Blog Post #5 - 06/27/25

What did I accomplish?

One of my accomplishments this week was spending a decent chunk of time going through each and every letter with the "Military Event - Insurrection" tag on the CWRGM database in order to categorize them in anticipation for the data and GIS sections of my results. It totaled at around 90 letters, about 70 of which will actually be used in any meaningful way for my research.

I also spent time find several resources for my literature review. I pretty much dumped all the previous sources I was going to use in favor of new ones I discovered that both better fit my themes and will contribute more to my research. Coinciding with that accomplishment, I also managed to finish my Literature Review section of my paper. It was my first time ever doing one so I plan to touch it up as we move along however.

What were my roadblocks?

One of my biggest roadblocks this week was having to essentially start my lit review from scratch since I got a whole new set of sources. It provided more practice so it wasn't a total loss but it didn't make having to redo it feel any better.

QGIS once again is a roadblock worth noting. I tried getting ahead of the curve and doing some solo work in GIS with my data, but ran into numerous errors and issues so instead I'm saving that work for next week.

My final roadblock is just finding time to get work done. It's been hard finding time to sit down and work when each day is pretty full of lectures and in-class discussions, and when lectures aren't in session everyone wants to go out and socialize. I love spending time with all my new friends in the cohort, but sometimes I have to just spend time working and hate the feeling of missing out, so it's been fairly tough finding the right balance.

What I learned?

I learned several new interesting things around Hattiesburg dealing with Civil Rights throughout the city's history. We went on a little field trip around the freedom trail and saw a lot of landmarks and listened to a lot of stories from different times in the past.

I got to learned about Lidar cameras and a lot of the technology and software that goes into scanning. modeling, and printing historical objects in order to both preserve the history and make it more accessible to audiences that can't travel to see said piece of history in person.

Through reading the books for my lit review, I learned a lot more about Slave Insurrections, and the hysteria surrounding them through not only the Civil War, but the previous 5 decades or so preceding it.

What is my next action/step/thing you need to do for my research?

My next goal is the completion of my series of GIS maps, and then integrating them into my website. Once that is complete I plan on starting my results section with the data I observed from creating my maps.

What else have I been up to?

Me and the cohort have been doing a lot of traveling lately. We drove down to New Orleans last weekend to visit the World War 2 Museum, and during the week traveled the Laurel Mississippi to spend the day shopping and eating there. Started learning some new songs on my guitar which has been fun, and some new games that I've been excited for just came out so I've been keeping myself pretty busy.