Tomorrow Morning means Golden Globe Nominations

And I have no clue what's going on with that. For the past four years of my life, I have been on top of awards season, ready with my predictions, formulating my own upsets. What happened to me? I know nothing. I've seen a mere 7 films released this year.

1. District 9
2. 500 Days of Summer
3. Star Trek
4. Watchmen
5. Drag Me to Hell
6. Bruno
7. Me and Orson Welles

This semester -- no scratch that. This YEAR has been too damn busy. This winter break, I must catch up. Hopefully, I will also be able to make a Top 10. We will see.

Seems like we may have our first female Best Director in Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker). I will be previewing her work in the next couple of days too. Jason Reitman is 3 for 3 now with Up in the Air, starring a Best Actor-worthy George Clooney. Many great animated films this year as well -- The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Ponyo, Up!, The Princess and the Frog, Coraline, etc. And Mo'Nique may have a new epithet in a couple months -- "Academy Award winner Mo'Nique" -- thanks Lee Daniels's Precious.

Enough musings. For now, I must run to HEB to buy Sunkist in preparation for my apresentação português amanhã.

December is the Ultimate

Ultimate, not meaning the greatest but the last.

The last of many, many things. It's the ultimate month of this decade. It's the ultimate day of school (excluding finals of course). It's the ultimate minute that I will get to see some great professors.

We just had a sending off for Dr. Charles Rossman, Joyce Scholar and UT English Professor. Great, great guy - super enthusiastic about Joyce, embracing of his students, and obviously loved by his family: two kids, one who graduated from Law school, the other with an MD, both of whom traveled from Houston to sit it on his ultimate day of teaching, documenting with a cute little point-and-shoot the ultimate hour that he will share with young minds the wealth of knowledge and the years of research he possesses on Joyce. And this woman, who I mistook for someone simply wanting to return to college for reasons that I presumed to be a desire to increase her literary knowledge -- well, it turns out that this is his wife. She sat through the entire class and read through Ulysses for the second time in her life just so that she can spend with him his ultimate semester as a Joyce Scholar at the University of Texas.

This is me being sentimental and slightly envious. Envious because - well, have you seen those movies? Wonder Boys, The Squid and the Whale? I wonder if student-professor relations actually blossom the way they do in these films. Not exactly the way they unfold in these films, of course. But I mean, do they bloom? Do students (particularly undergraduates) actually form long-term real relationships with their professors?

Anyways, this is one reason why I'm really glad I'm graduating with a liberal degree here at UT. How can a student really relate to a professor on things like marketing strategies? Or multi-variable calculus? Or fluorescent microscopy? Or MATLAB (say what!?)? I don't think a student can. Beautiful humanities.

I'm feeling quite sentimental right now. It's December. It's snowing like mad in Houston. Biting, cold wind here in Austin with all 750,000 residents hoping and wishing for but one snowflake. One little snowflake. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. before the sun rose and listened to The National. It's the ultimate day of the preantepenultimate semester of my penultimate year of college. And this is me documenting this morning. If I'm this sentimental now, I wonder what the ultimate day of the ultimate semester of my ultimate year here will be for me. Guess, we'll have to see.

Ultimately, I want to say that I'm very sorry that you all will not be able to take Professor Rossman's James Joyce course. My apologies indeed.

And as one ultimate reminder for all those who may stumble upon this entry:
Remember, Madam, I never eat muscatel grapes.

What November Means

Write. Apply. Write. Apply. Deadline. Wait. Wait. Wait.

September's Embers Rekindle then Dwindle

Start of the new school year. What does this mean? WELL, after a fantastic summer working as a staff photographer for The Daily Texan, I have decided that it would not be in my well-being (aka my health) to continue in a paid position this semester given my heavy work/course load. I talked with my very rational photo editor and we decided that I could apply as a volunteer instead. No commitments and no obligations, but I'll still be able to come shoot when I can. I think this will be good because otherwise, I would stop taking pictures and I would be deeply saddened by this.

Unfortunately, becoming a volunteer would also mean I would probably not have the opportunity to do sports. Maybe next semester? At least, I was able to dip my toe this past summer, photographing an open practice the football team had. It was an enjoyable experience, too.


Above is the photo that was printed in the paper. Not bad for my first time? Wish I could have more opportunities. Oh, the wealth of opportunities that comes along with working for the newspaper. That's one of the biggest things I'll miss -- the opportunities, experiencing things I normally never would.

Digression: I should probably upload these onto my newly-created flickr (check the sidebar for a link). I feel like I'm on every Web 2.0 website ever created. It's hard managing them all, but I gotta do what I can.

Positive Note: I can get involved with other organizations on campus and in the community. I decided to continue teaching ESL at Casa Marianella. And I'm also weighing out the pros & cons of getting involved with three other organizations on campus -- trying to figure out which ones fit my interests/schedule best.

Side note: My stint at B-Side ends this week. Texas Monthly begins next week. Keeping the momentum rolling!

Lahat ng Tungkol sa Aking Ina

Shoutout to my mother who reads my blog every now and then.

Busy life means an inability to keep in contact with everyone living a distance greater than 100 miles away. Its awful.

Anyways, it was very nice talking to her and letting her know what's up with my life. But she'd basically pieced together bits and pieces of it through her expert internet researching abilities. Even though she reads up on me, we're still not facebook friends. That's just far too intimate.

Been blogging more in my free-time. Hmm... oh, that's right, because now that summer school is over and The Daily Texan has wrapped up until the start of the fall semester, I've got a little bit of time on my hands. Magnifique. Unfortunately, I've pretty much given up on blogging strictly about food. It's such a process.

Not much else going on. Gonna have to start making this ratatouille soon. My vegetables are getting kinda old now. I don't know how to make a classic ratatouille at all, but I'm just gonna... well... make my own version of it.

I wonder if she cares that I'm posting up her [facebook profile] picture?
This is my mother, whom I adore.

The Beginning and End of Things

Mid-August means...

FINISHING summer school
COMPLETING my first semester as a photographer at The Daily Texan
CATCHING up on sleep
GETTING hired as a Marketing Intern at Texas Monthly!!!
INCREASING hours at a job that pays (minimum wage, blerg)
BEING the happiest I've been in quite a while
MISSING old friends (Rachel! Massiel!)
GROWING excitement about upcoming fall semester
ADDING two recipes to my repertoire (potato gratin & vichyssoise)
FEELING like I accomplished something this summer
Successfully BUILDING my resume

Looking forward to what the near-future has in store for good ol' Edmarc!!!
(This boy is in motion!)

Oh, how the summer has passed me by.

My first photo published by The Daily Texan (in the first edition of the summer). This is also the first in a series of many wild art shots by many photographers that involved kids and water.

August 1st means Lifestyle Changes

New DIEtary restrictions are killing me softly. It's been 3 days. Maybe it's because I've got nothing in my pantry/fridge that adheres to these rules? And therefore, I'm just ill-prepared to start this. Anyways, gonna have to start going to Central Market.

What's in this week's potential lineup for food?
-Potato Gratin
-a crap load of pasta
-lots of bowls of cereal
-maybe some sort of spinach & garbanzo bean salad
-vichyssoise (cold French leek & potato soup)

I wonder how much weight I'll lose by the end of the month? Let's guesstimate. I'm hoping for 5 lbs. Then I'll be at my optimal target weight.