So I officially finished editing my professor's manuscript.

I sent it to him, and he forwarded it to his publisher, and it's official: I am a completely legit editor. It took me seven hours to do the initial edits, and six to enter them and format everything in Microsoft Word. That's more than $15 an hour - twice what I make at the library. In fact I made it, in large part, while working at the library. If only I could edit full-time . . . but hey, that's what I'm going to school for.

What I really loved were the comments my prof scribbled in the margins while going over my improvements. In one section, he had referred to figures like Aristotle and Socrates as "Big Name Scholars," and I had accordingly crossed out the superfluous uppercasing. "Keep these capitals" was followed by, "lowercase all - you are right." What delicious deferment to my good judgment!

I had the pleasure of typing myself into the acknowledgements. My prof's endearingly impulsive addition: "Kaitlin Barr, a student in my World Civilizations class, saved me fixed helped edited the final draft."