Never thought I would be back

 Hey all,

So I was asked to update my resume and refresh my portfolio, I found my online portfolio and saw this blog link. Well I took a quick read and I guess nostalgia would be the way to describe it. My life has changed so much over the last 4 year and it has been so crazy that I don't think a blog post can cover it all. 

I guess this is me saying I am back, with the aim to keep posting. Just simple mundane stuff, but just to document my life again.

ˆ.ˆ

Countdown to Tasmania: One and Half weeks & cold weather packing tips.

Hey all,

It is one and half weeks till I leave for Tasmania for my delayed grad trip with my girlfriends. It has been a long wait for this trip. We pre agreed on this before graduating and when graduation came, we had all the time in the world, yet we did not have the money to travel.

Our initial plans was to go to New Zealand,  however a ticket to Auckland and Christchurch were easily SGD$1,300 and that was as good as us going to USA. So we decided to go somewhere nearer, Tasmania. Our planning process was tough, we were 4 very different girls, with different travel experience and expectations. To mash all these expectations up was not an easy task, however we did it. I don't know what those 10 days will bring, but I will put on my brave face and go for it. I will be vlogging my 10 days, so I will put up the vlog after the trip.

Anyway I will be updating on things to pack, so far, the weather has been relatively cold with it ranging from 6-15 celsius. I realise many of us tropic rats love to go to countries which are a good 10-20 celsius but cant handle anything lower than that. (Obviously there are the brave souls who love the cold) But whether you are clueless tropic rat or a fashionista who does not care about the cold. I will be talking about packing for low temperatures.

There is only one rule to cold weather packing, it is not going to Uniqolo to buy heat tech clothes (though those work to a certain extend), it is not looking for the fluffiest jacket you see and it is not going to the winter store and buying all the heat packs you find. The secret to cold weather packing is natural materials. The reason why girls always complain that having long hair is hot on the neck is because hair is a natural material and so it keeps you warm. With that being said, please don't be creepy and use hair as a filler in your pillow, blankets, jacket etc. Natural materials include fowl feathers, down and wool, anything that is not a synthetic fibre or man-made.

I bought a fleece jacket from Uniqolo thinking it would keep me cold through a winter in New York, however I wore 5 layers of clothes everyday just to keep warm.

Me in my Ravenclaw Scarf and Black fleece jacket

Thankfully my house mate told me that in order to find something warm, I needed to find stuffed with natural material. So i bought a brown coloured down and fowl feather jacket and that kept me warm all the way, even till the end of the USA trip and Japan. I still have this jacket and I will bring it to places that are cold.

With my friends at the performance of the Musical Once, all of us are in jackets with natural materials as fillings.

With it, for below 0 celsius, I only wore a jacket and a t-shirt inside at most. Above 0 celsius, I wore a t-shirt and the jacket.

Hopefully this helps everyone with cold weather packing, now on to packing my bag, perhaps I will share more travel packing tips.

Engagement, leaving my job

Hey y'all,

The last two weeks have been crazy.

Firstly right after my birthday, which happens to fall on a Wednesday, I got engaged on the Saturday. We have been dating for seven years so when it finally happened, I was surprise mostly, a part of me was saying, "I knew this day will come" adding the little fist bump in the head. Engage life is no different from dating, just with a wedding to plan now. I am very happy to be engaged to the man whom I love, through our seven years together, he has shown me how much God loves us. Before him, I counted some good events to luck or coincidences, but after he appeared, I learnt that nothing in my life is a coincidence, I learn that God is in control and I learn how to have faith and trust in God's hands. 

Many people ask me how I can be so sure he is the one, my answer to that is that his love for me is an overflow of the love God has given him. Each time we are together, I see prayers answered, I see miracles happen and I see us being save by God all the time. I love to post more photos and talk more deeply about the engagement and how it went down. But I will save that for a later date, much closer to the wedding.

The second thing is about me leaving my job, some people ask, "why? isn't writing what you love to do?" I love writing and I have a lot of fun, going for events and meeting people. However I needed to try out all the other different beats, experience the different types of companies and office that were around. I worked for a family business and I learn the ups and downs that came with it, I learn how to deal with difficult people and learn what a blessing my colleagues have been to me. For all the opportunities that I was given I am more than thankful. 

My next step? Taking a break from the working life, move house (that involves a lot of packing, I am a slight bit of a hoarder) and going to Tasmania for a delayed graduation trip. I am still praying about the sister hood of Mary trip. Despite my makeup class schedules, I have a certain peace in my heart to go for it. Now I just have to sort things out and enjoy myself. I plan to freelance write for different places and fill up this blog a little more. I have many blog post in my draft and no time to fill them out, so I guess now is a good time to do so.

So long! 

23 turned 24

I spent the last one hour thinking about how my 23rd year has been. It was one filled with ups and downs. I got a job that I enjoy, worked my butt off and was happy with the experience despite the low pay given. I learnt a lot on how a publication works and getting into a cycle was not an easy task, but I did it. Yet in between all that hustle and bustle, I chose to leave my job 1 year after I started and I am not proud of it, I left in order to diversify my portfolio and to learn to write different beats. I also left because I was not happy with certain elements of my job. Some people felt I could have done better, others knew that I have tried my best in what I did. Whatever it was I know that I have grown in this past one year. I learn my limitations, and my strengths, I learn to be confident in certain things and be humble and ask for help in others.

When David Cameron left his job as Prime Minister of Britain, I knew that it was ok to leave my job, because if the PM of Britain can leave his job, what difference would it make when I leave mine.

With the late SR Nathan's death, his life story was published and when i read it, i learn that it is ok to have many jobs, as long as your principles and character are the same throughout.

My spiritual growth have increased too, I felt God's hand in my decisions at work, I have seen his faithful hands through that one year; from giving me the job, to inviting me to leave my work place. I also have learn to focus on him and commit my problems to him, both big and small. I am no expert at faith but I know with him, I am assured for life. Moving forward, I know he has ask me to seek his kingdom first and trust that all others will be added onto me, and I have every plan to do so as well.

Thinking back to my birthday when I was younger, it was filled with dress up parties, I would have a theme and my friends would dress up for my party, back then it was about the presents and the attention I would received on my special day. That was all that matter to me. Now that I am older, I realise that the presents and attention no longer matters, it is the people who remember my birthday, albeit Facebook reminding people of birthdays. The people who bother to write me a message or wish me happy birthday in any way they can, the midnight surprises and the ones who set aside time to spent it with you. I learnt that relationships are more important than that attention or presents received. And I am glad to say that with such a thought and shift in a attitude, I guess I have grown up a little more.

I look forward to seeing how my mind and hopefully my body changes from now till 25.

Makeup Review: Benefit Dallas Lip Gloss

I got Benefit Dallas Lip Gloss from a friend for my birthday. It was a touching gesture from her because I did not know her very well, yet she got me something that she liked and wanted to  recommend it to me.

I highly recommend this lip gloss on a couple of pretexts:

1) I do not wear any lip products at all. I buy lipsticks, gloss and tinted balms because of their pretty colours and I always tell myself that I will wear some lipstick, but that never happens. I put on a new lipstick for a couple of days and it will be back in my makeup box, the deep end where I do not remember. 

2) I hate the sticky feeling lip gloss gives. Every time I put on a lipgloss, my hair blows and it gets stuck onto my lips, this irritates me a lot because I don't like my lip gloss to be messed up and I don't like my hair having the sticky feeling the lip gloss gives.

3) It always goes away. I get discourage when I wear lipstick because it always goes away after a while. It will disappear and then I have to reapply it again and I hate carrying my makeup around in my purse. However because lipstick is like this, I make an exception for it.

4) I get conscious when I eat it or drink it. I know other women might see their lipstick stain as a sort of claim and mark. When I see it, I think about the fact that I might be eating or drinking my lipstick and that makes me uncomfortable.

So with all my apprehensions about lipstick/gloss/stains, I gave this particular lip gloss a shot, simply because my friend recommended it saying that it is not sticky and is much more moisturising, like oil.

Well we eat fried stuff all the time and oil always gets on our lips, so really, I rather have oil on my lips than sticky gloss. Gave the lipgloss a shot and it works like a charm, it is really the first non sticky lipgloss, genuinely feels like a gloss with added colour on it.

I give this a 4.5/5. the missing 0.5 is due to durability, just like every other lip product, I have to reapply, but if the gloss is that comfortable, reapplying is that bad. Perhaps one day when the perfect lip products appear, this will be kicked out of my top favour, but until then, I am sticking with Benefit Dallas Lip Gloss... and maybe Mac Viva Glam V!

The Easter Reminder

I have been working as a writer for a magazine and when you write in office, sometimes it is tiring to write at home. However I am always reminded of God's goodness and that compels me to write, because I have to give him the glory he deserves.

On the 7 April this year, it will be my 4th year since I received my Driving Licence. These 4 years have fly by, I have not gotten a bad record in Singapore, however I had my fair share of driving excitement in the USA. Every time I look back at my driving experiences, I know that God's hand has been in every single trip. I have had my near accidents experience but have maintain a clean record in Singapore. Getting my driving licence was one of the situation in which god met me at where I was.

I am part of the Comfort Delgro Driving Centre (CDC) group students. I started taking my driving in the start of 2011, I have renewed my membership once and my Provisional Driving Licence (PDL) 3 times. I had 67 100 minute lessons before I passed and I passed on the second try. For the record, I took manual and am a proud owner of a Class 3 licence. My journey to get this licence was one of humility, hard work and blessing.

I started out in CDC as a common pool student, the scenario where you fight with 1000 other students for measly number of slots. At that point, I put in the exact amount of money required to take a couple of classes. I did not think long term and had booked a few classes at one go, I was not consistent in my booking and hence only had classes at the end of each month. Essentially I was taking classes on week 3 and 4 of each month, putting 2 weeks of break between classes. This caused a lack of consistent practice and my skills were not smooth. After daddling for at least 20-30 classes, I decided to move on to OneTeam, where I could book more consistent classes and started having consistent classes. However due to the bad habits I developed through my initial lessons, my teachers spent a lot of time breaking these habits, after which they had to inculcate all the proper habits and that took a long time. 

During my first exam, I was so nervous about the yellow lights that I step into the yellow box and had an immediate fail, I was so upset about my fail but I had to continue and push for my second test. During my second test, my tester was a little kinder and I picked the last slot of the day. Despite the traffic on the road, it gave me the opportunity to be slower and that helped me. After getting my test results, I passed with 16 points (18 points is pass while 20 points is fail). When I look carefully at my test results, I calculated my total points to be 20 (which mean I would have failed), however I had 4 points of exemption. At that point, a still small voice said "That is grace". I believe that was the holy spirit sharing with me what the grace of god is; something you don't deserver but given.  And this great reminder came just one day before Good Friday. If I did not have the exemption, I would have failed and had to take the test a 3rd time, but his grace has been sufficient for me. Every time I share my experience, I know that it is a testimony to God's goodness.

Who am I?

Who am I that you would be interested in me, that you would care for the hair on my head, or the injuries I have. Who am I that it will interest you to know that I am eating and breathing well. Who am I that you would care for the fact that I have a job that I am interested in or that I have a nice home to live in.

Who am I that I will deserve your love and concern, that you would be interested to know to about the demons I fight or the insecurities I face when I look at myself in the mirror. Who am I that you actually care to comfort me in my time of pain and offer me a shoulder to lean on during my time of trial and distress. Who am I that you would invest time, care and love in me.

I am nothing but a speck of dust on this earth, part of the millions of people who come and go. I am the light that dies in a second, the one that flickers and pass on. I am selfish and deceitful, I want things my way and I think only about myself, I refuse to put someone before my well being. I am filled with nothing but sheer humanity, I want only fame, wealth and power in my life, I want to be a step better than the next people. My sinful nature fills me and drives me to make the wrong decisions or compromise my morals.

Yet you love me with all your heart, you look pass my heart and see the good in me. You love me so much that you send your son to die for me, you gave me unconditional love that my human mind will never understand. I don't know why you are interested in me and my well being, I don't know why you care for me, I don't even know why you love me so much that you are willing to forgive my sin and send your son to die for me, but I am glad you do.

Be patient with me and teach me your ways, transform me into the woman you want me to be.

When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars

which you have set in place 

what is mankind that you are mindful of them, 

human beings that you care for them?

Psalm 8: 3-4