It's a dirty job, and you have to stay organized.

A few weeks ago my uncle was helping my cousin work on his truck, and somewhere along the way he cut his hand. "Now I'm a real mechanic again!" he said. That was when my cousin held up his scarred hand and said "Look at this- I'm a plumber and I get cut all the time." Then I jumped in. "I'm an archivist, and I can get a mean paper cut."

No my friends, the world of archives is not as quaint and bookish as you might imagine. Take today, for example. An eighteen-wheeler dropped off two palates piled high with old boxes and filing cabinets full of papers, and I helped to rebox and move them on the hot loading dock. Well, we started to rebox and move them until we noticed bugs, and not dead bugs but moving live bugs. And I got red rot all over my clothes, which I had to blot out with tape in hopes it won't stain. So that was pretty exciting.

Today was also my last day working with the woman who has led my project all summer. As a treat she took me to lunch to celebrate. She also presented me with a cute gift bag. She noticed that I went through a ton of post-it notes this summer, because they help me stay organized. Apparently not everyone uses as many post-it notes as I do, and she was amused. As the supportive person that she is, she wanted to help me out with future archival projects and with my thesis work, so she gave me quite the assortment of brand new post-its. She thought she was being funny but I'm already planning how I will put these babies to use.