WeblogPoMo AMA: What I Am Thankful For In 2024

As part of the WeblogPoMo AMA blogging challenge, Jedda posed a question, "What Are You Thankful for?" I appreciate the question, since gratitude is something I have been doing my best to practice every day.

As December is coming, meaning there is just one month left for 2024, I decided to answer the question by listing five things happened in my life in this year that I am grateful for.

The most significant change in my life that happened in 2024 was, without a doubt, my career change from graphic design to web development.

In 2022, I was unemployed after finishing my last contract job as a graphic designer and getting burned out from graphic design as a profession, so I decided to learn to code to spend my time, by taking online courses for web development, starting with freeCodeCamp.

Meanwhile, learning that there are software developers, including those who previously worked in different professions, succeed in breaking into tech without a computer science degree inspired me to pursue web development as a profession, so I continue to work hard in learning and practising web development.

After teaching myself to code for almost two years, and received multiple code and tech-related certifications, I started to try hunting for front end web developer jobs. In August 2024, I finally succeed in getting my first developer job, transitioning my career path from graphic design to web developer, and becoming a professional web developer.

Out of the many web development tools I have come across in my journey to teach myself web development, the static site generator Eleventy was the biggest game changer for me.

My experience as a graphic designer had taught me the importance of building your portfolio to showcase your skill and work. Therefore, as I decided to switch my career path to web development, I was already thinking of building my own developer portfolio website.

At first, I built my developer portfolio website by writing all the HTML, CSS and JavaScript code by hand. However, as I grew my developer website, particularly as I decided to add a blog to my website to document my developer journey, I started to realise that writing all the code by hand makes a website tedious to maintain and update, since it requires copying and pasting the part of the same HTML code over and over to make the page layout consistent across the website.

As a consequence, I began to explore static site generators. In March, I discovered Eleventy, and I fell in love with it, so I decided to rebuild my developer website and blog with Eleventy, and completed the process in April 2024.

Eleventy has become my favourite tool to build my websites, including this very blog, because I adore not only the tool itself, but also its delightful community. I even got my first opportunity to speak at a tech event, specifically THE Eleventy Meetup, thanks to the Eleventy community.

I discovered omg.lol's existence during the first half of 2024, when I became more active in exploring the web outside the corporate web. I was immediately intrigued by for its fun name, cute logo and the offer of various web services for an affordable price of 20 US Dollar per year. That said, I did not join omg.lol immediately because I did not feel that I had a use of an omg.lol membership yet.

Then, in September 2024, when omg.lol was hosting a fundraising campaign for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, they also offered lifetime membership through daily auctions. I decided to take the chance to join omg.lol, and I managed to obtain my lifetime omg.lol address, helenchong.omg.lol, and membership through an auction.

After setting up my omg.lol profile page, I began to connect with the omg.lol community by joining the community chat, Discourse forum and the social.lol Mastodon instance, and I have been enjoying my time in omg.lol's wonderful community since.

I am grateful that services like omg.lol exist to bring back the fun of carving your own corner on the web, and I am proud to be a member of omg.lol and its delightful community.

Blogs have always had a special place in my heart and my history with the web, because blogging was my first foray into creating things and sharing things about myself on the web way back in the 2000s as a teenager. Unfortunately, in the late 2000s, I gradually stopped blogging due to the rise of social media and various changes in life.

Fast-forward to 2024, when I became more active in exploring the web outside social media, I also learned about the resurgence of personal blogs. I already had a blog on my developer website, though that blog focuses on tech, so I wanted a personal blog to give myself more freedom to write about more variety of topics. Joining omg.lol and connecting with other personal bloggers in the omg.lol community inspired me to return to my personal blogging roots. As a result, I built Galaxy Garden in October 2024.

After spending many years in social media and the corporate web, I discovered the indie web in 2022, when I learned about the resurgence of personal websites through Neocities, which inspired me to code my own personal website from scratch for the first time. This in turn rekindled my interest in HTML and CSS after learning the basics of the coding languages way back in the 2000s when I was a teenager. My rekindled interest in HTML and CSS led me to learn more about web development, and eventually my career transition from graphic design to web development.

During the first half of 2024, I decided to become more active in participating in the indie web, by connecting with personal website owners and personal bloggers, as well as joining indie web communities including the omg.lol community.

I am grateful of the indie web and its communities for making the effort in building a web outside corporate influence, for rekindling my interest in web design and web development that leads to my career transition to web development, and for inspiring me to restart my personal blogging journey.

You may have realised that the things listed in this post are related to the World Wide Web. As I began to reflect on what I am grateful for in 2024, I came to the conclusion that 2024 is the year of me cultivating a more meaningful relationship with the web, by carving my own space on the web by building personal websites and blogs, getting involved in communities outside corporate social media and pursuing web development as a career to help to build the web.

I have been using the internet for most of my life, but 2024 is the year when I made the conscious effort in reflecting my relationship with the web and choosing to forge a healthier relationship with the web.

Hopefully, I can continue to contribute to the effort of building a better web.