RR4

On Making On Doing Local History History

 Ethnographic Inquiries in Writing did one thing that, more than anything else, helped me to respond; it gave me something to argue against, but Kammen does a great job of being agreeable. It is still a book though, so it’s not perfect and sadly I didn’t find it terribly interesting. . .informative, yes. Useful, yes. A Short read, again yes, but I would have had neither the reason to nor motivation to start or finish this book, truly without this class I could have gone my entire life without ever hearing of its existence. Now that my complaints are out of the way, though, I can move on to the benefits of the piece.

On Doing Local History (ODLH as I’ll be calling it from here on out) does a great job of laying out a guide for us to do our own local history projects. It has covered almost all aspects of the process, offering not only a way of laying out our research, but giving her personal experiences with the related subject matter.

In taking from the last chapter, aptly named One Last Thing, the most important message that I found reiterated for the umpteenth time was how an interest in the subject is required. Now if you go looking for this saying, “I don’t remember reading what you are talking about” well you won’t find it if you are looking for a large part of the article. It was just a few words, not even a sentence by itself. So how exactly does this tiny snippet qualify for the most important thing I have taken from the book? Honestly part of it was timing, I’m sure. Had the circumstances been different, had I have looked up at the TV for a split second, gotten a drink, or simply been thinking differently, then I most likely moved on without really caring.

The circumstances were however such that reading this really gave me something to think about, because I have yet to choose my research project. Not because I do not want to, but because there is very little that interests me. That sounds odd I know, but this is not the first time I have run into this little conundrum. Compared to my plans for a thesis, my English project is solid gold, and if you haven’t been paying attention I haven’t started either. Think that’s bad? I have no idea what I would like to do with my life, and while others usually have some idea at even a very young age of a dream job or something, all I had ever wanted to do was join the army. I wanted to be an “army man” you can read every paper and journal I had to write as an elementary kid and it was always the same thing. Had it not been for my girlfriend, that’s exactly where I would be right now, and now I have no idea what to do.

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