The Electric Slide: CSS Version

When I signed up for “Introduction to Internet Communication,” I thought, Okay, cool. I’ll learn how to make websites, click a few buttons, maybe pick some colors, right? Wrong. So very wrong.

We’re now in week 4 of a 5-week class, and I feel like I’ve aged at least ten years. We’re learning everything using Dreamweaver, which I assumed would make life easier. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. At least not for me.

I’ve been watching my professor’s online video tutorials with the best of intentions. She explains things, and the lessons seem to make sense… until I try to actually do them. The moment I open Dreamweaver and try to follow along, my webpage turns into a digital disaster. Like, truly. I’ll start with a simple exercise and somehow end up with a page that looks like it was pushed down the stairs.

Just this week, I proudly finished phase 2 & 3 of the project. I have my banner image, all my pages are linked and working and I even think I figured out how to wrap my text around my floating image. Feeling confident, I moved on to the CSS section of the lesson. That’s when everything fell apart. Again!

I copied exactly what my professor copied:

h3 {
  padding-left: 5%;
  padding-right: 5%;
  margin-top: 5%
  color: #353535;
  font-weight: bold;
(except I had no text transform)
}

Sounds easy, right? But somehow, all of my html and css blocks are titled differently than the video examples. My browser just laughed. The text stayed stubbornly as it was as if it had nothing better to do. I refreshed. I checked my syntax. I cried a little inside. Nothing worked. So I deleted my page, re inserted the original .html file and started again.

Every time I try something, something else breaks. One step forward, five steps sideways. It's like I’m doing the CSS version of the electric slide. Dreamweaver is supposed to help with visuals and code syncing, but half the time I feel like I’m clicking things I don’t understand, and suddenly my layout has imploded.

I turn in my assignments knowing they’re not quite right (read: totally scrambled), but I’m out of energy and brainpower by the end. Then I get the feedback, and—surprise!—I usually have to start over. Again. I know mistakes are part of learning, but I’m starting to feel like my entire journey is a blooper reel.

Even the “easy” CSS designer panel that’s built into Dreamweaver just stares at me blankly. I click, I drag, I think I’m doing what the professor is doing in the video… but on my screen? Crickets. It’s like Dreamweaver knows I’m new and is hazing me.

But here’s the thing: I am learning. Slowly. In weird, sideways steps. Sometimes I surprise myself and actually fix a bug or get my layout to look halfway decent. And when it works? Oh man, it’s a good feeling. A very good feeling.

So if you’re also in an intro web class and your webpage currently looks like a salad made of broken code and dashed hopes—hi, I see you. You’re not alone. We’ll figure this out eventually.

After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day… and neither are my webpages. 😅

And through it all, I’m reminded of this truth:"Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." — Galatians 6:9

So I’m hanging in there, clinging to grace, trusting that even in the mess of broken tags and misplaced divs, God is growing something in me—patience, persistence, maybe even a little creativity I didn’t know I had.

I may not be fluent in CSS yet, but I’m learning to trust the process… and the One who’s walking me through it.

and That's my CreativLeeway!