Here I Go Again

As I recently said on Twitter, web scraping with Python has replaced QGIS as my latest digital problem. At least the maps showed me that I was making progress.

Little has changed in 2 weeks.

I spent about an hour and a half in the latest DH Anonymous group with Justin and Sarah trying to figure out how to go about this whole Python gig. My first disconnect occurred from the tutorials. They allow you to work online in a simulated Command Line that definitely doesn't seem to replicate what I regularly see on my computer and how the Python program works on my machine. I've realized that many things will be different from the tutorial when working with the program directly, but I already needed help in figuring out the basics. Thankfully, Justin got me through most of that.

I installed all the necessities: BeautifulSoup, pip, Python itself. After some searching, video watching, and tutorial reading, I found some code that seemed to accomplish the beginning steps of the process.  The website I'm planning to scrape is relatively simple (www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ascp), and I was able to get the links for each item on the landing page to scrape along with the text of that list. However, I couldn't seem to find a way to manipulate my code to get Python to access the links and scrape the contents of those links. I had spent several hours on Tuesday night just trying to work with the code, add things to it (that probably didn't make much sense), and continue to research the use of Python with web scraping. It just wasn't working. Well, lo and behold, Wednesday's class (and Dr. Gibbs) revealed to me that I wasn't using the proper area to work with Python (Command prompt rather than Command line) and I was making all of this far too complicated.

After about an hour's worth of Q&A with Gibbs after class, I had a grasp on what I was doing and where I needed to go. I haven't gone back to it just yet (mostly because it's Thanksgiving), but I'm determined to figure this out. It's the last things I've got left to check off my list for my digital portfolio, so it's going to get done. Lesson of the fail: quit over-thinking!

Difficulties of Critiquing

Throughout the class, we have been discussing how Digital Humanities projects can and have been critiqued by scholars throughout the last few years. There are myriad projects out there and even more in development, but when it comes to critiquing, evaluating, and judging these projects, it seems that the opinions vary as widely as the projects. This brings me to our most recent class in which we premiered the homemade videos we each were tasked with creating.

It seems I should have worn something fancier.

The process of making the research video was arduous and tedious, but the results (at least in my case) were something that I can be proud of.  I had figured that showing my video in class was going to be the most nerve-racking part of the entire experience--and it was, for the most part. As the video began, I was seriously nervous, but when the audience (our class) actually laughed at the comedic parts of the video, my tension began to dissipate. All in all, the premiering experience was frightening but rather fun.  I think it was especially eased because it seemed that the class actually enjoyed the video and had very few critiques.

Although I had predicted that the toughest part of the whole project would actually be putting the movie together in Movie Maker, critiquing other people's work was definitely much more difficult. This is definitely where I had my failure of the week, and I had the realization that evaluating other people's work is much harder than it sounded.

I'm an English instructor, so I'm more than accustomed to giving constructive criticism but that is primarily on freshmen composition papers. While watching my classmates' research videos, I wasn't able to come up with criticisms other than the most basic or obvious such as those that the director him/herself already described or what others had said. Additionally, the only person's video I actually felt comfortable critiquing as far as content was concerned was Justin's since he and are both Anglo-Saxonists and close friends.  Since I already knew the material he was covering in the presentation, it seemed more appropriate to evaluate his video rather than the others since I know little about their research interests. That brings up the question in my mind of whether or not those who could be evaluating potential projects on my horizon will feel the same way I do about judging my colleagues' work.

Movie Making Mishaps

The last week has been dedicated to creating my research video, and I, once again, I'm using a type of software that I've never been exposed to previously. A friend showed me how to use Movie Maker very quickly--not nearly long enough for me to actually make a full video--but certainly a start.

 Definitely never thought that this sight would not scare me.

As I worked through my video creation process, my first failure came in actually trying to save the thing. One of the presumably easiest things to do (at least it is in other programs) was apparently not as user-friendly or intuitive by any stretch of the imagination. There are multiple ways of saving in Movie Maker, and you must be careful to choose the correct one depending on the stage of your movie. If you are completely done with your video, you can save as a movie and it will be done. However, if you are not complete with the editing process, you have to save it as a project. The big difference is that a video saved as a movie will not play through Movie Maker nor will you be able to edit it again. I was unaware of this fact, so I saved it as a movie. Coming back to it the next day, I realized I couldn't edit or even play it through Movie Maker. Fail. Similar to other projects I've done this semester, I had to start over.

Take 2 has been much more successful; however, I have been encountering issues related to pieces of my video changing from what I had initially put in. Part of the video encompasses slides from a PowerPoint converted into .png files. Some of these slides change their order or disappear without my knowing or asking it to do this. Sometimes I really think my digital journey would not be complete without little gremlins messing with my work!

Gizmo represents my digital projects. That gremlin is clearly up to no good.

I feel that my video is currently at the stage where I think it's fully developed and ready for saving it as a movie (that's not a big step, in my mind) except for the narration/voice-over work. I have the script written out and timed to link up with the visuals, so the narration is the final step. Just a point to note, I will definitely be saving the video in both methods just so I can edit it later--I've learned my lesson this semester!

DH Anonymous

Throughout the course of this semester, I have struggled with each and every new piece of software to which we have been introduced. Thankfully, I have a fellow Medieval Studies colleague in the class who has more experience with some of the programs than I do, and he has been generous enough with his time to help me through my struggles and give me confidence to complete many of the projects on my own. Lately, I have been turning much more quickly to Google and Twitter to help me solve my problems rather than frantically texting my colleague (that now only happens in dire straits), but I'm noticing a severe lack of communication within our classroom environment, especially on the digital front. However, a few of us have been working steadily to help each other.

Yep.

Today, Sarah, Justin, and I decided to reserve a library study room for two hours and discuss the issues we were having with any of the software and try to help each other in any way possible. As a group, we were able to get Sarah more comfortable with HTML and CSS, and we started to unpack the mystery of MALLET. I also helped Sarah (and Justin, by extension) figure out how to get the base map on her QGIS map. Overall, this experience was extremely useful and something that I believe all three of us will repeat as often as possible. We sent the word out on Twitter for our fellow classmates to join us, but no one else seemed interested or, at least, replied. I really think that this is probably one of the most useful things I have done all semester, and if we had more people in the group working together, we would be able to have a much better understanding of the programs we're trying to use and incorporate into our portfolios.

Whatever your skill level, we don't judge. Join us!

In a seminar setting such as this, the group members truly need to work together for the common good of everyone involved. I truly wish the class itself was more like our two hour meeting this morning because it was the most productive I've been in a group setting. Justin, Sarah, and I will definitely be holding regular Digital Humanities Anonymous meetings for the rest of the semester, and I really think this will help us actually finish our portfolio requirements to the best of our abilities.

Jessica Troy's A Series of Fortunate Failures

On Wednesday of this week, I decided to buckle down and figure out how to make a map with information pertinent to my own research no matter what. From the tutorial with Google Maps Lite, I actually understood most of the methods for that particular type of map. Following the directions was fairly straightforward, and I was able to cut out the parts that were least necessary/useful for me (making a road, creating a polygon, etc.). I had only slight trouble when it came to finding locations to put on my map, but those were easily overcome using my preexisting research skills. The map developed rather quickly when I was manually putting together the points. However, I knew that I needed to have a CSV file which listed a greater number of locations.

I wasn't entirely sure how to create a CSV file (or what it truly is), so after a bit of Googling, I began to write out a basic text document full of names and places. At the end, I tried to save it in an appropriate file form, and it wasn't listed! Ah! Back to Google. Apparently, I missed someone telling me that Word docs can't (or at least I couldn't figure out how) be saved as CSV files. I took some advice from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and didn't panic. I realized instead that I could transfer all of the information to an Excel format. After doing that, adjusting the columns, and saving, I was ready to import. Google Maps took the CSV file with no issues, and my map expanded. Now, on to QGIS--or so I thought.

 I need my towel.

So...my nemesis: QGIS. I went back through tutorials that attempted to guide me through the QGIS process, but they ended up being a bit of a dead end. I figured out how to save my Google map as a KML file, but when I attempted to transfer it to QGIS, there was no background map (which I sort of expected based on our classroom discussions) and only one set of my dots actually showed up. This fortunately became a help to me since I realized that more needed to be done than I originally thought. After playing around with it and getting mucho frustrated, I started Googling...again. I figured that there had to be a reason why the two sets of data didn't show up. I finally decided that I would go back to the Google Earth step I skipped and give it a shot. 

After downloading Google Earth, transferring my map to it, and saving, a miraculous occurrence came to my attention. The icons on my desktop where I had originally saved my map changed into Google Earth KML files. I was certainly hoping that this was step in the right direction--I kind of felt like it was. Now, back to QGIS.

Ok, after much Googling, scanning, reading, tutorialing, and more Googling, I finally figured out how to get my shiny new KML files into the program. And just like magic, both sets of data appeared! Woot! However, the base map problem still loomed. I've found some step-by-steps online but there seemed to be a disconnect either because it was an old version or it was for a Mac. All of the steps lined up until I hit the major roadblock. There was supposed to be a specific plug-in to install (which I did), but in the Plug-ins pull down menu, it wouldn't appear. I tried installing, reinstalling, uninstalling, and repeating, but nothing seemed to work. It just wouldn't appear. So, fed up with Googling, I went to Twitter. 

How I felt about that damn plug-in!

I posted several tweets with calls for help and including screen shots along with our class' hashtag as well as a more general #qgis. For a while, the tweets were silent. This was really disheartening because a few months ago this would have been a very clear stopping point for me, and I was determined to get this project done. Finally, someone following the QGIS hashtag saw my cry for help and came to my rescue. The simplest of suggestions, "check the web tab," and my mapping life changed. A few simple clicks later and the map was done, complete with base map. The finished products are now up on http://jessicatroy.net/digimeth/index.html. 

Even one month ago, I would have given up a long time ago, so the fact that I actually finished all three versions of this map is amazing to me. I had a series of failures, but none of them stopped me.

Procrastinator's Dilemma

This week I've done a lot of thinking about particular aspects of the digital portfolio, especially the QGIS requirement. I had a pretty solid conversation with Dr. Gibbs about what I can use as a basis for the map and the basics of how to accomplish it, but it never actually went past the thinking/talking phase. I think my failure this week is in my lack of trying.

As the semester rolls ever closer to finals week, I get more and more concerned about finishing the project but also fearful that my efforts will end in total failure. I think I'm giving myself a complex.  Talking about what needs done and actually attempting the activity are clearly very different things, and the "I can't do this" idea continually jumps into my head. To me, this is more than simple procrastination. Yes, I'm procrastinating, but not in the same way that I tend to procrastinate on writing a paper or finishing research. It's a procrastination that stems from a disconnect between me and the software that I still don't understand how to use.

"Must work on QGIS..."

I've never been a "Read this and understand it" kind of learner. In math and science classes, especially, I can read a chapter and look at the examples, but it really doesn't sink in until the instructor walked me through one example. After that, it all seems to kick in. It's just the way I learn. This class is all about changing the way we think, and that can be very beneficial. I can already see that I have begun to change the way I think about accomplishing a task on my computer. However, I don't believe that the class has been able to alter the way I learn. I'm not sure this is a failure, but it's definitely an observation of what I think is standing in the way of my progress.

Endless Wheel Spinning

For the most part, this week was fairly successful for me as I worked my way through the seemingly endless Python tutorials on Code Academy. I guess my failure in completing 43% of the tutorial in the span of 8 hours in one day was that I simply could not wrap my mind around the practical application of the commands I was learning.  In my productiveness, I only failed on the theoretical level. I suppose if I ever needed to calculate a tip or keep track of grocery supplies in the most complicated way possible, I would have the tools and knowledge to do so. However, I'm definitely not comprehending how in the world I will be able to use "defining variables" and finding 6^12 equals on my website directly and for any research-based application.

Can I learn about real pythons instead?

As I was told, the tutorials for any new program (or language, really) always start with the most basic of terms in order to build a foundation that can be used in other settings. This makes sense to me, but I can more readily see the usefulness of asking someone their name in a newly learned spoken language than making strings of zoo animal names in a program designed to ensure your inventory is intact. As a medievalist, the theory about learning and interpreting languages makes sense to me, but the practice is, thus far, lost on me and I truly feel as if I am spinning my wheels while I complete lesson after lesson.

Additionally, I am still on a quest to figure out QGIS  (again, tutorials become horribly mind-numbing after a while) and how I might be able to use it practically. I have a concept that I think might be solid enough to not completely hate what I eventually create, but I still have to get there. Spatial relationships have never been my strong suit, so seeing this part of the project as useful or worthwhile is a tough sell.

Putting Things in Places

Every time a break of some kind comes 'round (that whole once per semester reprieve we all wait for), I always tell myself that I will use this time wisely and catch myself up as much as possible. For our DH class, this would prove to be a monumental feat. My goal was to create a landing page for my website as well as the holding pages for "Research," "Courses," and "Digital Humanities." I also wanted to update my CV page to match whatever the landing page looked like and possibly figure out QGIS in order to have something on the DH page. Ambitious, I know. A bit too ambitious.

Repeat.

Thankfully, Fall Break was not a total failure. I spent over four hours creating a landing page that I think suits my needs as far as the website is concerned and looks halfway decent (I guess). I was also able to begin changing the CV page so that it didn't appear (as obviously) that they were not created at the same time or using the same mental design. The next part is where I ran into a major problem--one I haven't seemed to figure out quite yet. I realized that I have no idea how exactly to connect the pages together so that they will show up on the same site. I realize it has to do with linking directories, but I can't seem to figure out where the links are (I'm really not explaining this properly). I have everything uploaded in FileZilla (I think), but the directory path isn't really clear. 

Hours of endless frustration!

Needless to say, this is where my success stopped. I guess you could call the rest of my to-do list failures along with trying to put things (links to whatever directories) in places (the website).

Python Bit Me

I've been continuing my work through the Python tutorials, and two things have gotten me pretty perplexed. First, the "pushd" and "popd" thing is still bothering me even though we seemed to disregard the need for it in class last week. I can do it with the tutorial's examples, and I understand how to make a new directory and all that business, but when I attempt to do the "Now You Try" quests, I fall miserably short. Is there something I'm not completely understanding? Can I only push and pop within the same directory? That seems kind of useless when you can just use the cd command with a certain number of "../../" to get you backtracked, but that's what the tutorials seem to imply. I'm so confused.

Second, I am having trouble copying items from one directory and putting them in another. It seems like any time I need to move within two or more directories, my mind (or possibly computer) just can't handle it, and I get error messages. I really hate error messages when I know that what I'm doing should work because the example works. This reminds me of when I took Calculus in high school, and nothing ever seemed to work the way it did in the book. Grr! I'm still stuck on these two parts of Python, so any help you can offer would be useful.

Ok, that's my failure for the week. I don't know that I can call it productive, but that's what I've got to offer.

Down the Rabbit's Worm Hole

Productive failure is a concept that I am very clearly not comfortable with, and this class for me has so far been 99.8% failure. That, hypothetically, is supposed to make the successes all the sweeter, but most of the time I feel like the successes are nothing but flukes. I sometimes know why these successes happened, but that's not always the case. When it works and I know what's going on, there's another new addition that makes it seem like I am traveling through the white rabbit's hole into Wonderland. Unfortunately, there is no tea party, growing or shrinking food/drinks, talking animals, or bitchy queen trying to chop my head off.

It worked for Neo, right?

The white rabbit is quite a tricky little leporine that seduces you with promises of answers and further knowledge.  The same goes for working through programming tutorials.  They suck you in with assurances that you will understand the programming world more thoroughly and be able to apply what you learn to your own work. Well, as I go through tutorial after tutorial, I'm continuing to tumble through the rabbit hole getting glimpses of the furry little devil's bushy tail, but only that....glimpses.  I keep hoping there will eventually be an end to something, but it instead hijacks and takes me down yet another section of the hole.

I guess an example would be helpful here rather than my convoluted metaphor.  On our DH syllabus, we were to use the Google Map simple program. I had the hang of it and felt like I might actually be grasping (at straws, maybe), but then the next instruction to make it fancier throws me way off. There always seems to be such a disconnect between the two tutorials that I don't even have a solid direction anymore.

Can I use markers and watercolor too?

 

And so, I continue on with my "productive failures" while working through what the experts call simple tutorials attempting to resist the temptation to throw my computer at a wall. Perhaps one day I will catch that white rabbit and make him tell me why he's always such a jerk.

Starting Anew: Making a Mulligan Meaningful

When it comes to academic pursuits like papers or projects, I dread the instruction to "try again" or the comment "you've missed the mark this time" because it means that I've failed. I presume that the reason I'm in graduate school is because I have been able to either avoid those types of failures (best case scenario) or to turn a failure into a productive learning experience with positive result and enjoyed the experience. As much as I loathe failing at something, I'm truly beginning to see why coding and internet projects are the result of 99% failure, 0.5% happy accidents and 0.5% logical understanding and practical application.

In my last post, I wrote an entry which was simply a screenshot of my in-progress CV, and I was pretty happy about it. That is, until I saw what others had dreamed up. I realized very quickly that the original CV page was a good attempt, but I missed the mark that time. Knowing I had missed the mark, my initial response was to avoid the problem altogether because it would maybe go away by itself (we really need to work on these little computer elves (Keebler elves who make websites rather than cookies) that actually help you in your endeavors rather than those icky trolls (not the kind that I really don't know much about, but boogeyman-wannabe ones with hair everywhere and big, gross, snotty noses that take over your computer at night when you're not looking and screw everything up) that make life more difficult). Eventually, I realized that I needed to go back to the problem and hit it head on. This led to the devastating realization that I needed to scrap the first page and try again. I needed to pull a full on mulligan.

Perhaps it's my sentimental side that prevented me from deleting my first ever attempt at writing a web page or maybe it was my refusal to highlight, delete, and reinvent the wheel, but either way I decided to keep that original code (knowing it would never see the light of Internet day). So, I opened a new tab in Notepad++ and got to work. With a particular kind of redesign in mind and a great tutor at my side, I developed something that may still not be a fantastic looking page, but it is definitely better.

Full CV here.

So that's the new and improved CV. It's probably not the best you've ever seen, and it's probably going to be changed quite a bit following this post in the coming weeks and months, but it's all mine. I'm currently going through a tutorial about Javascript, so maybe I'll be able to incorporate something cool in there (apparently, I've got high hopes tonight) with my new found Java knowledge.I guess the sky (and my productive failing) is the limit.

What has this taught me?

This experience continues to teach me that 1. There are no helpful little elves that will do this stuff for me 2. I really shouldn't avoid completing something just because it's infuriatingly frustrating (I probably won't listen to that advice but it's there to annoy me) and 3. Productive failure is a great concept, but when you are experiencing it, the "productive" aspect gets tossed out the window while the "failure" part sticks to your mental insides like fresh Double Bubble gum stuck in your hair.

So much failure.

Well, that's where I am. The highs are super high (like when something cool works and you actually know why), but the lows are SUPER DUPER low. Essentially, learning coding simulates having bipolar disorder and the only relief...well..I don't think there is any. I continue to be nervously excited to see where this DH class takes me, and this blog, I think, will be my outlet. Back to the grindstone.

P.S. Be cautious of any software you're downloading, even from trusted websites! I recently downloaded FileZilla and with it came Astromenda, a piece of hijacking malware that likes to create operational problems on your computer. Who creates this crap? Must be those trolls I was telling you about earlier!

The Digital CV

The instruction to create a digital CV was definitely a bit overwhelming and gave me the heebie-jeebies, but I decided not to panic. I'm glad I didn't. Although it definitely looks amateur and I can't really figure out how to move things or why the first line of each bulleted list is smaller than the rest, I'm happy to show off my work:

And now you know what my computer screen looks like!

I can honestly say that I'm pretty proud of this amateur mess of a web page! After screaming at my computer and trying to figure out why something worked on the tutorial screen but wouldn't on my server, I finally got it to look relatively useable. Woot for progress!

And now when Blogger's "Compose" tab doesn't do what I want it to, I can go into the HTML and figure out what needs to be changed. Woot for more progress!

HTM-Hell

When I received Dr. Gibbs' email this past Saturday, I immediately started panicking. His directions of "by Wednesday that you'll be able to have installed a web server on your computer according to the instructions linked to on the syllabus. ideally, you'll be able to create an extremely simple html page on your own and see it rendered in your browser to make sure everything is working" were far more terrifying than I'm sure he expected/intended them to be, or maybe not (ponderings for another day). Anyway, once I convinced myself there were no satisfactorily good reasons to hit the "drop class" button, I went about following the directions. It was as if the programming gods sensed a hint of confidence in me and went about their sabotage.

I tried to download the WAMP server and hit problems from the beginning. I uninstalled/reinstalled twice before deciding to turn to Google. I realized that I needed to update the Visual C++ Redistributable on my computer before I could actually go further with the server. I was hoping this would solve the problem, so I reinstalled again. Know what happened? Yep, I got another error message! I have a feeling that I will be seeing a lot of those in the coming months.

Turning to social media, I was able to vent my frustration on Facebook (sometimes you just need more than 140 characters). Thankfully, my level-headed friends who didn't want to, at that point, ignite their computers provided me with some troubleshooting techniques. The simple fix: I didn't update the Visual C++ thing enough. After another round of updating/downloading/praying, I finally got everything to load successfully. However, WAMP was still not cooperating. Does this count as productive failure?

I got really tired of seeing this.

 
Time works in mysterious, glorious ways.

After a few hours' break, I returned to the scene of the programming crime and was astonished to find that WAMP did download successfully and was ready to operate. How did it happen? I have no idea. I'm just glad it did. Now, on to the html stuff. It's truly amazing what an at-home crash course in programming can do. Google is helpful, and I've discovered W3 Schools Online Tutorials in the process. It took about 4 hours, but I finally have a very basic html page to call my own! There was definitely a high that came from figuring out how a bunch of tags and symbols and random words work together to actually create something. I introduced myself to the world. Do I feel super confident now that I've made this first step? Not really. Am I ready to use this information and keep going with it? Of course, but that also scares me quite a bit. I'm glad to be in a class with individuals possessing a vast array of experience levels who are more than willing to share resources and commiserate with triumphs and failures.

Am I a Senior?

I must admit that reading through Anne Burdick, et al.'s Digital_Humanities was an intimidating (and at times dull) endeavor. I know that I must understand the basic principles and theories of DH in order to better embrace this as a scholastic enterprise, so I have been trudging through the book like a good little scholar. Chapter 2 is all about methods and genres, but reading through them didn't really make a complete picture of what exactly DH does. Thankfully, they put case studies at the end of it. I assumed that these case studies would help me visualize the products of the methodologies (one would assume that illustrating visualization techniques in a book about DH would prove useful). However, I found something a bit different.

Throughout the book, and as a fellow reader describes in detail, the authors seem to consistently put the "analog" side of things in the trash heap. I'm not fully surprised by this, but I was a bit shocked at how they, in text, dealt with those scholars who are unaccustomed to the digital side.  In the "Methods" section of case study 2, they acknowledge the "senior scholar" (implications for senior can be wildly speculated upon) and specifically state that he "has asked that his interpretations be given a separate layer for presentation online so that his work can stand alone and be scraped off for later publication in print format." After having just discussed that this project will need to include crowd-sourcing and the establishment of partnerships to get the work done, this statement seems to put the scholar who isn't completely enraptured by DH in the "other" category. They continue in the "Dissemination and participation" section to ostracize the "senior scholar" by stating, "The bridging of traditional and new modes of scholarly engagement through distributed knowledge production approaches will allow the senior scholar to work effectively with younger scholars and allow for crows-sourced input without collocation." All in all, this doesn't sound very positive for the senior. 

Perhaps I am equating senior with the negative connotations associated with growing old and, seemingly, out of touch with the digital world.  Being a senior citizen or having a senior dog, for instance, doesn't tend to be the most glamorous or sexy thing out there--is that what the authors are going for? Or maybe, in an effort to respect the scholar's experience and time in the field, the authors called him "senior". This is entirely possible. Regardless, there doesn't seem to be much positive press being thrown around for the guy who wants his work set aside and "scraped off" (again, not the sexiest of terms to be used) for print publication.

Then it hit me.

I think I might be akin to the "senior scholar"! Don't get me wrong, I am not comparing myself to him because of my overall expertise and earned merit in the field. I am far from that. However, I do tend to take the "let's get it in print before the digital" route (I'm not even a fan of only owning digital books, movies, or music). I don't feel that DH projects have less worth--quite the opposite, especially after reading about the amount of work put into these projects--but I would definitely rather have my own work in print versus digital-only. It would be awesome to have both, but I will always choose print over digital if given the choice. I'm also pretty confident that I will not join the "generation now cursed with the label 'digital natives'" who "will surely develop the capacity to become comprehensive digital humanists" because that statement alone scares the hell out of me. I like collaboration in the sense that everyone does their part. However, the authors point out another place that seems to send me back into the senior pile: traditional concepts of authorship in the humanities being challenged by DH projects and team effort. Will these projects be worth the same amount as a project done alone in a "traditional" medium? I guess I'm fixated on the "single-authored achievements".

 Does that make me the senior? In the estimation of the authors, does that mean I'm ready for the analog scrap heap? I'm going to stay positive and assert that both print and DH forms of projects can, should, and will be embraced so that no one and nothing has to go on the scrap heap. Also, because I'm a novice in the DH world, I will look forward to learning rather than feeling less-than because I've not fully engulfed myself in DH.  We've all got to start somewhere.

Going Medieval on the Digital

Throughout the course of my academic career, I've considered myself to be a bit "old school" in the ways I conduct and organize my research, write papers, grade papers, and do homework. I like having a piece of paper in front of me versus a computer, writing out my thoughts and notes rather than typing everything on a computer, relying on my mind to remember which notebook I need over which file to open.  Then, a friend said something to me I never thought would ever be spoken in my direction about me. He said that I was far more digitally literate than I gave myself credit for. In fact, he called me a Digital Humanist!

*cue look of confusion mixed with fright*

However, I've been thinking about it, and I've come to the conclusion that I do use the digital tools I'm given in a useful way that suits my needs as a scholar. I don't have to go scurrying through a card catalog driving myself to the brink of pulling a library ghost from Ghostbusters (if unsure of the image, watch the NY Library scene from Ghostbusters where all the cards come flying out of the card catalog). My Nook has also been very helpful for me when I need to read an article that I haven't had the time (or ink) to actually print.  The 30-page article on the history of chocolate in the New World I read today seemed a breeze as I simply flipped to the next screen. And, I'll admit, it is far easier to write/research/read at home in my pajamas while looking at a computer/tablet/phone screen than coming into school and finding all the necessary equipment to get the job done without digital assistance. Does this make me a Digital Humanist? I have no idea.

I was hesitant to sign up for Dr. Gibbs' Digital Humanities seminar this semester, I must admit. That same friend from earlier claimed I would benefit from it...we'll see. The course number History 666 definitely had a helping "hand" in getting me to hit the register button, but the idea has grown on me. I'm coming into this class fearful and uneasy about much of the syllabus, assignments, and overall digital interaction, but I'm also confidant and hopeful that the coming weeks will be fruitful, albeit frustrating (seeing the requirement of being able to deal with frustration with digital stuff going wonky on the syllabus was pretty frightening), and I might even be able to transfer the things I learn to my own scholarly endeavors working in Medieval Studies.  With that in mind, my battle cry for this semester will be that I'm going medieval on Digital's ass!

Ready for war!