Running Away?

The website I checked out was http://chuhengding.web.unc.edu/about/ the website of an English student originally from Nanjing, China. The website immediately caught my attention because of its name RUNNING AWAY, the use of all caps easily distinguished it for the other rather mundane titles. Visually the page is less than stellar and while that may seem like a bad thing I actually appreciate it. A lot of the blogs I skimmed, prior to choosing, seemed to be bogged down with too many visuals, which ended up feeling a tad overwhelming (kind of like going into the store Forever 21). The site had a cool graphic at the top from a popular PS3 game --I couldn't find the title, unfortunately, but I remember playing the demo when it first came out-- and the graphic matched the theme of the page, which I appreciated. The background is a soft shade of pink, very closely related to pastel pink; which, by itself, is an amazing color, however, when combined the with the loud title and graphic it came off feeling, lackluster and a bit confusing, because of the sharp contrast between it and the graphic. If she intended to go with a softer color I think a silver would have looked nice, and retained it's professional appearance, but the choice of the pastel pink was a little off-setting.

The content varied, while her English ability isn't amazing (she often forgets particles) keeping the writing from gaining any fluidity, her writing was interesting. The highlight for me was her "About Me!" was is strange because typically the about me section is a bit bland and gives little insight to the creator of the blog. This about me displays the author's personality and even tells a bit of her story, which I found very interesting, though it was in broken English. It allowed me to understand how difficult it is for people who move to America from foreign countries, in her case China. Overall I enjoyed checking it out and it will definitely help me to create an effective website of my own.