Courage

After an epic struggle with html, coding, and photoshop, I present the new layout. I'm still disappointed with the loss of the art that comprised the old layout, especially since the banner was made up of original sketches of mine and such but I put some effort into the new banner on this one and I think it came out alright considering my amateur photoshopping talent. It's still a pretty simple layout, 2 columns, about three colors but I've learned that a layout can be overwhelming and overkill and so I like the simple and practical look of it. It's a modification of blogger's own rounders 4 layout, which on reflection probably wasn't the easiest of the layouts to choose to modify but oh well. I did decide to widen and adjust the widths of the layout to create some more reading space but that proved to be a lot more trouble than expected. You'll notice that I was able to keep the corners on my sidebar and footer. These were surprisingly tricky as rounders uses images to simulate corners and that meant adjusting those images to adjust the widths. I'm certainly not fluent in photoshop and css/html so it took quite a bit of trial and error and internet reading but the result is what you see now. Oh, I also mean to put up a horizontal navigation bar below the banner so I can create subdivisions on my site...but that'll wait.

So with all new phases in my life comes a blog theme reboot. This time, my current "it" word is "용기" pronounced "Yong gi" meaning "Courage." It's pretty self explanatory and fitting now that I've entered the brave new world of "real life." It's also something I've always lacked in my life and I've realized that the strength I've always been envious of and searched for has always been courage. My admiration is demonstrated in the banner's art. The original picture (sans the filtered photoshop effect) is of the boxing match between korean boxer Kim Duk Koo and champion Ray Mancini. Severly overmatched, Kim entered the ring as a challenger. The night before the fight he had scribbled "Live or die" (contrary to popular misconception "Kill or be killed") on his hotel room mirror. Kim fought Mancini in the sweltering heat of Las Vegas only to tragically fall in the 14th round. He fell into a coma shortly after and died. Gruesome but I've always fancied tragic heroes. Yet it's not Kim's death that I idolize but the courage it took to go in that ring and lay his life on the line, the metaphor made real with Kim's own death. That mentality as a challenger, that courage is what I adore and respect.