My biggest foes in literature -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude has gained a partner. Mr GM has written another book with similar magic realism, titled Living to Tell the Tale. I really do wish that I had emerged triumphant over OHYOS -- I would have definitely gone on to tackle Love in the Time of Cholera. I am a big fan of a lot of Spanish writers -- Pablo Neruda, and of course Garcia Lorca. And who can forget that Senor Don Quixote? I was first acquatined with Don Quixote in a cartoon series, titled "Don Coyote." Don Quixote was a coyote, with a screw or two loose, and his sidekick was a panda. But I did read parts of Don Quixote in Spanish -- it is a loooooooooong book though. I read quite a bit of Garcia Lorca in high school, all in Spanish! He was an interesting character to learn, and was one of the most important force in ... well... forcing me to learn the language.

I have found several words that I picked up in the "two weeks ago" edition of TIME magazine. One is "aplomb." The other is "epiphany." I had found two more, but I can't remember them now. I have come to enjoy TIME magazine much more than in previous years of my subscription (they cost a lot of money, but my mother always insists on paying for them!). Before, they came in the mail just to be recycled, or better yet, to be trashed with Ramen soup splashed on them (as we used them to shield our table from hot pots). Now I read almost from cover to cover every other week or so. I think my brother actually used to read them after finding them on the table, but now that they're always in my room, he has forgotten about them.

Well, let's get down to business.

Aplomb means self confidence. Plumbus is the Latin name for lead. I guess that should somehow indicate a relationship between lead and self-confidence. But anyhoot. Epiphany is a sudden manifestation in the essence of something. That's what dictionary.com is telling me, but I don't understand it. But the word is derived from various roots from Middle English (like Chaucer's time?), Old French, Late Latin, and even Greek, meaning manifestation.

It's only 10:30 PM, but I am pooped. Sometimes I feel like an old granny. I can't stay past 11PM! I get so drowsy! I wonder how I used to work at a bar until 2-3AM! Then again, I feel like a child, because I can't get out of bed before 8AM either. I am amazed that I suffered through a 7AM English class last semester. NEVER EVER doing that again!