It's the Archaeologists Life For Me...not.
Condensed from www.stevedix.de/blog/349

1982. Head set awhirl by "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in Lyme Regis Cinema, and a sugar-high from consuming far too many Slush-Puppies for my own good, I decide I want to be an Archaeologist.

Because Archaeology looks fun. Archaeology, as peddled by Steven Spielberg, seems to be one long round of exotic climates, mysterious tombs, ancient puzzles and stuff, with only the occasional breathless pause to write up the whole thing for "Archaeology Today", and, let's be frank, shagging sexy archaeology-student chicks.

Wrong, little archaeologist manqué.

The truth is Archaeology is badly-paid, hard work, 90% of which consists of filling-in applications for grants to study something, which are often rejected by people who are worse-educated but better-paid, and then hard, long, back-breaking work carefully brushing the compacted dirt away from something, just in case it might be an important Roman artifact and not an old bone buried by one of the local dogs. It's a job with many disappointments, such as finding that some amateur treasure-hunter has, a week before you finally get to your planned dig site, gone over it with a magnetometer, dug up a couple of coins and then boasted about it in the pub afterward, so that next day your carefully-planned dig has been turned into a bombsite by treasure-crazed locals. Rarely do you get to uncover a pristine ancient Tomb, often you spend years arguing over the significance of a few potsherds in the letters page of the International Archaeological press, and the only Archaeologists equipped with a bull-whip are very, very strange people indeed, whom it's best not to share a tent with.

So remember, kids. For every one of you that loves "Raiders of the Lost Ark", there's a bitter, twisted archaeologist who HATES SPIELBERG'S GUTS.

Length? Yes, but it was longer in the original Sanskrit.

EDIT : There seems to be more than one of us disappointed Indy fans round here. Class action against Harrison Ford, anyone?
( Stevedix http://www.stevedix.de/blog, Fri 30 Mar 2007, 11:53, Reply)