof. Seslow records the tutorials for these things.”

Once I created the account, I knew I wanted this collage to be about my mom. I tried to use the given links like Pixbay but I was unable to find photos that went with the aesthetic I was looking for.

When I searched “South Asian modern art” on Pixbay, this is what the results populated:

I then resorted to Pinterest , where I was able to find fun pop art that was modern and relatable to my life.

In my collage, I wanted to insert a GIPHY that showed Biman Bangladesh taking off, but mmm.page was not allowing me to do that. I tried many times but it showed me this:

So instead I inserted the Emirates plane because normally that would be the plane that we take when traveling back and forth from Bangladesh.

My favorite feature of the mmm.page is the lock button (although I always forgot to press it and kept shifting everything). It kept everything in place and made my life SO much easier.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with this assignment because this is one time I got to sit down and brainstorm about my life, and then I took a look at my mom while she was making me breakfast and then realized that she is my inspiration.

https://mmm.page/shanjidac.browngirlmakingherstory

My mom is my inspiration. She’s been my inspiration since the day I started understanding the situations she’s put up with. My mom wanted to protect my sisters and my childhood but there were many obstacles in our lives where the power was not on our side, but instead the extended family we lived with. Like any typical Bengali women from the golden days, my mom got married at the age 18 (right after her birthday), she was the eldest girl in her family so it was time. But my mom really wanted to become a teacher, but her parents had other plans instead…marriage.

The conventional South Asian family is seen as a joint, expanded patrilocal social unit where at least two ages or direct relations, who are associated by blood or potentially relationship live respectively. It is seen that ladies infer worth and status just as mothers of children, thus their happiness and (minimal) power within the intimate family is subject to this. With the introduction of a child, a daughter- in-law lives in anticipation of one day becoming a powerful mother-in-law, eventually superseding the power and control of her mother-in-law. From this standpoint, different conflicts and strains can arise within the mother-and daughter- in-law relationship. For instance, the mother-in-law, having experienced the hardships of being a submissive daughter in-law herself, comes to relate to the very customs that demonstrated so severe during her own childhood since she is a ‘recipient of these practices.’ 

Growing up in a Bangladeshi family, life was challenging to say the least. In my culture, having a son is seen as a true blessing while having a daughter is quite the opposite; a burden. Considering my father was the oldest of his six siblings, having three daughters caused us to be looked down upon. There was no male “heir-to-the-throne, ” causing his family to doubt the success of me and my sisters.

But she was like a shield protecting us from the sharp words that were always being said about us. 

As we got older by the years and started to understand our toxic surroundings, and anytime we wanted to speak up for our mom, she’ll always shut us up with  “Have Sabr.” 

Today, my older sister is an RN (registered nurse), I finish college this December with a BS in Information Systems Management (with hopes of being a data analyst in the Aviation field), and my younger sister is pursing her B.S. in Biology and then going onto P.A. school. Not to toot our own horn but momma was right, “Indeed Allah is with the patient ,” (Quran 2.153).

Do I think meme is art? Hells yes.

I already knew my answer was going to be yes when Prof. Seslow introduced this assignment to us but I was curious to see what popped up on google when I searched, “meme is art.” The results were oddly satisfying to look at because when I looked at the images that related with the search, everything looked so familiar. I was not lost nor did I feel like an outcast for not recognizing anything.

 

The goal of art is to express a person’s truth, and if the purpose of art is art, then memes fit the bill. As an example, consider the works of art exhibited on the Internet as cultural icons. After watching,

Mike Rugnetta, the host said, “But wait, people are creating images and sharing them with strangers for the purposes  of communicating their personal experiences? That my friends, is art, plain and simple.” I couldn’t have agreed more with this statement. 

Memes have gotten me through my days when I wasn’t able to articulate my feelings through my own words. It helps people describe past memories and experiences they had with people in their life. When you share it with your followers on instagram  you see the instant connections with people you don’t even know.

 

… I thought I’d join the revolution of art by creating my own meme. Yes, I know its not like the cool animated ones but trust the process!

 

 

First day of CT101, seemed a bit fancy for me. I was so used to taking structured courses that being in a class that focused on the creative aspect of technology was a bit weird.

“Okay so what’s the catch? What language are we going to use to code these things?” *rolls eyes back to the brain trying to find any knowledge left from SQL class *  But Prof.Seslow’s reassurance on this class not being hefty on coding made me feel so much more relieved.

Although I was relieved, I am still super nervous about this class. This is a class where I want to retain the new skills that I learn so I can use it in the real world. Not only that but I want to witness my growth.

Growing up as a girl in a South Asian family, I did not get the chance to explore my creativeness so I used to get very jealous of kids who knew how to draw, sing, or dance. Everything in my life was always so serious. I come home with a drawing for Father’s Day, my dad be like:

So I catered to that expectation of always taking the serious classes in college that required a midterm and final exam.

I mean, God forbid my parents find out that I making memes during class!

 

The class has been therapeutic for me since I work 4 days and  have 0 days of fun. I usually start writing the post by playing my current fave Bollywood song , light a candle, review what is being asked for in the assignments and then get down to work. None of my other classes allowed me to sit back and have a little fun with the work I’m doing. This course makes think outside of the box and use a part of the brain that we don’t ofter get to use.

WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK! WORK!

 

Since we were given two platforms to find GIF’s and memes (GIPHY and Imgur), I realized that I like using GIPHY better, sorry Imgur. I’ve noticed that GIPHY has a larger selection of what I am looking for whereas Imgur’s results are not relevant to what I was looking for. As presented below:

GIPHY

VS.

IMGUR

There are many websites/apps that make me happy on the internet but if I were to choose one it would be instagram. Instagram makes it easier for people to communicate with their audience through images and videos. Having this platform allowed users to “think outside of the box,” and get creative.

People have become so famous from utilizing instagram to its fullest advantage. People started businesses, posted their art (and yes, meme’s is art and so are GIFs) and I wish I was one of those influencers/vloggers that got paid for living life but I don’t have the dedication in me.

My favorite feature on instagram is my explore feed. I discover new products, places, and affirmations every single day and although it makes me excited, I also feel overwhelmed. I would scroll through my feed for hours looking through everything, imagining myself wearing the same outfit as the influencer that I am looking at or bridal outfits from London or Pakistan. The explore feed allows me to escape my reality and pretend to live my ‘luxe lifestyle.’