May 26th - May 20th (Week 1)

A snapshot of the trees at Friday's Event

3 Accomplishments

-       An accomplishment that I had this week was the successful setup and publication of my website. Although my site still needs work, as the program progresses, I will be updating it as my project and research goals develop. As it is currently uploaded, I am happy with the design, but it would benefit from polishing and additions.

-       During this first week when we attended the ropes course, I was very proud of our entire cohort’s ability to work together to accomplish the tasks. Moreover, there was never an ounce of negativity, but rather we all worked together to cross the lava/climb the wall/ balance the ship. Looking forward, this is a comforting notion when discussing the dynamics of research and peer help.

-       One of the big things I learned this week is how to use my laptop that was provided via the program. Once again, not being the most technologically advanced educated, I was worried about my ability to adjust and learn the new software, but I am happy with what I have learned, even though it is just the basics.

3 things that hurt its productivity

-       One of my biggest challenges this week was setting up and designing my website. Being someone who is not particularly tech-savvy, when it comes to designing a proper website, I met with some challenges. However, I know that often if something challenges me, I just need to work on it at my own pace, or revisit it later, so I can finish it during our off times.

-       Coming from overseas, I have been struggling with jet lag and adjusting to the time zone here. Unfortunately, this has led to me making my nights with my colleagues being very short, which is not helping our team dynamic, but I think the ropes course fixed that gap I was starting to feel.

-       Finally, although I would not say this hurt my productivity, I did have a small fear of being stung by a wasp in the library. Not that I have even seen one, or I am allergic to them. I am just not a big fan of the fact that they are lurking on the upper floors.

3 things I learned

-       This week was very full of learning, one of the big things I learned was simply my way around the library and the USM campus as a whole. Coming from a much smaller campus and in a city, USM is quite different, so it offered a unique navigation path for me.

-       I learned many things from the lecture on Thursday afternoon about the Civil War and Reconstruction, but one of the big things I learned was the importance of language and its format when discussing enslaved and formerly enslaved peoples to allow for the most justice to be allowed posthumously.

-       Overall, I learned a lot more about what the digital humanities are and what they entail. Before this project, I had worked on a few different online history projects, but this one made me realize truly what I was doing and how important it is. Access to information and historical context for a state is important in and outside of classrooms and formal learning spaces.

Next step:

When considering my next step, I look forward to narrowing down the topic I would like to research. I plan on doing this by looking through the list of tags and looking into topics that interest me and their intersection with the period in order to develop a research question.