The Beowulf Guide

Thursday, May 08, 2003

I have officially ended the Senior Project part of my Beowulf site, but I will continue my research - as a hobby. I have found too much satisfaction in my discoveries to quit altogether.

Thanks again to Dr. Morgan for his help in the design of the project and for Dr. Evans who gave me the inspiration to begin studying the Middle Ages.
~Ayleen~ at 8:14 PM

Saturday, May 03, 2003

The year coming to close and the the site is looking up and ready

I believe I have finally gotten finishing touches on the site and have gone through editing. I am hoping to continue the research and maybe add in information past Beowulf, more Middle Ages lifestyles that can compliment the poem and add a real background to such a work of literature.
~Ayleen~ at 10:12 PM

Thursday, May 01, 2003

Site is meeting my expectancies and exceeding

I am extremely happy with how my site looks. I turned from wanting it to be a very visual site and then suddenly began to believe a cleaner look would be better. As I looked for sites with information, I noticed I would trust those sites that had a clean look, no ads in their pages, and no silly graphics. I wanted information, not visual stimulation!

I have been planning on making each page have their runic section be flipped to know which page your on. That should only take a few minutes for that. Other than that, I have a few days of editing and adding small information bits to look forward to.
~Ayleen~ at 8:42 AM

Monday, April 28, 2003

I took a few hours to work on my "Woven" section on my website. This is the page I am most intrigued by - the myths they had known in those days and the things that brought about their values in society. Germanic heroes have such fascinating adventures and to contrast and compare them with Beowulf's story was ingenious.
~Ayleen~ at 1:42 PM

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Going on strong!

I just uploaded a few new pages to my website - Beowulf Guide
*Monsters and Hero

A few pages are not put up yet but will be coming soon.
~Ayleen~ at 4:16 PM

Saturday, April 05, 2003

I just watched the 13th Warrior - I rented it from the Blockbuster down the street. I had seen it originally when it first came out and remember it being interesting. Now that I heard from Aspen that it is loosely based on beowulf, I had to rent it and try it again. It was fascinating looking for all the bits that go with the Beowulf poem. It also took me a long time in figuring out the character Antonio Banderas is supposed to be the original writer of the poem(Beowulf).

If you have read the poem and would like to see a different version of what may have happened (altho my background in history isn't extensive and it may be too inconsistant in details to be true) rent it and watch it. You might get a kick out of the visual aspect of it like I did.

I also rented the "Beowulf" with Christopher Lambert to see what that one might be like. I'll blog that movie when I get around to watching it.
~Ayleen~ at 10:59 PM

Monday, March 31, 2003

Discussion

I have been discussing Beowulf with a lot of people these days. More than half have heard of Beowulf and know parts - especially Grendel. A lot haven't even thought of reading it. Maybe they didn't have to read it in highschool or they just don't remember. I vaguely remember it myself, but since coming to BSU and meeting Dr. Evans, I have come to fully appreciate it and have loved doing the research that I have, in order to understand the poem better than its face value.
~Ayleen~ at 9:06 PM

Saturday, March 22, 2003

Library Work

I spent two hours at the library today and found some great information on the woven stories within the text. I will be adding that information when I have time.

I plan on uploading the beginnings of my Beowulf pages on monday. I suppose I am a little scared to show Dr. Morgan the template because he may find something wrong with it. I worked very hard and for hours on them. Yet, that's the way it goes - best to have a second, third, or fourth opinion anyway.
~Ayleen~ at 10:14 PM

Friday, March 21, 2003

Absence and Renewal of Interest

On account of Midterms, Spring Break, and Sickness I had neglected my Senior project for a few weeks. I am back, though.

I have found a different design for my template that I like a lot better than previous ones. This one seems to be a lot cleaner and easier on the eyes. I have added more runic design of my own and hopefully this will be all the tweaking I will do. I have put in pages that I have prepared during my scheduled times and am pleased with the results. I need to do some more tweaking on presentation of my results with call-out boxes and other fun things.

Tomorrow I plan to go to the library and consider more research for the project and hopefully sometime next week I will begin to upload beginning pages that will lead the way to my final product.
~Ayleen~ at 9:50 PM

Thursday, March 06, 2003

Woven Stories

I would like to dicuss The stories:

*The Race of Cain - The demonic monsters and giants that descended from Cain's clan.
*The Breca saga - As told by Unferth and the relevance it had in the story
*The saga of Sigemund and perhaps a link to the full story as told in the Chickering book
*The burning of Heorot that is foretold in the lines 82-85 and their significance
*Heremod mentioned a few times.
*The Finnsburh Episode, a link perhaps to the Finnsburh Fragment
*Hrothulf is mentioned in later lines.
*The mention of Freawaru being married off to Ingeld to mend some feud - comes to a bad ending.
~Ayleen~ at 7:32 PM

Wednesday, February 26, 2003

The Text
I came up with some questions that I plan to answer:

Beowulf

I will do my best to gather the information I have and seek out the rest of the answers. I am hoping to devise a timeline of the text's movements - if any.
~Ayleen~ at 6:36 PM

Saturday, February 22, 2003

Monsters

Monsters went very well. I have been keeping up with my schedule with a few exceptions. By the end of the week there are a few questions still in my mind on each page that I will end up trying to fix after I have them all begun.

I have found I am still obsessed about the history of the characters, the story, and the traditions. I almost wonder if there is a thesis for my graduate work in there somewhere.

I'll be re-designing a bit more on my website template as I have been giving more thought on the layout. More to come on that as I have time.
~Ayleen~ at 10:24 PM

Friday, February 14, 2003

Hero and Second Thoughts
I have just finished putting together the information I have collected for "Hero". What I need now is to look up the secondary questions I ask after I find the initial information. I am trying my best to find links on the internet that are reliable so that whoever comes to see my website will know the information is true.

I have to admit I got too excited doing the "Ancestry" page. It seems like I want to know all of the history of Beowulf so as I read, I know exactly who is who, where they come from, why they are the way they are, and what I can teach others about them.

I have also been having second thoughts on adding images to my website. I want a clean site with an academic feel to it. I don't want to clutter it up with images that could overpower or diminish my content. Not unless they were real images - I would need to contact places for permission.

P.S. I love Beowulf!
~Ayleen~ at 2:58 PM

Monday, February 10, 2003

The week starting with "Hero"

I have been asking myself what this page should include. I look at my earlier sketches and I have "Overview of Deeds", "Beowulf as Metaphor", "Significance to Past Ages", and "Significance to Today's Society". Is this what my audience would expect from the "Hero" link?

What I have as topics seems to be about the general text. What I have is a link to a specific topic - Hero.

I may re-define this link to:
*Beowulf - What his name means and where it comes from - Gods
*Who Beowulf could be in the past
*Hero's in the past - their rules and beliefs
*Other Hero's mentioned in the text
~Ayleen~ at 7:29 PM

Thursday, February 06, 2003

Links for Ancestors

Beowulf and the Creatures of Denmark
Character List
The Dating of Beowulf
Anglo Saxon Kingdoms
Kings of Mercia
Saxon Genealogies
~Ayleen~ at 5:56 PM

Tuesday, February 04, 2003

Library Session
I was at the library from 2pm until 4pm looking up some more books on Ancestry.

So far I have a list of what I would like included:

Real?

Find Genealogies of the historical kings and compare to the Beowulf Genealogy.

~Ayleen~ at 4:23 PM

Monday, February 03, 2003

I found an extensive Beowulf site by Syd Allan and am very impressed with the research he must have gone through. I am blown away.
~Ayleen~ at 7:24 PM

Friday, January 31, 2003

Meeting
Had a very informative meeting with Dr. Morgan today.

Suggestions for overall design:
*Try without heavy bars on design
*Try thinner bars
*Try a plain Horizontal Rule
*Desaturate the dark bars and make them lighter

Page Suggestions:
*Keep an eye on what to include on the front page
*Make a larger version of my 'Beowulf Guide' icon on the top left.

Other Suggestions:
*Look up SSI and see if this will work for me
*Try out CSS for overall look

When I am finally uploaded in a few weeks my link will be on the main English pages:
/english/amlindahl/beowulf/index.html
~Ayleen~ at 1:30 PM

Thursday, January 30, 2003

A new look for this site with more emphasis on my deadlines and getting this project done on time.
~Ayleen~ at 2:42 PM

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

New Schedule and New Links

The time has come where I should tighten down my schedule and make a deadline for each page.
I am giving each webpage one week to be done starting next Monday.

This means:
Ancestry: Should be done by February 7th
Hero: Should be done by February 15th
Monsters: Should be done by February 22nd
Text: Should be done by March 1st
Woven Stories: Should be done by March 8th
Settings: Should be done by March 15th
Treasures: Should be done by March 22nd

This will leave me with about 8 weeks left to get all my pages up on the web and the last stages of tweaking put through before graduation.
During this week I will be writing in the questions that I need to have answered for my own sake and for others. I will also be using this as a touchstone for any information that I come across and have no page to fit it into. This information may end up being on a miscellaneous page or sectioned into a reasonably adequate page.

I am adding new links to the sidebar for the ‘other’ WebPages on Beowulf.

~Ayleen~ at 8:37 PM

Thursday, January 23, 2003

The library books are due soon and I haven't finished with them yet. It seems I will need to bring them in and work with what I have now. I have found a list of journals that should help me fill in the gaps of information that I wish to include. Otherwise, I may need to just start looking it up on the internet and hope I find reliable sources, or come up with my own conclusions. I want this site to be as reliable as possible for those that stumble onto it.

I have given great consideration in using a CSS for my site and believe that I will give it a try. First, I need to get hooked up onto the school server and try out my access. Hopefully eveyrthing will be all right. I need to go back and consult the papers I had printed out for how to go step by step through the web making process.

Making a site map, I was able to sort out the information I wanted to include, but I have run into a few bumps and am hoping they will eventually be smoothed over.
~Ayleen~ at 8:43 PM

Thursday, January 16, 2003

I came up with a toned down website that has the elements I wish to keep.
~Ayleen~ at 7:22 PM

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

I have been having problems with the process of finding the right color scheme without being overly encumbersome on my webpage. I do have the color I like best in the current testing, but it does seem to be a bit much. Maybe if the background is white?

I love the simplicity of my banner along the top. Maybe the part that seems to be too much is the rulers I used, the knotwork designs? I am not sure. Also, I have to start seeking out journals and as I find them over Beowulf, I need to remember to post the links here or make my summary with the citation.
~Ayleen~ at 1:30 PM

Tuesday, January 07, 2003

I believe I have found the look that I want for my beowulf site.
This is my ninth-plus attempt and so far this is my absolute favorite.

~Ayleen~ at 9:03 PM

Monday, January 06, 2003

I am in the process now of reading the multiple books I have checked from the library. I have a notebook with all the different aspects listed down and am currently writing down who says what on what section of my webpage. As this is a time where there will be few updates until I get a lot of that reading done, I have been taking breaks to work on the website overall design. My favorite so far is listed on the left. I had stumbled across an artist with free graphics and saw a knot-work design that I loved. I incorporated it into my page and I think it adds a little spice to a boring format.
~Ayleen~ at 11:02 PM

Deadlines

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