OK, so clearly I need to do more obsolescent-techblogging. In typewriter news, I think I've got it all figured out after a little more experimenting. My motto: If it hasn't broken yet, it won't just from me messing with it. The biggest problem with it was actually the seller's fault: He put the ribbon in upside-down, and to "compensate" he put the spools in upside down...which meant they didn't turn and I was just beating holes in the ribbon. Ten powerfully messy minutes spent unrolling and rolling a ribbon later, and we're in business. Types like a dream.
Brian's right that it encourages a healthier typing technique. You have to move everything more, it seems like, which means that the typing is overall less repetitive. Typing on a computer, your wrists are almost motionless, which means that there's more regular stress on the ligaments and whatnot.
(Yeah, I'm totally a doctor.)
In other news, earlier this evening I put what I think might be some of the finishing touches on my thesis. I'm circulating it to my committee tomorrow, and once I incorporate their suggestions (assuming they don't contradict each other) it should be basically good to go. Which means I need a new research project, to keep the juices going. I decided to test a theory of mine, which is that there's so much source material on the Civil War that it should be possible to write at least a short conference paper (15-20 pages) on virtually anything. To that end, I set up a little program in Excel to choose a random item for me from the 100-odd volume Official Records that came out after the war.
And thus it was that Alfred began to research the Battle of New Creek. I doubt you've heard of this unless you hail from a particular patch of unincorporated rural West Virginia. Short description: Some Confederate raiders in December 1864 came on the little hamlet of New Creek, protected by a fort, and tore up the railroad, chased off the garrison, and raised a little hell. Next day, they're gone. In particular, I'm looking at the reaction to the battle, from Grant and Sheridan, to the officials in Washington, and other civil authorities and the press. I have a feeling that there's a story here about scapegoating officers, the weakness of many garrison troops (many of the Union men at New Creek were 100-day state militia called up from Ohio just before), and how the Union came to see its security and situation after the reelection of Lincoln. And I think a small event, such as New Creek, can do well to illuminate many of these issues.
Of course, I've been working on this for about three hours now, so I could be wrong.
My point is this. When I visited the University of North Carolina this past weekend, another student (studying postwar German history) asked me, when she heard what I wanted to do, what there could possibly be left to study and write about the Civil War. Frankly, in almost any area of history the unknown is so much vaster than the known it's not even funny. Even if you look at just the knowable, it seems like there's a bottomless well out there. A lot of people, in any field, despair of finding something to study--but I think there's stuff to study everywhere, and if you can't think of something...study something at random.
I'll keep everyone posted about my New Creek project.
My other project recently has been choosing a PhD program. The finalists are Penn State and North Carolina. I'm pretty sure I know where I'm going, but I'm going to sleep on it one more night...
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