The Joomla Nightmare from which I Feared I Would Not Wake

Okay, so that's a little dramatic.  Still, I started out with great intentions. I watched the tutorial--the whole thing.  I took notes.  Then, as I began, I played the tutorial in another tab, stopping and starting so I would do my website step by step.  And STILL I ran into difficulties in the middle, maybe closer to the end.  I have no idea what I did wrong--only that nothing I did fixed it. I stayed up from 7 until midnight trying in vain to fix my errors. I had to go to sleep accomplishing little, EPIC FAIL.  When I woke up, I didn't even want to look at the Joomla website and my sad little website-in-training.  I went to church and prayed over it. Just kidding, I always go to church--had to teach my International class.  ANYWAY, then I went to Karin's (she lives close by) hoping she could throw me a life raft and I could help her in whatever way I could, as well. I did not end up helping her at all (hers looks great), but I did fix some of my problems unintentionally.  I accomplished what the assignment called for, and it looks acceptable.  I want everyone to know that this is not a full-fledged website (of course), and that if I ever did help create one, it would have a lot more information and not practically all borrowed from the National Cued Speech Association's website. 

Just FYI, in case anyone is interested, Cued Speech (as my sad website-who-has-graduated-but-still-forlorn says) is a communication mode for the deaf and hard of hearing.  I began using it with my son, who was born deaf, when he was about 2 1/2 years old. It's based on phonemes so is a visual representation of spoken language--it's been adapted to about 60 spoken languages now. The point of it is (one of the points) that you don't have to learn a whole new language like sign language to begin communicating with your child.  You learn the handshapes and placements and communicate in the language of your home.  Sign language can be learned alongside it.  There's tons of research on it.  I was going to make a research tab (menu category--see, I did learn SOMETHING) but didn't want to keep borrowing from the NCSA.  If anyone wants to find out more, please go to www.cuedspeech.org and/or www.cuedspeech.com.  My son goes to UGA now and is a senior.  He's doing great.

There you have it:  my Joomla saga.  I think if I ever use it again, I'm going to be side-by-side with a real person who has experience.  Maybe I'll help my son's former transliterator get a website going (along with perhaps a website expert).  She is interested in starting a "real" Georgia Cued Speech Association.  Thanks for your time!