With the budget looming over the heads of the firsties like a tiny apocalypse, I've found it helpful to think back on exactly why I'm here.  That's why I'd like to share the abridged Jablonski museo-origin story, and I encourage all of you to do the same!  Even though nostalgia will not balance a fake museum budget, it is definitely therapeutic!

In the beginning...
Like many six-year-olds, I was dino-crazy.  I could barely remember my own phone number, but I could tell you about the hunting patterns of the deinonychus and the thick bony skull of the pachycephalosaurus.  Basically, I was way cool. 

Evidence of coolness.

Dinosaurs were the subjects of many earliest drawings, stories, and bizarre impressions.   And that's when I saw this:

Awwww yeeeeeeah.

Fake thunder and lightning effects highlight this massive diorama of prehistoric carnage at the Milwaukee Public Museum.  NEAT, right!?  Six-year-old Megan thought so too.  Thus began the early stages of museolove.  At that point, even the dead blank stares of the Streets of Old Milwaukee mannequins couldn't turn me off to museums. 

Fast forward 18 years.  The year was 2009.  A certificate program had drawn me to Illinois, where everybody gets excited about tractors and bears. 

"Sexiest tractor this here side o' the Mississippi!"

Although my certificate was for zoos and aquaria, an internship at the Putnam Museum drew me into the world of museums. On the very first day of my internship, my mentor had a brief conversation with a squirrel skeleton on her desk.  And that's when I knew I was in the right place. 

Ghost dance party!  These probably happen in museums. 

One of my first solo projects at the museum involved cataloging the massive paleo-invertebrate collection at the Putnam.  Essentially, I was locked in a storeroom surrounded by dead things for 8 hours a day for 2 months.  Despite my somewhat antsy nature, it remains one of my favorite projects simply because of how amazing it felt to be around things that had actually been alive over 400 million years ago.  That is SO MANY YEARS YOU GUYS! 

400 million years is like almost infinity years! 

We may not be fighting off Nazis and rescuing religious relics like Indiana Jones, but if we're lucky we may just get to hold a trilobite in our hands, catalogue a neat basket, or get a future Museologist just as excited about old things as we all are.  And those hopeful thoughts will get me through the budget.  Power on, Museologists.