Cinco de Mayo!
I didn't even think about Cinco de Mayo until I woke up this morning and turned on the radio. I heard the DJ talking about Cinco de Mayo and giving some facts about it out. He said that the celebration is of Mexico's General Ignacio Zaragoza victory over French forces - known as the Battle of Puebla.
I could swear that back in high school it was taught to me as Mexico's victory over Spanish forces at the Battle of Puebla, but I thought "Gee, with my public skool education, maybe I'm wrong." But when the topic came up at work today, I talked to one of my very well educated bosses, and she confirmed that it was a battle won against the Spanish. I went on the rest of the day thinking that my education was correct.... Until I got off of work and checked Wikipedia's entry on Cinco de Mayo... Which says the battle was with the French. Now I'm really confused, but I'm a little more inclined to believe Wikipedia, which explains Cinco de Mayo in more detail... And it seems that the Battle of Pueblo lead to some later victories against Spain.
Cinco de Mayo was always a huge deal back in Adrian - maybe because the city had a rather large population of Mexican people, or maybe it was just because there's been Spanish classes offered in all of my public schools (Elementary, Middle, and High School) so those classes would always celebrate Cinco de Mayo - making quite the large production. But here in Owosso, it's very quite. There's almost no one around, and there hasn't been much talk about Cinco de Mayo. I was feeling a little sad that there was nothing going on, so I just went and did my work.
At one point, it was going to take ten minutes or more to process a CD, so I decided to walk around the library (Support Services is located in the Library here at Baker College/Owosso Campus) and just grab some book to read... I had already gone though Slashdot, Digg, Google News, Yahoo! News, and several other sites (that are linked off of my Google personalized page). And as I was looking down the stacks of books. It was my second pass though, and I was about to give up when I saw this interesting looking book - it had a simple cover (white with blue and black lettering), the author's name was quite unique: Octavio Paz, the title of the book: "The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz." I was intrigued to say the least, so I leaned down and snatched the book up. I quickly skimmed through it, and was nearly turned off... At first, I thought the book was in English, then I saw that it was in some foreign language (Spanish was my first thought) -- and after looking through it for a while, I realized that all the poems were originally in Spanish, and the book contained both versions! On the left is the Spanish, on the right is the English.
I was overjoyed to be reading a book of poetry like that, and as soon as work ended, I checked out the book and I'll be reading some of it here soon!
My LJ
I jumped off the deep end last night, and switched to "Sponsored+" -- my LJ now has ads around in various places, but they don't seem to intrude on my account much, so I think I'll give this a whirl and see how it turns out.
My first opinion is that having my theme running on my comments pages is sweet. Now when I click on "leave a comment" or on LJ Cuts, I see my theme, instead of the default. Happy happy! I'm also interested in the 9 additional user pics, and I may play around with voice posts a little -- however, I've never been a big fan of listening to other people's journals... Since I'm usually listening to music when I'm on LJ most of the time, it's a bit of a nuisance to have stop my MP3 player to listen to a voice post.
I could swear that back in high school it was taught to me as Mexico's victory over Spanish forces at the Battle of Puebla, but I thought "Gee, with my public skool education, maybe I'm wrong." But when the topic came up at work today, I talked to one of my very well educated bosses, and she confirmed that it was a battle won against the Spanish. I went on the rest of the day thinking that my education was correct.... Until I got off of work and checked Wikipedia's entry on Cinco de Mayo... Which says the battle was with the French. Now I'm really confused, but I'm a little more inclined to believe Wikipedia, which explains Cinco de Mayo in more detail... And it seems that the Battle of Pueblo lead to some later victories against Spain.
Cinco de Mayo was always a huge deal back in Adrian - maybe because the city had a rather large population of Mexican people, or maybe it was just because there's been Spanish classes offered in all of my public schools (Elementary, Middle, and High School) so those classes would always celebrate Cinco de Mayo - making quite the large production. But here in Owosso, it's very quite. There's almost no one around, and there hasn't been much talk about Cinco de Mayo. I was feeling a little sad that there was nothing going on, so I just went and did my work.
At one point, it was going to take ten minutes or more to process a CD, so I decided to walk around the library (Support Services is located in the Library here at Baker College/Owosso Campus) and just grab some book to read... I had already gone though Slashdot, Digg, Google News, Yahoo! News, and several other sites (that are linked off of my Google personalized page). And as I was looking down the stacks of books. It was my second pass though, and I was about to give up when I saw this interesting looking book - it had a simple cover (white with blue and black lettering), the author's name was quite unique: Octavio Paz, the title of the book: "The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz." I was intrigued to say the least, so I leaned down and snatched the book up. I quickly skimmed through it, and was nearly turned off... At first, I thought the book was in English, then I saw that it was in some foreign language (Spanish was my first thought) -- and after looking through it for a while, I realized that all the poems were originally in Spanish, and the book contained both versions! On the left is the Spanish, on the right is the English.
I was overjoyed to be reading a book of poetry like that, and as soon as work ended, I checked out the book and I'll be reading some of it here soon!
My LJ
I jumped off the deep end last night, and switched to "Sponsored+" -- my LJ now has ads around in various places, but they don't seem to intrude on my account much, so I think I'll give this a whirl and see how it turns out.
My first opinion is that having my theme running on my comments pages is sweet. Now when I click on "leave a comment" or on LJ Cuts, I see my theme, instead of the default. Happy happy! I'm also interested in the 9 additional user pics, and I may play around with voice posts a little -- however, I've never been a big fan of listening to other people's journals... Since I'm usually listening to music when I'm on LJ most of the time, it's a bit of a nuisance to have stop my MP3 player to listen to a voice post.