This is what I have learned so far:

• Great-great-great grandfather #1: Aron Fisgot born near Riga, Latvia circa 1810. Was a Jewish ritual slaughterer and had seven children.

• Great-great-great grandmother #1: Goda Josselovna Swaw.

• Great-great-great grandfather #2: Benjamin Ehrlich, born circa 1838. Was a resident of Kansas until 1870. Railway engineer on the Union Pacific….and a Colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War (!) Eventually settled and married in Berlin.

• Great-great-great grandmother #2: Karolina Riese. Ran a men’s haberdashery business producing made-tomeasure shirts. (Benjamin Ehrlich was a customer.)

• Great-great grandfather #1: Ellis Samuel Fisher (changed name from Fisgot, which apparently means “fish skin” in Russian). born 5/2/1867 in Latvia.
  - Born when his mother was 50
  - Walked across Europe to London.
  - Employed in fur trade
  - In charge of a plantation in French Senegambia
  - Proprietor of cartage business in Johannesburg
  - Settled in Crouch End, London and then opened a carpet business

• Great-great grandmother #1: Bertha Ehrlich.

• Great-grandfather: Harold Fisher, born 11/26/1903 in London. This is his memoir, so he included an entire curriculum vitae. He went to school for Aeronautical Engineering but was “terminated by skin trouble.” (??) Then he studied to be an accountant and worked for Shell in Venezuela and Trinidad (where my grandfather was born). Eventually he returned to London and started his own practice. The other half of his CV is dedicated to his stamp-related (“philately”) activities, plus other hobbies:

“Do it yourself” and especially repairing guitars and other tricky devices; drawing and painting, especially caricature, strumming on guitar or piano; golf (nine holes only nowadays) managing block of 35 flats including the gardening; sleeping; writing these meoirs and anything else I can find an excuse for and then sleeping some more.
Oh yes! I forgot….philately.
And travelling….but that’s dealt with on the next page.

My grandparents had a bunch of copies in their bookshelf at home and I never looked at them at all. But now that I see it is available at the Regenstein I think I will check it out tomorrow.

I think I will also check out Wars of ideas in Spain: philosophy, politics and education by my great grandfather, which has apparently been digitized by Google Book Search (via the Library Project, which means none of it is viewable online).

Formally, Elizabeth is my uncle’s ex-girlfriend. More importantly, she is a really awesome person doing amazing things. She is a big Radiohead and I used to give her mp3s of new bands that I thought she’d like, and she and Martin showed Mike and I around San Francisco when we visit a few years ago. And she was also one of the family members who was there for me during my first (horribly depressing) semester at GWU.

Here is a video of Elizabeth talking about building earthquake-resistant houses in developing countries:

The time change is nice too. I was waking up with the sun for the past few weeks, which had been beaming through my curtains at 6am.

Mummy visited this weekend. She had a cold. We didn’t do much but she met Peter and we made waffles with McComas and Henry at Henry’s apartment. Also got groceries, mostly tea and oatmeal.

This weekend Peter and I went to Boston. The original inspiration for the trip was the Science Museum, which was expensive and disappointing. Not much seemed have changed since the last time I had been the exhibition halls, which is years and years ago. Then we walked to Cambridge and through MIT. Checked out the MIT Press Bookstore: many beautiful covers. Peter stopped and marveled at numerous buildings. We saw the Frank Gehry-designed Stata Center, which among other things houses the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. We did not see Simmons Hall, where Brittney stayed when she did MITES. I would like to go back there and walk around more.

From MIT we walked to Daniel and Tessa’s house and had muffins and tea and talked a lot, and it was very nice, and then Daniel drove us to South Station. I haven’t done so much on a Saturday in ages. It was refreshing to get off campus. I should have taken more photographs.

In other news, while stumbling through the internet looking for infographics, I came across another reminder that C-SPAN is not perfect: Carl Malamud to Brian Lamb: “You should not treat the U.S. Congress like Disney would treat Mickey Mouse”.

Peter’s health is improving a lot. I think he is over the hump. I don’t think that I am going to get sick. Everything worked out.

People who are coming to visit soon: Maya (next weekend), Katie (March 1, maybe), Mummy (March 10-11).

I came home and it feels like we are all acting childishly. I know I am. I wish we could all just snap out of it but I guess it’s not that easy. Everyone is arguing or whining or crying(1).

I got a B in Econ…one down, three to go.

Through a series of automobile mixups and mishaps I missed my doctor’s appointment, which was really the only thing I had to do today. I think is going to be one of those days I am going to look back on and find hysterical. Once we got in the tow truck I already found myself smiling without and thinking, and by the time Ma dropped me off at home and Maurie called I was grinning and finding the situation quite humorous.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to get out of here, mentally or physically, before we go to England. Too many days. At this rate it doesn’t look like I will have access to a car any time soon, so maybe I’ll do something crazy like take the Chinatown bus to Boston. We’ll see!

(1) Okay I admit it, that one is me. Just a little.