Skip to main content

I am drooling. Seriously.

By
I was perusing the interweb for some sort of guide to the good research pages, and I came across this. http://websearch.about.com/od/internetresearch/a/newsreference.htm

Then I came across this through that first site: http://www.ipl.org/IPLBrowse/GetSubject?vid=13&tid=6925&parent=0

I could lose myself researching. That's bad. So I need to chose a particular area for focus this summer and stick to it. Why am I researching? That should be obvious. I'm a historian in training. I need to know why. And I need to figure out why the why is the why. And how that why influenced this why. And what conclusions we can draw from all those whys. As George Santayana said, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. And "The wisest mind has something yet to learn".

My choices are Modern Russia and the American Civil War era, since those are two of the classes I'm taking in the fall and I don't have time right now to pursue other interests. And I'm leaning toward the Civil War because I happen to have a book on it and I can't count the number of reenactments I've been to throughout the course of my life. My dad loves that period. Also WWI and WWII. He likes military strategy. He plays those extensive, fancy, comes-with-reams-of-instructions war games. He has no favorite side-he's Belgian.

So I have a resource in him. And he's got an entire bookcase filled with books written about the Civil War. So I didn't need opinions after all. I made the decision all by meself. But thanks for letting me write down the thinking process.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Cat is Out of the Bag

By
I wonder where that expression comes from? There is this fabulous book that can tell you, only I forgot the name of it. Next time I come across it I think I'm going to have to buy it. Anyway. I was going to wait. A long time. Maybe forever. I don't like people coming up and hugging me, smiling and saying congratulations, or asking me questions. But Damm was talking to his recruiter about insurance. And he mentioned something that he should've told the recruiter was non-repeatable, because 5 minutes later the recruiter told Damm's mother (I have no earthly idea why he's talking to her-I keep forgetting to ask). After that I had to tell my mother. We haven't told any extended family members because there are quite a few here celebrating Damm's mother's graduation and that would be the worst form of torture I can imagine. So yeah, I'm knocked up again :P And this time I'm getting the t-shirt. "It" is due August 11. I have not been to a doc...
19 comments
Read more ->>

Werewolves are always better.

By
The question answering post will come tomorrow. Sunday was too busy. I just finished reading Twilight and New Moon . When I first started Twilight I wasn't impressed, it seemed slow and bleh and very teen dating girl story. Last night I got home at about midnight... I picked up New Moon. I was only going to read the ending to the scene that starts in the back of Twilight.... I didn't get much sleep last night(due to finishing New Moon). I'm loving the series. Although, wow these vamps scare me. Why? Because they are harder to kill. After reading the first book I spent 20 min thinking of counters. For a counter to be valid it has to be balanced. I can't just say "I'm superman and Vampires are deathly allergic to me and I heal like wolverine and have a robot army." (although when I ran into the aliens from Alien/Aliens/AvP for the first time, my counter at the time was almost exactly that.) I came up with the Dancer. He's a completely normal ...
7 comments
Read more ->>

There be too much history.

By
For the past couple of weeks Damm and I have been faithfully spending an hour each day working on our respective summer projects-he on his writing and me on Spanish and history. I had previously mentioned wanting to create some sort of series that I’d work on throughout the summer. I did a bit of brainstorming and decided that I should write essays on bits of fun and fascinating history. Then I started thinking up topic ideas and realized that I didn’t have enough time to randomly pick subjects, research them, and then write entertainingly. So I decided to pick one area of focus. It came down to either Modern Russia or the Civil War Era, since these are the two history courses I’ll be taking in the fall. I chose the Civil War. And even then I have not narrowed my focus enough. The essays one could write on the American Civil War … the possibilities are endless. And so I’m in the process of redefining what I will write/research. I’m in the midst of gathering info for a...
9 comments
Read more ->>