Ten years ago, I started Lotería Chicana and became a blogger — even though I didn’t use either terms back then. I signed up on Diaryland with the same alias I used for AIM and posted four sentences about applying to graduate school and the World Series:

grad school update
11.07.01 // 11:43 a.m.

I’m gonna leave L.A. and escape to the Bay Area. I’m tired of the smog, traffic and the LA-ness of this place. I love it, don’t get me wrong, but I need to get out for a few years... perfect excuse to go to grad school in Berkeley (or San Diego). In other news, the Diamondbacks rock!

At the time, I was a college senior in the middle of fall quarter. It’s clear from subsequent posts that I was avoiding writing papers, reading for class or studying for exams. I didn’t do a good job balancing a full course load with my work-study job, student leadership positions, teacher education program applications and social life. That last part was pretty distracting considering I was going to a few concerts that fall — Los Tigres del Norte (above), the Roots and Res, and Jaguares — and distracted by my crush in San Francisco. Apparently, I had time to watch the World Series and hate on the Yankees. (Sorry about that, Sean). I did okay that quarter. I passed my classes, started dating that guy in SF and abandoned grad school plans temporarily. It was for the best, I didn’t really want to be a K-12 teacher.

I never followed through on that first sentence I wrote 10 years ago. I never left LA nor UCLA even though I almost went to Michigan for grad school. I didn’t even leave the apartment I shared with my then-roommates Pato, Ome and Vane. I’ve been consistently flaky for a while. I still don’t care much for the Yankees even though Sean has tried his best to get me to.

And of course, I’m still blogging. While the platform, name, URL, and look have all changed at least once, my desire to write and interact with other bloggers and readers never waned. Some of my interests have changed. I don’t think I could run a mile without stopping in 2001 and now I write about training for marathons and half marathons. On the other hand, I’ve been writing about access to higher education for undocumented students and telling stories about my family since the beginning.

I’m really glad I’ve kept at it this long. The friendships alone are worth it. If you’ve been reading a few years or just a few months, thanks.

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A coincidence
While preparing this post on Saturday, I looked up my Fall ’01 course schedule, just so I could see which classes I was taking and what was keeping me busy then. One of the classes was Ethnomusicology 120A, Development of Jazz with Gerald Wilson, literally a living legend in the jazz world. His lectures were more like story time about the jazz greats he once played with than the origins of jazz itself.

I didn’t think much about Professor Wilson until the next day. I got in my car to run some errands and heard the announcer mention Wilson’s name as he introduced one of his records. The DJ spoke briefly about Wilson’s contributions to jazz and the LA-scene and then mentioned his age. “He’s about 90 years old now.” Wikipedia says he’s 93. Damn. I knew he was old when I took his class, but I wouldn’t have guessed he was 80+.

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If I don’t get lazy, I’ll have more for the 10 year anniversary posts including:
– My favorite posts (if you have one, email me citlalli31 AT gmail dot com)
– Things I’ve learned through blogging
– People I’ve met through blogging

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Previous anniversary posts:
Four years and counting
Fourth grade blues (9 years)