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I hope everyone is moving forward with their respective projects. I am really looking forward to our last meeting on Monday, not only because it just brings me one day closer to completing my degree, but also because each project is so unique.

As far as my own project goes, I feel I am at about 70% done, so 5% less than what is required for Monday. I have most of the haikus written, just want to have seven more, so each section I have to organize it all has four haikus, plus each section’s landing page haiku. In total, I should have 24 haikus, all original to me. I’m really happy that these haikus are being put to use, as I have been writing them without knowledge of this project since the beginning of the semester.

So, I’m not sure if I will have all of the haikus written by Monday, but I have enough to give everyone an idea of how this project will look fully finished. I have the design of the website down, so even without all of the haikus posted there yet, you all will be able to get an idea as to how it will look.

The 5% that I really want to fill in before Monday is the inclusion of sound. Again, I’m not worried about this, as I found that website that contains thousands of free-use audio. So, it’s just a matter of finding ones that I like and inputting them. I’m not sure if I want to include sound of every page, as there is some overlap of the content of a couple of haikus being about the same bird. But, what if the reader doesn’t read both haikus? Well, I think I just answered my question, and I will have sound for every page.

In all, I will try to have the rest of those haikus written, but we’ll see. I do want to have some sounds in there. I might not have all of them, but having it for some of the pages is a definite. I have also begun carving out the narrative a bit and hyperlinked some pages to each other, but not all of them yet because I don’t have all of the haikus. I will have some examples of this for Monday, but I might not have all the pathways picked out just yet. Though, we’ll see how many haikus I can write this weekend.

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To begin, I express my hope that everyone had a great holiday with friends and family. Thanksgiving break always comes at just the right time. For me, I always feel invigorated when I return after this specific long weekend. Not doing work for three days was great. Despite thinking about it from time to time, because I am quite the thinker-holic, it was great to be able to just forget about it after a moment because I didn’t have to do the work in that second. It could wait, and that it did. Well, until tonight.

I finally embarked on creating my website. By the recommendation of Sarah, I created a Wix website (am I allowed to mention a competing website creator? ha!). I am really enjoying how it is going so far. It looks just how I wanted it to: simple. And, even though I have used WordPress for quite some time now, I feel Wix is a bit easier to navigate. For some reason, I just could not get a handle on WordPress. Ever.

So, I came up with a title for the whole work: “Migration: An Interactive Flock”. I found it funny and thought using the word interactive would really just hit the nail on the head. Of course, it is not set in stone, but I do not see myself changing it. I created the home page, about page, and created the first page for the first haiku each reader will begin with. I also put up pages of two other haikus just to mess around and see what I would like those to look it, if I would want some kind of variation between the sections I laid out in my head, etc. I have said this to my peers in small groups, but I really would like my website to be simple like Twelve Blue was. There wasn’t much to Twelve Blue in terms of design; there was the text, the hyperlinks, and the reset button. There was no nonsense, and I liked that.

I will not link the website here even though it is currently published. I want you all to see the finished product. Or, at least the finished product at the end of the semester. I think I will keep up with maintaining this website and continuously adding to it because the whole thing is just cool.

I am also scouting for audios of the birds I write about to really immerse the reader. I think I can actually record some of the audio myself, but with birds at this time of year, I will definitely not be able to catch all of them. Though I do think I can record some audio for the more general haikus that talk about the weather and the overall season. In fact, I recorded a 15-second audio earlier this week of running water in a small creek to be used in conjunction with a haiku I already have. I think including sound will give the work a bit of an exciting edge.

My goal for tomorrow, Sunday, is to create pages for the rest of the haikus I have written so far (so, about 10). I will also play around with that audio and see how I would like it to appear on the page. Then, starting next week, I will really dial down on the audios and write more haikus; both of which I do not anticipate any hardship. I am looking forward to seeing this final project.

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I’ve had the idea for my final project for a little bit now. This semester, I’ve been living in a new space, so a lot of the last four months has been dedicated to not only researching and writing for the requirements of this program, but also for learning about the environment around me. Because of this, I have been writing a lot about the birds I’ve been seeing. Writing this out, I find it quite odd. Though, It’s something that I have been really enjoying. With each passing day, the number of birds I see are less and less, and that makes me sad. It makes me feel a bit like Tony Soprano, when he becomes depressed after the ducks leave his pool.

So, I have quite a bit of poetry about these birds. Specifically, haikus. So, what I’m thinking is doing some sort of hyper-text poetry with my haikus, and maybe throw in some tankas. Overall, I want all the poetry to have some kind of syllabic format. So, I’m thinking the haikus will see these birds throughout the seasons. Four sections, maybe three to four haikus per season, with a tanka to indicate the changing of seasons. Thus, it will be narrative driven, as it follows a sort of environmental sequencing, and it will also follow the same kinds of birds.

I have not started building the website yet, but I am gathering all of my bird-related haikus. I know I will have to compose some tankas about the seasons themselves, but I’m not worried about that. Overall, I’m just thinking of what the website will actually look like and how the hyperlinking will work. I really enjoyed the simplicity of Twelve Blue with its quiet background. I think I will replicate that in a way that complements my work. I want the work to speak for itself and not let random effects override the meaning of the haikus. Also, I am not that great at detailing digital spaces, so I will see how far I can push myself.

Until next time.