I am screwed! The University of Hawaii closed my library account. It’s not really surprising considering I haven’t worked there for almost a year. In fact I was wondering when they would do it. But I was hoping against hope that they might not close it before I moved back. No such luck. I tried to access the electronic holdings on Monday and got the dreaded message: the account expired September 30th.

It’s a harsh blow because the life sciences holdings of the ITESM are meager. I’d use the word “pitiful” but I don’t want to be condescending. Now I’m reduced to reading only the open-access online journals and the handful of journals that ITESM provides electronic access to. Plus maybe some others they keep paper copies of, if I get desperate enough. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten an article *that* way. I feel like a slinking golum who’s lost his ring of power. “Thieves my precious! They takes it from us. They takes it, but it’s ours. Ours! We wants it back!”

You can cut off my thumbs, but don’t take away my access to scholarship.

It’s probably just as well though. I’ve been spending way too much time reading lately. I mean unhealthy amounts of time. Now I have an excuse not to. Things are starting to change direction anyway. Actual work is beginning to materialize. Luis suddenly has proposals for several trials brewing and wants me to prepare detailed protocols and lists of material requirements for the molecular/genomic components. Tricky since it mostly involves techniques that I’ve never actually used before. I’m trying to rise to the challenge though. We’re hoping to get funding from some pharmaceutical companies. If we get the green light on all of the proposals it will be much more work than I’ll be able to do alone. So, trying to be proactive, I arranged to have some fliers posted on campus today to try to recruit some 3rd and 4th year undergraduates. Not an ideal source of labor, but since we’ll only have one grad student in the lab this spring (yes, one; it’s a long story) I have to take what I can get.

Last Saturday we went back to the public library at the Macroplaza. It was open this time, but guess what? The children’s section wasn’t! Only open on weekdays it seems. Also, to get a library card I not only need to show identification and a recent utility bill (which I anticipated), I also need a passport size photo, my CURP (Mexican national identification number), and the contact information and signature of a co-signer who doesn’t live with me. None of which I anticipated. And keep in mind that this is the only public library in Monterrey. Can they make it any harder to get one’s hands on a book? This is clearly not a nation of readers. Still, we had a good time at the Macroplaza, especially Enid who found a puddle of dirty water to stomp about in until her feet were soaking wet.

On Sunday we drove to Saltillo, a mid-sized city about an hour to the west, to visit the Desert Museum there. We went with my boss José and his wife, sister and niece. It was fun to see the countryside beyond the city limits. Monterrey itself is quite green, but the landscape very quickly changes to desert west of here, hence the presence of a Desert Museum. The museum itself was first-class and very extensive. Enid seemed to enjoy it a lot. Unfortunately we kind of rushed through it because José and his wife had restaurant reservations for the afternoon back in Monterrey. I’d like to go again and stay longer.