The Alpha, the Omega; the Beginning and the End

CrookedFingers has grown to become less of a website project, and more of a baby to me: I spoil it with plenty of attention, I constantly supply the website with what it needs to grow and prosper, and most importantly, I've raised CrookedFingers over the last few months into something I'm truly proud of.  To mark off the end of my Independent Study Course, I've written this post as a way of telling you all, the readers, that CrookedFingers has reached the end of its growth as a school project.  It is ready to be judged by educational professionals.

That's not to say that this is the end though - surely it won't be, and I definitely don't want it to be.  This is merely the end of the beginning; the prologue of this project.  CrookedFingers won't be assessed or evaluated by a community mentor anymore, but I assure you that this is far from the limits of what I'd like to do with this blog.  There is much more to come!

CrookedFingers got its start when I was recommended to partake in an Independent Study Course (ISC), and from there, my inspiration to build a website and channel myself and my perception on media only continued to swell.  That swelling would proceed and recede, depending on my mood - some days I'd wake up and go to class, and my head just wasn't in it for that day.  Be it that I couldn't think of something to write about, or the pressure of juggling other classes, graduation matters, or keeping consistent with uploads to my Youtube channel, there was almost always something else working against me as I tried to write about subtle political agendas in comic strips or how taking pictures of animals is the same thing as killing zombies.  Nontheless, I kept up fairly well with my project, and while it wasn't a flawless success in any way, I can certainly say that I've learned a lot over the past few months - it was quite a busy rush, but looking back, it was almost relaxing in a way.  I know that makes no sense at all, but it's what I feel as I reflect...

My whole life I've never been that involved with anything; I'd let things pass me by and I'd only do the things I wanted to do.  Maybe I never knew what I really wanted though, and that thought sort of depresses me in a way: to think that I've just been sitting around, pissing away my time for twelve years, and not doing anything except playing video games and throwing myself into my schoolwork religiously.  It's just not healthy.

This past semester, I've been doing things that I love among other things that I certainly did not enjoy doing.  For every time I'd organize a Youtube video to go up on my channel, I'd also have some petty graduation detail to sort out or something to organize.  It was enjoyable though - I enjoyed doing things I don't like doing.  Part of me likes to think that something as simple as keeping myself busy kept me occupied, so I have fewer accounts of me just sitting around being bored.  Another part of me likes to think that I got a distant taste of what it is to live: wake up in the morning, get to school whether I'm late or not, and leave myself to organize my tasks and deadlines on my own agenda.  It's hectic and stressful, yet somehow manageable and entertaining.

ISC, in itself, has been both an uphill battle and a course I don't regret taking for a second.  It gave me that exposure to independent work that I feel I really needed to have, and from what I've heard from friends, relatives, and family members, if college is as similar to this course as it seems, then I'm completely sold.  I love having free reign to complete assignments at a flexible but enforced pace, and I love having that direct communication with my instructor even more.  I would definitely recommend the course itself to self-sufficient people, as it directly plays to that quality.  It's not regulated in many schools right now, so to put an open statement out to schools as well: publicize this course - it's a niche that students should have a choice in.  I would love to use this website as a means of a portfolio now; to publish my work and archive the profession I want to dedicate the rest of my life to.

This course was a race and this semester was a marathon.  This website is a journey that's only begun.