I’ll probably hate myself for saying this later, but I really can’t wait to get back to Austin. I’ve been letting my lazy side run free for about three months (six weeks of which I worked and worked hard, mind you!), and I really need to sit down, slap myself a couple times, and hit the books. I have a thesis to start preparing for and two majors to finalize. Granted, there will be quite a few Hulu breaks, especially since I’ve started watching Haven which is basically X-Files set in small-town Maine, David Duchovny stand-in and everything. Before I start fawning uncontrollably, I thought I’d explain something.

An explanation…

When I say I’m studying Classics and Linguistics to people who for a variety of reasons have never heard of it, everyone assumes, for reasons I cannot fathom, that “Classics” means “that girl reads a lot of Dickens and Hugo.” Which is totally true, but besides the point. Classics is the study of ancient Greek and Roman civilization. It combines history, literature, drama, politics, geography, languages, art — everything. The breadth of this field, both in terms of subject areas and sheer timespan, is the reason I chose it for my primary major.

Linguistics, similarly, does not mean I just learn a lot of languages (although this ls also true). It means that I am studying the science of language, the mechanics. It does help to know many languages to be a linguist, but you don’t learn them through the major. There. That settles things. For now…

…And a defense

It’s not even that people don’t understand what I’m learning. I’m starting to figure out a few people don’t value it. Sometimes it startles me who I hear it from: people who I thought valued education and culture. Now, there are some pretty silly majors out there, but far be it for me to tell someone that what they studied is worthless. At some point, one should be allowed to acquire an education for education’s sake, and that means study what you love, whatever it is. Some of us (ahem) love the past, and it will never be enough for me to sit down and read a Wikipedia entry about ancient culture. How could that possibly be enough? What does that teach me but the bare bones of these people and civilizations? It’s the same for History, English, Classics. Hell, it’s the same for all of the Liberal Arts. To know enough about your field to call yourself “educated” demands more than any casual research will ever give you. It demands an education. It demands mastery, and that’s something that anyone in any field should agree with.

I am not a classicist. Not yet. Not for several more years, until I’ve mastered the languages, read the works, poured through the history, thrown myself completely into my field. After two years, I have barely dug a hole two inches deep. The amount of things I’ve learned, however jaw-droppingly huge to me, is only a fraction of what I must one day master. It will take a lot of education to get to that point. In three weeks, I get to dig a little deeper. The only feeling that comes to mind is this: bliss.

I am happy to announce that my new design is up and running fairly well. This morning, I made a dynamic menu/title (the former, thanks to this article, the latter a result of some very basic programming — but I’m not here to brag). I’ve been working on this for about a month, maybe a little longer, and the final result is a great deal more polished than my original mockup — but it’s not that different either.

My process

Most of the mockups I’ve ever made in Photoshop are unfinished in some critcal way. Maybe the color aren’t quite right — that always takes a lot of tweaking once you have to see them all over the screen — or maybe that logo isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe it’s not your logo at all, it’s a logo that was swapped for yours at birth, and now it’s a hunchback with tentacles, and you don’t know where you’ve gone wrong as a parent, but it’s happened, and now those angst-ridden teenage years are coming on fast and—

That was not the metaphor I had in mind. Moving on…

Mockups and markup

A lot of people have probably already read Meagan Fisher’s article on mockups vs. markup, and if you haven’t, do it right now. Photoshop mockups are extremely inflexible. While I think it’s important to play around in Photoshop just to get your bearings, know that 90% of the work you will be doing will be with markup. Every now and then after I exported the images for my design, I’d return to Photoshop to grab a color (although Colourlovers helped out a lot), or refine an icon, but that was it. When you know what you want to do, Photoshop is pretty much useless.

So as soon as I got out of the whirlwind of possibility that is Photoshop with a decent design, I churned out Version One, which will never be seen by human eyes; then, Version Two, which is similar, but better; Version Three was nearly there. I broke away from the vertical menu to tabs, which I hadn’t done in a while. At any rate, it seemed to suit the theme, and left the sidebar open for content — delicious, delicious content.

Trial and error

I initially tried to get pointed tabs at the top of the page, but the varying widths of my tabs made that a bit more trouble than it was worth. I compensated by…using -moz-border-radius around the place. Because those things totally go hand in hand.

I hadn’t tried rgba before this design, and I wasn’t sure if it was worth it. Within seconds of applying it on the navigation (I thought it would be unwieldy and superfluous everywhere else), I changed my mind. It is extremely easy to use, and very pretty if you use it right.

I also tried out Cufón and @font-face for the first time. I stuck with @font-face, because it was the easiest to manipulate. I could change weights and fonts without having to upload a new Javascript file every time. But I have to say, Cufón is very neat. If you’re using sIFR, Cufón is infinitely easier to use. I mean, for chrissakes, there’s a generator. And it renders very smooth. @font-face renders a bit choppily (this might be caused by other things as well), but unlike with Cufón, I won’t have to worry about selecting text or :hover (this is apparently supported, but I couldn’t get it to work).

Then, I thought about upgrading from Movable Type 4.1 to Movable Type 5, which was released a couple days ago. After a few minutes of playing with my installation, I decided not to. The interface is gray and boring, the navigation is a bit confusing. I’m not sure why they got rid of MT 4’s UI, because it seems infinitely better.

So that’s a wrap! I have a few more things to clean up about this design, but I’m pretty happy with it. Let me know what you think! :)

Two months of Indian TV — and if I see another ad for Maasilamani, I will hurt someone badly — have gotten me thinking about the quality of the movies and shows I watched. I said earlier that women only play a few set roles in Indian cinema — housewives, lady cops (which I don’t understand — the other extreme?), and pretty young things in search of love. The thing is, men don’t branch out a ton either: The villains are mustachioed; the heroes, also mustachioed, are either too poor or too proud, or, if right in the middle, have no faults.The same characters wind up doing the same things. I have seen three lady cops now, two businesswomen — but no other professionals — and about ninety housewives. This might be a slight improvement over male characters, many of whom only star as bad guys, husbands, and fiances. But it’s still not very interesting.

The national and international scale

An op-ed piece in The New Indian Express was upset that India’s most successful export (in terms of acclaim), Slumdog Millionaire, wasn’t even directed by an Indian — that India is incapable of producing an Academy Award winner on its own. I agree to some extent. There is a tremendous amount of talent and passion in the industry, but not enough diversity — for me or the Academy. Bollywood produces almost one thousand movies a year, and they’re all virtually the same. Most are about love, some are biopics, and I think it’s telling that one of the best movies to come out of India, Black, was about neither of these things.True, it is an Indian adaptation of The Miracle Worker, and it stars Amitabh Bachchan, the Godfather of Bollywood. But it was different. It’s the same with Lagaan, which was actually nominated for an Oscar in 2001. If you have to tell a story, either tell one that’s been told before and tell it better, or make up something completely new.

That being said, Bollywood has made its name on a totally different foundation than its western equivalents. Bollywood is about song and dance and tradition. It’s not necessarily about reality, but idealization. Bollywood doesn’t do grit and anguish. Nor do I think its movies fit nicely into any one genre. Indian movies have a lot of love, a lot of music, and always a happy ending, which is what people like seeing. Believable? Absolutely not. But mildly stimulating and entertaining if you can get into it.