I'm working on a project at work that involved a bunch of research about some stuff that happened here years ago. This is the kind of work I really like. To access some of the files for this project, I had to do some digging in the archives. I did my initial research online - you can access lists of the contents of the various fonds, but you can't actually access most of the documents (yet?). Then I contacted the archivist and she pulled the boxes I needed and then I had to go down to the archives to look through the documents.
I spent over three hours in the archives yesterday, taking notes and photographs of the things I was digging through.
The reading room down in the archives is lovely with lots of lights and it's warm and it's relatively quiet.I loved it. I didn't want to leave.
While I was flipping through all the bits and pieces (I had three boxes of files to go through), I realized that I should have become an archivist. That might satisfy my pack-rat tendencies in an appropriate environment and then I could come home and feel good about being a semi-minimalist.
Yeah.
Note to self: for your next life, archivist is an appropriate career path.
I really wish I could go back and tell myself what courses to take or what program to do in University. I'm still a little bit bitter that I let a boy calling me a nerd stop me from going into science.
ReplyDeleteI could have been the mad scientist and you could have been my personal archivist who helps find the require experiment paper so I don't blow up the entire west coast by accident ;)
There are so many things I would have done differently if I could do my undergrad again. Like wait a year (at least) after high school graduation. And chose a program that I'm really interested in. My degree is in English and while I like the reading/writing aspects of it, if I'd picked up on or been steered in the direction of linguistics early on, I am pretty sure I would have enjoyed and appreciated my years at university a heck of a lot more!
ReplyDeleteFor some reason high school guidance counsellors like to point people to Arts, Science or Business. But there are SO many more options and I wish I'd know about some of them before my fourth year!