Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
I've moved
It's been a while since my last post, but it was time well spent. I'm now writing from a new home at www.jonathandozierezell.com. There you can read my short story series, 100 Words, my blog, and my book reviews. Check it out. It's still a work in progress, but things are coming along very nicely.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Very well then . . . . I contradict myself
I am large . . . . I contain multitudes.
No, I'm not Walt Whitman, but I am large, contradicting, and multitudinous. I wanted to take a moment to wonder about contradictions. Why are we so afraid of them? Why are they worse than wet-bed dreams for striking fear into our changeling hearts?
Every political cycle, each candidate berates the other for changing his/her (that's the only time I'm doing that, sorry ladies) mind. We claim a manufacturer has lost us when a product is "improved" in slightly nefarious ways, or when the packaging changes colors. As children we grow up quick to accuse our parents of vicious lies like deciding not to get ice cream, putting back the Transformer, or steadfastly denying our God-given right to own a pony. We hide all of these battles under the guise of trust, a five-letter word that has four-letter consequences.
I'm not really all that interested in the political campaign (at least not regarding this aspect this anyway). My main beef is with the University of ************. I was asked by a department head to consider helping them redesign their website. I jumped at the chance, being a fledgling though competent web designer. My head started swimming with CSS and neat nibbles of JavaScript that I could use to improve the appearance (and therefore reception) of their site. But before me, towering like the Greek god who was left out of the holiday sacrifice, was the dreaded TEMPLATE. All bow before TEMPLATE.
Here's the thing about templates: They only work in certain environments. If you want to put a standard face on a company website that sells, I don't know, one or two products, by all means go right ahead. If you think that users will remain more comfortable navigating your site if you dictate where the links and buttons go, I can mostly agree. But when you give me a templated space that's only 200px wide, I can't do much but yawn. There's never going to be excitement in that small area surrounded by bland web 2.0 curves and white space. It's going to fall flat on its face. Even Blogger allows more design options for Christ's sake.
But the real issue here is the fear of contradiction. The webmaster at U of ** seems to feel that the users will get lost in the .edu site if the standardized wrapper isn't prominent on every page. Do people really get lost in websites? Do they surf the web for hours only to find themselves with no idea where they are? My question is a much simpler one: If a prospective student can't navigate a website, how to you expect him to navigate Freshman year?
The U of ** wants a consistent image. I can give them that. I have no problem with sticking to color palettes and typefaces, maintaining the aesthetic integrity of the site. But when my end of the design is determining where the University approved and uploaded pictures will go between lines of black text on a white background, I get understandably frustrated. And who says a consistent image is always a good thing? Look what it did for Enron. But seriously, if you only sell one thing, one image is fine. One product: one identity. But when you market educational tools in a respectable range of disciplines, I think slightly straying from corporate boredom (and I do mean slightly; I'm not talking about disco balls on a Care Bear background) might even be a good thing.
Let us contradict ourselves. Let's change our minds about where we want to go and who with and what it will look like when we get there. I know there are bigger problems in the world than template website design, but it might even be a sign of something more important. In a world where we care more about what the business looks like than what the business does, excitement is all part of the game. And let's face it, if you can't be good, be loud.
No, I'm not Walt Whitman, but I am large, contradicting, and multitudinous. I wanted to take a moment to wonder about contradictions. Why are we so afraid of them? Why are they worse than wet-bed dreams for striking fear into our changeling hearts?
Every political cycle, each candidate berates the other for changing his/her (that's the only time I'm doing that, sorry ladies) mind. We claim a manufacturer has lost us when a product is "improved" in slightly nefarious ways, or when the packaging changes colors. As children we grow up quick to accuse our parents of vicious lies like deciding not to get ice cream, putting back the Transformer, or steadfastly denying our God-given right to own a pony. We hide all of these battles under the guise of trust, a five-letter word that has four-letter consequences.
I'm not really all that interested in the political campaign (at least not regarding this aspect this anyway). My main beef is with the University of ************. I was asked by a department head to consider helping them redesign their website. I jumped at the chance, being a fledgling though competent web designer. My head started swimming with CSS and neat nibbles of JavaScript that I could use to improve the appearance (and therefore reception) of their site. But before me, towering like the Greek god who was left out of the holiday sacrifice, was the dreaded TEMPLATE. All bow before TEMPLATE.
Here's the thing about templates: They only work in certain environments. If you want to put a standard face on a company website that sells, I don't know, one or two products, by all means go right ahead. If you think that users will remain more comfortable navigating your site if you dictate where the links and buttons go, I can mostly agree. But when you give me a templated space that's only 200px wide, I can't do much but yawn. There's never going to be excitement in that small area surrounded by bland web 2.0 curves and white space. It's going to fall flat on its face. Even Blogger allows more design options for Christ's sake.
But the real issue here is the fear of contradiction. The webmaster at U of ** seems to feel that the users will get lost in the .edu site if the standardized wrapper isn't prominent on every page. Do people really get lost in websites? Do they surf the web for hours only to find themselves with no idea where they are? My question is a much simpler one: If a prospective student can't navigate a website, how to you expect him to navigate Freshman year?
The U of ** wants a consistent image. I can give them that. I have no problem with sticking to color palettes and typefaces, maintaining the aesthetic integrity of the site. But when my end of the design is determining where the University approved and uploaded pictures will go between lines of black text on a white background, I get understandably frustrated. And who says a consistent image is always a good thing? Look what it did for Enron. But seriously, if you only sell one thing, one image is fine. One product: one identity. But when you market educational tools in a respectable range of disciplines, I think slightly straying from corporate boredom (and I do mean slightly; I'm not talking about disco balls on a Care Bear background) might even be a good thing.
Let us contradict ourselves. Let's change our minds about where we want to go and who with and what it will look like when we get there. I know there are bigger problems in the world than template website design, but it might even be a sign of something more important. In a world where we care more about what the business looks like than what the business does, excitement is all part of the game. And let's face it, if you can't be good, be loud.
Monday, October 6, 2008
What I Learned
I'm afraid I have some back-pedaling to do. A couple of posts back, I bemoaned the lack of standardization in graduate school applications. I fretted about the ten slightly different requests for my name, address, and academic history. I bitched about the odd requests to know exactly how many classes I had taken and where and when and how I'd done in them (actually most of this bitching was done off screen in my head). Well Reader, I must take most of the complaints back now.
You see, I also lied to you. I said I had finished the graduate applications when, in fact, I had not. I assumed myself almost finished. Ass-U-Me. I was not almost finished. I was not nearly finished. I am, however, finished now, and I have learned something. There may just be a reason why all of these applications are slightly different. There might be a purpose behind statements of purpose, autobiographical sketches, statements of goals, and teaching philosophies. Socrates (or whoever) warned, "Know thyself." You might think you already do. You do not. Not until you have filled out ten slightly different applications and written more autobiographies than if you were running for President. In fact, I will not vote for a President until he or she has applied to Brown, Hollins, Kent State, Arizona, Michigan, Oregon, Sarah Lawrence, The New School, Syracuse, and California, Irvine. Obama? McCain?
Not until then dost thy know thyself. I trust Socrates. He was the only one among us who knew enough to not write anything down.
So what did I learn? I learned I want to write. Yes, I already knew that. But it's less academic now that I've knocked on the gates of academia. If I didn't want to write, or if I only slightly wanted to write, I would not have jumped through the flaming hoops of MFAdom. I am a writer, read circus performer.
The second thing I learned is that I want to teach. No, my mother was not right about this after all. Yes, she did say I should teach, but I refuse to let her be right and I'm going to give an explanation of why she's wrong as soon as I think of it. But seriously, I want to teach, but I want to teach writers. I want to teach people who want to write or who, at the very least, respect writers and want to engage writers on their turf, the page (okay, the computer screen works for this analogy too. I'm not being tropophobic).
I want to bring writing back. I want to bring literature back from this so-called brink it's been precariously perched on all these years. I want to start a movement that isn't built like an ironic scaffold over its predecessors. I want to mean something, and I want my literature to do the same.
Thank you non-standard graduate school applications.
Now that I know myself, who wants to let me in?
You see, I also lied to you. I said I had finished the graduate applications when, in fact, I had not. I assumed myself almost finished. Ass-U-Me. I was not almost finished. I was not nearly finished. I am, however, finished now, and I have learned something. There may just be a reason why all of these applications are slightly different. There might be a purpose behind statements of purpose, autobiographical sketches, statements of goals, and teaching philosophies. Socrates (or whoever) warned, "Know thyself." You might think you already do. You do not. Not until you have filled out ten slightly different applications and written more autobiographies than if you were running for President. In fact, I will not vote for a President until he or she has applied to Brown, Hollins, Kent State, Arizona, Michigan, Oregon, Sarah Lawrence, The New School, Syracuse, and California, Irvine. Obama? McCain?
Not until then dost thy know thyself. I trust Socrates. He was the only one among us who knew enough to not write anything down.
So what did I learn? I learned I want to write. Yes, I already knew that. But it's less academic now that I've knocked on the gates of academia. If I didn't want to write, or if I only slightly wanted to write, I would not have jumped through the flaming hoops of MFAdom. I am a writer, read circus performer.
The second thing I learned is that I want to teach. No, my mother was not right about this after all. Yes, she did say I should teach, but I refuse to let her be right and I'm going to give an explanation of why she's wrong as soon as I think of it. But seriously, I want to teach, but I want to teach writers. I want to teach people who want to write or who, at the very least, respect writers and want to engage writers on their turf, the page (okay, the computer screen works for this analogy too. I'm not being tropophobic).
I want to bring writing back. I want to bring literature back from this so-called brink it's been precariously perched on all these years. I want to start a movement that isn't built like an ironic scaffold over its predecessors. I want to mean something, and I want my literature to do the same.
Thank you non-standard graduate school applications.
Now that I know myself, who wants to let me in?
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Two Steps Forward...
And as soon as I say I'm not talking about money...
Paid a Chase credit card to the tune of $2K thanks to Rachel's well-paying, though not exorbitant, teaching post. Unfortunately, during last month we put $1.7K on and another $200.00 already this month. C'est la vie. And yet, we keep motoring on. I wonder if we'll be able to save the $10K I was hoping on for our eventual move to the Big Apple. Of course, we could just forget all that of one of the ten schools to whom I've applied lets me in. Hint, hint, hint.
I personally think I deserve some reward for just navigating through the various Embark log-ins and formatting quirks. Here's an idea, oh brave institutions of learning: standardize! For lovers of standardized tests, universities seem to lack quite a bit themselves on the old standards front. Wouldn't it be a really cool idea if there was just one application that asked everything a university could possibly want to know? Then I, the applicant, could set up various log-ins for the universities and give those schools I choose access.
I understand it's too simple to possibly work, but couldn't we at least try?
Paid a Chase credit card to the tune of $2K thanks to Rachel's well-paying, though not exorbitant, teaching post. Unfortunately, during last month we put $1.7K on and another $200.00 already this month. C'est la vie. And yet, we keep motoring on. I wonder if we'll be able to save the $10K I was hoping on for our eventual move to the Big Apple. Of course, we could just forget all that of one of the ten schools to whom I've applied lets me in. Hint, hint, hint.
I personally think I deserve some reward for just navigating through the various Embark log-ins and formatting quirks. Here's an idea, oh brave institutions of learning: standardize! For lovers of standardized tests, universities seem to lack quite a bit themselves on the old standards front. Wouldn't it be a really cool idea if there was just one application that asked everything a university could possibly want to know? Then I, the applicant, could set up various log-ins for the universities and give those schools I choose access.
I understand it's too simple to possibly work, but couldn't we at least try?
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