Emotional Breakdown #1

This is just to document:

That was really strange. I couldn't even help myself; it just happened. I was writing a pretty meaningful email to someone while listening to Elliott Smith's XO. The song, of course, was "Between the Bars." And then I recovered when "Angeles" ended which means the whole thing lasted a whopping 19 minutes.

Fascinating.

There is no more joy in writing

What I wonder is if there was any joy at all to start?

On the verge of a nervous breakdown

Since June 2009, many things have changed, but the most recent is that I will no longer teach ESL at Casa Marianella. Nine months there. NINE! I could've gone one full year, but I just can't. And for this, I'm terribly sad.

School is absolutely consuming my life. And my internship adds extra stress by subtracting heavily from my already scarce free time.

For example, I've got a paper due tomorrow, which I'm only starting now. I will get it done, but I am sacrificing a bit of my health and mental stability for it. It's actually due at 5 p.m. which gives me more time, but guess what I'm doing between 10 and 5 tomorrow? Class for two hours... then internship.

I hope that this isn't the beginning of a meltdown for me.

Everything that I said I wasn't, I am

We idealize because we've never been.

But you -- you are like Avatar or Dances with Wolves. A real class crusader.

No bells or whistles

I'm writing a fairly straightforward blog entry this time around because I wish to document those bands I saw at Club de Ville tonight. Because in all honesty, I'm bound to forget who they are. Danny Malone, Crawling with Kings...

Two others whose names I've already forgotten. Thankfully, my friend Caitlin'll have them.

In other words, I get Mad Men Season 1 Discs 1&2 in the mail later today (Monday, Jan 11, 2010). I cannot wait for them to arrive. Much of my time these next few days will be spent with my laptop, Jon Hamm, January Jones and some wonderful production design.

The Lovely Bones, Peter Jackson's not too well-received adaptation of the Alice Sebold novel, is in store for me in the near future (Tuesday the 12th). I'm glad I'll be at a screening for it because I'm not sure I'd pay to see it in theaters. The novel, which I had hoped to read before watching the film, sits beside my left foot untouched for many many months in a shelf full of all the other books I haven't read yet. One day, I will. At the moment, I'm catching up on my film/television.

I think that after Tuesday, I'll be ready to compile my favorites of 2009.

Under my feet, the earth moves

Up the saturation on this color palette!
Cue the cellos! (fp cres.)
Intensify your screams of agony!

I believe that to be believable, you must portray the believable in an unbelievable fashion.

Move aside, circumnavigate this convoluted world of yours.

You ain't got nothing on this.

Happy New Year to me. And to you, partner in crime.

But not to you, Sarah Jane. No, not you.

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.

This is Just to Say

That this time of year, I'm usually prognosticating the Oscars. Sadly, my life has grown far too hectic for this kind of fun - or any general sort of fun actually.

Maybe I'll watch a few films during Thanksgiving break?

To name a few in which I find interest:

An Education, Precious, The Hurt Locker, Up (how could I have missed a Pixar?!), 500 Days of Summer, FANTASTIC MR. FOX (released wide on the 25th and receiving very positive early reviews), etc.

The Cause of My Insufferable Headache

Is it

• Not eating enough?
• Insufficient amount of sleep?
• James Joyces's difficult prose?
• Perpetual process of writing+waiting?
• Overload on school work?
  
• The necessity for days with 28+ hours?
• All of the above?

Too many variables to test out. Scientific method will not work for this experiment. What's that? Minus ten? Scales lie. Gravity lies. Newton lies. Time to warm up a boca burger. Scratch that first bullet off my list.

Design Trumps Humanities

Currently enjoying this visual design class very much.
Loving working on InDesign.
Typefaces are wonderful.
Unfortunately, this is taking away the focus from some of my other classes. Joyce, American English, Portuguese.

Still trying to strike a balance between everything going on in my life: school, work, internship, community service, extracurricular activities, wasting time on social networking sites, sleep, social life (slowly beginning to lose grasp of the meaning of these last two words).

Wilco, I love you.
Jeff Tweedy, I love you.

Putzen! Nettoyer! Limpiar! Pulire!

During the 5 hours of meticulously cleaning my kitchen, I thought up this awesome project. The thing about these project ideas that I have is that I'm not sure that I have the time to implement them. Until then, they're just awesome ideas, you know?

Well, this one needs some time to formulate further in my mind. See if it's actually possible to accomplish and maybe, just maybe, I can go forth with it.

For now, I must get back to sleep for tomorrow is another exciting day at my internship. And after that? More crazy cleaning. So far, I've taken care of the stove top and stove coil things, microwave (inside and out), tops of cabinets, refrigerator floor and vegetable drawers, counters and sink. I also organized my food in the refrigerator and my spice cabinet. I arranged them in alphabetical order inside a cabinet designated only for dried herbs and spices. Yesterday (Wednesday) was my first full day off in maybe two weeks. And this is how I spend the day. CLEANING. Wonderful. I also ran errands like crazy.

Tomorrow is oven exteriors, refrigerator exteriors, kitchen tables, pantry and floors. I know that this state of cleanliness will not last long once 1) roommates move into apt [this includes the two new roommates and Victor] and 2) school starts. I just won't have the time.

Maybe I can get my room and bathroom in before semester begins? We'll see.

Until then, check out this image of Penelope Cruz from the set of the upcoming movie musical, Nine. Oh, I cannot wait.

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.

Ideas Overflow My Mind

I'm not sure what I'm doing at home on a Saturday night. It seems like it's the first night I've had off in over a week (9 or 10 days). So I think I'm just taking it easy. Sucks that I've got this thing looming over my head that I have to do before Monday. I mean, it's a super simple task but it still looms and looming's no good. Watch a couple films. Easy. Marketing/pre-distribution strategies. Not bad. Still looms.

I've had an awesome week and things seem to be going forward. But there's still something missing. I know what it is.

Much of it is tangible.

One, a blackberry.

I have a whole campaign that I've been working on to pitch to my mom regarding my investment in a smart phone. She adamantly opposes the smart phone. But I want/need one for these reasons.

1. To better connect myself with the world (never home, always out and about, current phone plan not so stellar - 250 txts/month. Really, mom?)
   
2. To increase my marketability in the job world (dependable, contactable, etc.)

Two, a good DSLR (Canon 5D, maybe?). I really want to launch a multimedia project this fall. But what's the point if I haven't got the equipment that I need to execute? Maybe I'll be able to check out equipment from the photo-j department again this semester? Let me make sure that I can before even attempting this project inspired by the Times. Maybe if I cut out all of my clips from The Daily Texan and present it to my parents all bound up and nice, they'll be overcome by sheer joy that they'd go out and buy me one?

Just kidding. These are missing from my life but it's not what I really need right now. Although, I'd still love to have them. We'll see.

In other words, Miyazaki's Ponyo is out in theaters now and it's receiving stellar reviews. Need to see it. Recently saw District 9. Social commentary very evident. Do not eat food while watching. Just a warning.

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.