Back home
These days, when we say we’re heading back home to eat, sleep, or study, we’re usually referring to our little dorm rooms (also known as sleeping cubicles). But we also like to talk about home home sometimes. There’s a map of our various hometowns on the first floor, right in front of the basement door. I figured it’d be cool to digitize the map – after all, no other dorm has it so far (I seriously checked).
So here it is.
I took most of the data from Zapatistas’ Facebook profiles yesterday afternoon, but not everyone has a Facebook profile – shocking, I know. I mean, Raúl has one, c’mon! So not all the dorm residents are included on the map yet, because we frankly don’t know where they come from. (I could’ve put them in the middle of Siberia, but it seems that Southern Californians don’t like that kind of weather for some reason.)
I thought about password protecting this map, making it only accessible to current residents of Zapata, to keep out random strangers, but this tool won’t get stalkers anywhere, anyways: it’s not even accurate to the ZIP code in some instances.
As I said before, the map is powered by Google Maps. For those of you still stuck in the Dark Ages (also known as MapQuest), you can drag the map around with your mouse, use the slider to the left to zoom in and out, and click on the red pushpin / hot-air balloon thingamabobers to see which Zapatista’s hometown is located there.
As always, it’s not done: besides adding more Zapatistas to the map, I plan to add some options to hide second floor residents or show only freshmen, and once I get my hands on some of your photos, I’ll include them in the little infobubbles that pop up. Be sure to drag the map over to Brazil or Saudi Arabia or Thailand: some pushpins are waaaay out there.