Where did the summer go?

It seems like yesterday I was graduating, moving home, and trying to find a summer job. Now though, it's the end of July.

Within the next two weeks I'll be doing research for my final paper of the summer, going to Tuscaloosa to help move the brother home to Texas, finishing my final paper and completing my contract with THC. After the 10th (when my contract is done) then I'll be able to get ready to go to Lubbock, and maybe spend time just doing nothing.

One of the reasons this summer has flown by definitely has to do with my contract with TX Historical Commission. I've been researching a lot, either at the Maxey House, Aikin Archives, Genealogical Society, the Appraisal District or the Court House. The Court House = gold mine. No joke. That place has never let me down once. The Archives were a gold mine too as they had copies of letters from and to the Maxey family that the Maxey House does not.

This has just been such a different opportunity for me. I was telling someone the other day that I was happy with having to write papers all summer, because these are different kinds of papers than what I wrote at Bama. These aren't book reviews, or papers about different events or time periods in history, but these are papers about someones life. This is the first time I've been able to write a paper and just be focused on a singular person, and all of the events in their life. This is the first time that I have had to go out and do research like this, and not have the research handed to me in various books. I have had to go find specific Deed Records or Probate Court Minutes that tell me what I need to know or had to go to three different places just to find one newspaper article.

This has been a different experience for me, one that is just amazing.

Who would've thought I would find this opportunity this summer? I know I sure did not.