"...a cruelty computer of agony niceties..." --Ted Hughes

And so I send my pristine, innocent site out into the big bad world of cyberspace.

As I do not consider myself a "computer person" (you know, big thick glasses, pocket protector, suspenders, innate knowledge of computers, and a bad complexion... well, maybe i have the bad complexion part, but i don't even know what a pocket protector looks like...) I allowed myself to be intimidated by this project to create a smiley applet. However, I found that my love of words helped me out, because I was able to remember all the semi-colons (one of my favorite keys on the keyboard-- we english majors love adding them to sentences to allow ourselves to ramble). So in short, I found this project rather enjoyable, and not scary at all. Sure, it was sometimes frustrating, but it was almost like a word game, which made it fun. And tedious. Fun and tedious don't usually go together, I guess. There was a great sense of satisfaction that accompanied the completion of the project. Since I am not a "computer person", I viewed it as a personal success as well as a completed homework assignment. I conquered the computer. I AM the code warrior. Picture me with a spear and a lovely tiger-skin wrap (though I do not endorse the wearing of fur), standing triumphantly in the computer lab with my zip disk clenched between my teeth and a foot on the table. It did not actually happen like that, but that would have been pretty rockin'.

And he'd better jump. Making this applet taxed my fingers and what little patience I have for math-related reasoning. However, I found that if I viewed my many trials and errors as a science experiment of sorts, it made everything a little bit easier. I still don't understand exactly why some changes made the stick man's arms disappear, or caused his legs to appear very very long, but the important thing is that I stumbled (and I mean stumbled) upon the right combination (and a good thing too, or my stick figure, let's call him moby stick, would have been stumbling everywhere on his ungainly legs). I feel that having the basic smiley applet under my belt helped me out a lot with this applet-- not only because I purloined it to form the skeleton of the "jumpingGuy" applet, but also because, as I've mentioned before, it gave me confidence. Plus, now I know how to do the little nitty-gritty details such as getting the applet up onto the website, something which caused me many an hour of grief before (it was more like one hour, but I like hyperboles). And, one exciting discovery I made while working on this applet was that yes, indeed, there can be creativity involved in writing your java program. I hope to take advantage of this in the future. Which is looking brighter even as I type. Peace out, all.

Click here to see a self-potrait. You will notice I have one-upped the master in that I am not just missing an ear, I have no ears. That's right, no ears. So I cannot hear the harsh criticisms launched at my pitiful applet by my peers and my professor. You may also notice that I only have 3 hairs. Well, that's because they're all I have left after pulling the rest of them out in frustration at my "pretty pitiful even for a second grader, which unfortunately, I'm not" kind of project. However, since some of the people in my class appear to be houses, I suppose I can live.

I call it "Rhapsody in Blue"-- or no, "Partial Eclipse"... no, let's see, "Composition #3: Sticks and Stones"... no, that's not it... "Whiplash"? At any rate, your title (and your guess) is as good as mine.

I'm not promising that this game will be fun

Knock yourself out. It still has some bugs, which I hope to fix soon. I had kind of hoped to make the computer all snotty when it won, but as soon as I realized how hard this applet was in general, I decided to just concentrate on making the applet work. So relax, you're playing against a fairly noncompetitive opponent. Check back later for an exciting new version 1.1 with a computer adversary that gives you smack-talk. It should be fun.

Play HangMan.

My final project. All I can say is that it's over.