Finding a topic for my RCS part 1

Our first lesson is over and the time for figuring out what the topic of my RCS came. I've been thinking a lot during the long holidays, but I had a lot of work to do and I had no free time to even reevaluate my life as is.

Anyway about the topic...

- it should be something personal as that will drive us forward
- it should be something that will help us in the future

(I couldn't formulate the second point) Anyway it gets problematic even here.
I got stuck at several things. From one point of view I should be doing something that can be helpful in my professional life but ok let's be more specific my parents don't expect me to be an artist and they don't like the general idea of it. So it goes back to why I started studying at Prague College.

I went to the school to learn about 3d animation and sound production. It is something that fascinated me and I wanted to learn more. I tried myself in my free time, but it was never that fruitful. At Prague College I really got the chance, learned a lot and could work hard on it. Though several things hampered this.

1. work
2. my attitude to certain people when they behave the way they shouldn't

This completely ruined my motivation to do anything 3d modeling related even though after working with 3dsmax for hours that it is still something that fascinates me and I would like to continue doing that. But I also learned one more thing: I can't do this for long. 5 hours lesson in which I spent looking at the screen and modeling was already too painful for my eyes. Ending up dry and red and I get really bad headaches and I feel sick afterwards. This means that for another day or two I can't see anything in 3d (on computer screen), if I do I'm sick.

Sound Production. Well, this is something that involves more spontaneity and more imagination that I usually come up with. It is fascinating and we had really motivating teachers, but I have to admit that this won't be anything I'd like to do in the future, nor as an artist nor as someone working for company.

What is left there? My 15 year lasting interest in web design and coding? This is something I would like to do. It is something I'd like to become much better and picking up scripting would be much better (php and MySQL). I have to say that I have big holes in knowledge concerning the evolution of web design (notably) and coding as well. I even completely missed CSS3. No matter what this is something I'll be doing in the future and I would like to dedicate part of my life, both professionally and for 'fun' let's say. (interest)

I was thinking about topics I could elaborate on. There are few things that struck me. First of all...I'm typing this blog post on a blogspot site. This blog's system is not done by me. Not even the way the blog looks (ok, I made the template look this way but ignore that for a while). From here two question arise concerning

- content management systems (joomla, drupal etc)
- website templates (be it for a shop, web page, CMS)

When I first started writing on the internet I had a page that I updated manually. Later when I learned about php I no longer needed doing this, but still many times it was the easiest thing to do. When CMS systems started to be widely used, many people started blogging. Sites like blogspot.com, wordpress.com were created. Here everyone can create an account and write about anything he or she likes. But many people are not really HTML/php/asp literate. Users want their blogs to look different from others etc. The need for user friendly stuff arose. (I could talk about this concerning any software and operating system). And that's where people started creating templates, CMSs, gadgets etc. This does not only means 'web code', but also graphics and some real programming language skills. (BTW do you know what pasting a text from MS Word to this window will do (actually not to the one I use now as it shows html code, but to the one many people use to write their text and edit it?)

So my first two questions are about CMS and templates. But what of it? I decided to drop the first question. Actually if I would consider it, I would like to know where the evolution and CMS modules lead us. Same with the templates, but here it took me in a different direction. I spent some time doing web design and I went through a period where everything blocky was in and when everything with rounded corners was in. But again in Japan...this has never happened. The stage of rounded corners, flashy stuff and so on came much later and even now is not the widely used 'look'.
Japanese sites are usually about the content and are most of the time terrible in design whereas here the design is something really important and many people expect a site to look good and be interactive. Does a culture influence web design?

Another question arose - How should a good commercial site be done?

There are many more things that come to mind but I can't really grasp them and turn them into a question. And trying to relate any of those to Visual Production is also something I can't really do and thus I decided to let it go.

The second topic which is really close to me is anything Fantasy Art related. As this term is not even established it was difficult for me to even search for information. I wanted to see the evolution of Fantasy Art used commercially but I think I should start somewhere else. Somewhere at the root of 'What is Fantasy?' But when considering this and my professional life...I can't really come up with anything (except the fact that I would really like to become fantasy artist one day)