Wrestling with a Website

Jouhdou Jek Kehk Gam: to work very hard

During the Spring and Autumn Annals, civil disorder erupted in the state of Chaih. A prince called Chuhng Yih was exiled, and his loyal servant named Gaai Ji Teui accompanied him. While traveling, they constantly suffered from hunger. Once, they asked a farmer for some food, but the farmer only laughed at them. The prince wanted to kill him, but Gaai Ji Teui stopped him. After awhile, the servant brought the prince a bowl of meat soup, which the prince ate. Later, he found out that the soup was made from a piece of flesh cut from Gaai Ji Teui’s leg. Ten years afterward, the prince returned to his own place and became king. He rewarded all his servants who had followed him during his exile, except for Gaai Ji Teui, who had hidden away in a hill. The king ordered fire to be set on the hill to coax Gaai Ji Teui out. Unfortunately, the servant was burnt by the flames. The king made a pair of slippers from the tree where Gaai Ji Teui lay dead. He wore the shoes (i.e. Kehk) in memory of his hard-working servant.

This is hard work.

Recently, I’ve been hard at work on this website. Last August, I was encouraged by Hannah Dennison at a UCLA mystery seminar to register my own domain name. I did so just to claim my identity. Recently, though, I decided to convert my blog into a website. This seemed like the easiest conversion to make, based on my limited knowledge. (I have heard of others, though, venturing into web design by using WordPress. Some tech-savvy people also argue for a self-hosted site.)

After much Internet searching, I connected my Blogger account to my domain name. During the process, I also realized that I could find free Blogger templates. Hurray! I didn’t need to design the theme myself (which unfortunately, would have been composed of stick figures and the like). I’ve instituted the new header image on my site. Now, I’m working on reorganizing the blog with different pages. Wish me luck!

What are your thoughts on the new design? Do you have a website of your own, and how did you make it–by your own efforts or through a designer? Any tips or contacts to savvy tech people would be appreciated.