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Eventually I moved on to some random photo-editing program I found on my ancient desktop computer and was able to colorize images, play with transparency and the like, so my graphics gradually improved. I had a guild on Neopets around that time, as well, so I was able to practice layout-making and HTML coding through that. Yes, I learned HTML through Neopets, although I think most of us did. Sometime shortly after that I got a freewebs site and a .cjb.net URL (anyone remember those? xD) and my very first website was born: fateful-eyes.cjb.net. That site lasted for a few months and then I opened a blog under the name faded-beauty.cjb.net and had that for a long time and have had a blog on some site or another ever since. Sometime in between there, I bought Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8 and my graphics vastly improved over time as I eventually bought Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and would combine both programs to do all kinds of things.
Sometime later in early 2004, I found someone to host me. It was only for about 2-3 months and honestly, I don't even remember what the domain was called or what my subdomain URL was or even what I decided to call the site. It was just so short-lived D: But none of that matters because in April 2004, I bought my very first domain: suteki-yume.org. I've had a total of six (seven?) domains since then, the next few being: shibomu.net, kataomoi.net, ukime.net, hidama.net, yasashii-ame.net, and back to hidama.net. I had Yasashii-Ame.net for three years, an astoundingly long existence compared to the year-long (in some cases, less) existence the previous five had. But I eventually grew tired of it and found that my beloved hidama.net was available again, and thus, it's mine once more xD
As of now, I consider myself pretty experienced in the ways of web and graphic design. I'm still an amateur, and I don't really intend to ever be anything beyond that because this is more of a hobby than something I plan on building a career out of. However, I am a self-taught amateur and I take a lot of pride in that. I don't see myself giving this little hobby of mine up anytime soon simply because I love it too much. It's become a part of me and I really don't think I'd know what to do with myself without it in my life. Who knows, maybe I'll still be doing this when I'm old and gray, blogging about getting my hip replaced and my grandchildren sticking weird things up their noses, I don't know. Only time will tell, I suppose :)