boo to roadblocks so my whole family was sick this week. from the day i got home from berkeley to yesterday at least one person was sick every day with the stomach flu. ick. needless to say, since i was only sick the first day, i was doing more baby-sitting and less researching than i would have liked. now i have 300ish pages to read for this week and i started, basically, today. bother. thankfully this research is internally driven and i am feeling fairly generous given the extenuating circumstances. i also managed to make $80 babysitting this week which is pretty sweet.

texas is also still in the final planning stages due to illness and lack of internet access since mom has a lot of work for this weekend (she organizes a big holistic festival thingy four times a year, and one is this sunday)(yeah, did i mention i was raised a big hippie?) its looking like i'll only have three full days in the archives though, due to evil national holidays giving librarians excuses not to be open all the time just to serve my needs! *sigh* life is so hard sometimes... fortunately, this archive is open 9-5 instead of 1-5 and since i know whats up with archival research i'm not so worried about it. also this one shouldn't be under construction which means i won't have to wait 2 days just to see things they didn't feel like bringing with them. and, more importantly, i will be home and away from texas by the dreaded national fireworks day alleviating some serious anxiety about being anywhere near stetsons and cowboy boots on the 4th. yes i am a coastal liberal snob, but i might as well embrace it since i can't seem to change it. oh well.

in general, though, life is good. the fire that is burning 14,000 acres is about an hour (and a half maybe) north of me and moving the other direction (though its been raininig little pieces of ash which makes sunset really pretty), and even though they have moved away from predicting "the big one" for norcal and are now predicting "the big one" for the san andreas fault we don't live directly on the fault line so i'm not too worried. also they predict "the big one" every few years and so far so good. oh, and i spoke to my father and three sisters for the first time ever on the phone yesterday, which was sweet. i'm seriously considering a made-for-tv-movie... maybe i'll write it in my spare time next year (ha).  ¶ 6:13 PM 0 comments

  one down made it home safely. the best thing during research was probably getting to hold/read/have photocopied letters zapata and his secretaries wrote from 1914. also not dying during my very long commutes in and around the bay area. the most amusing thing was probably walking down the street in berkeley looking for a lunch place (i was starving) and having a 13-15 year old hit on me using "damn girl, you got a body like a black girl! thats a compliment!" and then walking away. craziness. overall it was a good trip and now i get to finish planning for texas which keeps getting pushed back since my ruby-sitting skills are needed here... bargle. i'm going to take a visit to the ucsb archives at some point too since they're here and apparently pretty decent.  ¶ 11:24 AM 0 comments

  norcal so my first day in archives was... tumultuous... i somehow missed that they are on summer hours so i can only go from 1-5 (i got there at 10:45), and the woman i needed to meet with to get started was mia for the first hour or so... but the ast. curator was really helpful and once i figured out what was going on i did actually find stuff! hooray! hopefully the photocopies of the documents i need will be ready tomorrow. i can probably just go home once they are done because i can go visit either the ucsb or ucla archives while i still have a car. driving up to berkeley from san jose in a few minutes - i love staying with friends and not having to pay for hotels!  ¶ 11:26 AM 0 comments

  norcal made it safely up to norcal, which is fairly impressive as i always get lost in salinas because they do not believe in having signs for anything. consequently, i don't like salinas. its also one of the most expensive places to live in ca which is silly because its uuuuuugly. stopped at target on the way because its target and soooooo temptingly close to the freeway. bad plan for shoppers, good plan for target execs who make money off my love for inexpensive things! anyway...

monday i will be going to my first archive! i hope i find things... most of the collection that concerns the revolution is about northern mexico but i searched on the internet and there should be at least a few letters and things from zapatistas and such. if there isn't much i'll drive home and go check out archives at ucla. i had to rent a car (i know, poor me) so i might as well use it while i've got it for whatever i need it for. lets also hope i don't get terribly lost on the way to berkely from either santa cruz (where i am now) or san jose (where i will be from monday on). hopefully more updates will be possible this week as i pirate friends' internet connections, otherwise i'll post next week when i'm home again.  ¶ 12:19 AM 0 comments

  mooching finally have dates set for archival visits and letters of introduction. now i just have to figure out which friends up north will let me crash on their couch for a few days, and how i'm getting back home. trains going south have to share the track with freights and are typically delayed for at least six hours. greyhound is sounding more and more appealing by the day.
also, things that i have found are not conducive to research: yellow-jackets, sunburns, visiting relatives, house-painting sessions and the fumes that remain, unshelved library books, and hungry pets. feel free to add to this list as things are revealed to you.  ¶ 12:48 PM 1 comments