Fresh Beginnings Without AI

3/3/2026

Here’s my new website. I scrapped the old one because I got embarrassed to show anyone a site I had used AI to create. I told myself I was just filling in the gaps in my knowledge to make a more useable website, but I really wasn’t learning anything at all and not understanding the code in your own website is a recipe for disaster. It really was a mess. I didn’t know how to use style.css so I had to go in and copy/paste all the CSS into every page’s style tag. It was really terrible. Now that I’ve done some actual learning, I’m much more effective at coding. The new site looks much less professional at a glance, but it feels more like my own and it’s really something I can be proud of. Very happy with this new iteration.

I actually decided to take down the slop site because I was writing a blog post about generative AI. I wanted to do some research and organize my thoughts about the subject and reconcile my personal use of AI with my sympathies for the anti-AI sentiments among my friends. What I really wanted was to convince myself that it was okay to use AI. Instead, I realized that I was embarrassed to try and pass off the site as my own when I basically hadn’t coded shit.

Because of my newfound obsession with web development, I’ve been neglecting my other projects. I’m in a quantum mechanics class now and I haven’t been studying like I should. We’re on break for this week, but it still feels daunting to try and catch up. I’m not confident in my understanding of the material. I really wish we were using the Griffiths QM textbook, but the professor opted to use another one that I hadn’t heard of. I’m much more familiar with Griffiths’s approach because I took the class once before and that was the textbook we used. I really don’t understand what’s going on in the course and I just hope I can get through it with my GPA and my sanity intact. I’m much more excited for the next class, advanced physics lab, because I’ll have some papers to put on my CV. Maybe I’ll get more interviews that way.

I haven’t been keeping up with my diet. I’ve been eating well under my maintenance calories, but I haven’t been eating enough protein or getting enough fiber. It’s been a lot of junk food and pasta. I also have skipped swimming a few days in a row and now I’m just not feeling the motivation to do any kind of exercise. I have to get back on that. Maybe I’ll switch it up with a workout video instead. Just don’t like getting sweaty.

I’ve been writing a lot, too. I wrote No Trans Fats the other day and it was really nice to get all my ideas out on paper. I rewrote chapter 2 of Mangoes too. The first draft was really terrible and I’m much happier with it now. I have a better idea of where I want the story to go, no solid overarching plot yet. I’m much more of a pantser than a plotter. I like to “take the characters for a walk,” as my favorite youtuber May Leitz says in her video “UNCALLED FOR WRITING ADVICE” [x]. I’m going to keep writing as much as I can. I want to see where the story goes.

Well, I’m probably going to take a break from building the website and instead write some more. I also want to make OC pages for my Technokatabasis characters. That’ll be my next project.