I was lying in bed just now, couch cushion on my stomach supporting the book I have been diligently reading for the history term paper, when I had an epiphany. It was not a good epiphany. No lightbulb over my head or angelic choir descending from the heavens; just the realization that I had been reading this book for a week and understanding less and less with each passing chapter. Early on it was interesting, but lately I have been hitting phrases like, "...[T]he stepped vee pulleys between the bearings are used as a feed drive for the cross slide. This was effected by a lead screw rotated by worm and wheel from the pulley-driven layshaft."
Vee pulleys? Cross slide? Layshaft?
The epiphany was this: I realized that reading further would not make the book any more clear. How could I expect to write a coherent term paper on a subject I have no experience with using a source I do not understand? I could research all the technical jargon peppered throughout the book, but that is hardly the point of a history paper.
And so I am switching subjects, returning to the womb of computer science by writing a paper on . It fits the time frame of the class, it is closer to my area of expertise, and I still have three weeks to do it. That is a week longer than I had for Kepler, which means it will be only slightly less painful. I will exchange the machine tool books for biographies tomorrow.