Lifelong Learning
I’ve always been drawn to learning new things, whether that means understanding how a website works, exploring an artistic technique, or discovering unexpected connections between different fields.
This is where I share selected projects, experiments, and discoveries from what I’m currently studying.
For me, learning isn’t separate from creating. It’s a fundamental part of how I function. This learning informs my professional life as well as my personal life.
Currently Exploring
WordPress Development
After years of working with WordPress, I’m exploring more of what happens beneath the surface.
I’m studying PHP, custom themes, and WordPress development by building a fictional university website from the ground up. Along the way, I’m discovering new connections between familiar tools and the code that makes them work.
Currently Exploring
Pattern Drawing
I’ve been exploring the meditative possibilities of drawing through repeating lines, shapes, and patterns.
Recently, I’ve been studying new techniques and experimenting with how they can become part of my own drawings. Sometimes learning a single new pattern opens up an entirely different little world, full of unexpected details and discoveries.
From the Learning Notebook
As I work through a WordPress development course, I’m building a fictional university website using PHP, HTML, CSS, and WordPress functionality.
These screenshots capture key milestones – from custom queries and fields to page templates and relationships between different content types.
Selected Screenshots
These are snapshots of my work in building “Fictional University.” This development course has 31 sections. As of october 2026, Cynthia is on Section 10.
Home Page
Section 4: The While Loop
Getting WordPress to pull in events on the home page
Custom Fields
Section 7: Adding Events Custom Fields
Creating a relationship between campus events and programs of study
Blog Code
Section 6: Creating the blog
Using the While Loop to generate test blog posts
Related Programs
Section 8: Adding related programs to an event
Using newly created custom fields to add a program of study to a campus event
Custom Query
Section 7: Using custom query
This custom query allows the events page to populate
Featured Image Sizes
Section 9: Using featured image sizes
Using WordPress to generated different images sizes and output them on the front end
Quest Map
I use ChatGPT to help me with my coding journey. But I also like to make representations – a kind of vision board, if you will – to help inspire my journey. One night I was brainstorming what I would put on this vision map with ChatGPT. It accidentally created and generated the map for me using names we’d come up with together. I still plan on drawing this map myself, but I thought this AI-generated map would be fun to look at and help me along my journey in the meantime.
Patterned Drawings
Drawing is a way of life for me. It has multiple purposes. First, I am a systems thinker. Drawing patterns helps me to derive and integrate the patterns I see across disciplines. It helps keep my design skills sharp. It also helps me to relax. I often draw with no end result in mind other than I want it to be pleasing to the eye.
