Slimming ads and fads
Recently there have been several curbs on people administering beauty treatments in Singapore, seems like the MOH has finally woken up from deep slumber.
But besides placing these curbs, it's also important to monitor the messages that these burgeoning slimming and 'beauty' centres send out to the average joe and plain jane. They seem to convey that only lean and pretty people can make it in life.
This idea is reinforced regularly, in so many ways that it's hard to escape it. Especially if you suffer from low self-esteem and don't have the quintessential 'chio-ness' and fab figure.
Flip the newspaper and there is a host of slimming ads featuring svelte women (often in skimpy clothes), open the TV and there is a deluge of - dandies who can do no wrong in the beauty department, make-over programmes and movies. Some of the most popular TV programmes and movies around the world are all about 'ugly duckling to swan' transformations that leave you gaping as the 'transformed' gets everything he or she wants from their life.
Shopping is a national pastime in Singapore but there are many shops that cater only to the small-sized among us. I've come across too many shops that don't carry sizes beyond L which seems more like a M at the most - even my fairly thin friends find it hard to get into some of those clothes. I've lost count of how many times I've seen big sized women step out with a sigh - nothing fit...
The most shocking bit is how some of these slimming and beauty centres force you to take their stuff after complaining about the state of your body/face/hair/nearly anything and everything possible..ARM SCALLOPS! PLEASE, HOW SHALLOW CAN YOU GET?
Exercise and shedding the flab is good for your health, as is moderate diet control - not binging excessively. But it's bad if it becomes an obsession, no matter what people say. When something affects your self-confidence and makes you think negatively about yourself - it's bad. Ultimately, you're just as good as you feel inside and your superficial traits should never be a factor in that.
"If people slam you for your looks and avoid you because of that, they are plain ol' assholes, so forget about them losers, get it??" That's the most angsty yet empowering line I heard recently.

Technology...sorry..but exclude me.
I'll confess...I'm fed-up of facebook. A lot of my acquaintances and people I know from years back are on it...but after less than a week on it..I'm growing terribly tired - I don't wanna add every Tom, Dick and Harry or Harriet on it.
My e-mail gets flooded every time someone does anything to my account, you can't unravel your results for various games and applications without forwarding to a zillion different people and well..it's just too damn tedious. Responses are slower as well.
Worst of all...it's like a drug addiction - a useless desperation. It's SO bloody hard to resist the temptation to check your profile, check your e-mail etc etc every time you are on the internet. I'm beginning to detest the feeling. How about some coffee - at a coffee-shop please? If I can't meet you physically..let's just make a date when I'm close by?
Bottomline: Social networking websites maybe good to 'kaypoh' and know what your long-lost friends are upto...but they can never replace e-mails, letters, phone conversations and actual meet-ups. period.
In a strange way - the more technology you embrace, the more simplistic you get. I'm wanting to run off on some spiritual journey..SOON..but then there is graduation and a few more people to add on facebook..haha. Sometimes life's like a vicious circle.

HOW TO LET GO!
John Milton's words: "They also serve, who stand and wait"
Poet Milton was blind and felt incapable of doing anything that would make him worthy of heaven. But eventually realisation strikes him - he realises that every man comes with his destiny and accepting it graciously is the only key to genuine happiness.
This message has been ingrained in me for ages now...but I'm only human and incapable of completely letting go of the aspirations that I have of myself - sometimes swayed by a bout of eye-opening inspiration and sometimes (to be honest) by the fringe benefits (money alone, let me add, is NEVER enough motivation).
Of course, things are not always the way I want them to be..and many-a-times I'm left thoroughly disappointed..with the inadequacies and my own self. But time has always healed the wounds and life, I've realised through sheer experience, is never stagnant and God is never merciless.
His ways are strange, unfathomable, but if for once we keep still and look at the bigger picture with selfless indifference - much like a detached observer - life will become infinitely simpler and happier because we would probably observe that all that has happened, it may not have seemed right at the time, is actually for our best.
Letting go of our small aspirations would then, hopefully, become easier. I'm seeking that bout of inspiration that gives me the courage to let go. Hopefully it comes soon.

Love IS Blind...and scheming too (if I may add)
What prompted this entry is one look at the press photos from the Manap Sarlip murder case that has been doing the rounds here in equatorial Singapore.
For those in the know - you can catch a wink for a while - but for the others - this hell of a scary-looking, 20-something woman got a teen-aged boy to become her lover, brain-washed him and got him to murder her husband.
She manipulated the chap and used his surging hormones to her benefit. Before I saw her photograph..I was wondering what got the guy to fall SO madly in love - a deprived childhood maybe - or was it the woman...
Excuse me guys...but I've had some live experiences that prove the power of a drop-dead gorgeous woman on many a right-minded men..so my first thoughts were that the woman may be a hell of a looker.
I was totally dumb-founded when I saw her pictures (because beauty lies in the eyes of a beholder, sometimes more in those of the beer-holder, excuse me if you think otherwise). I found her to be irresistible - in a way that you can't resist packing all that's important to you and scramming before even an ant catches a glimpse of the two of you together.
Love, to me, was certainly blind in this case...if it was even there in the first place. But more than blind, it was treacherous, mean, unsympathetic and most of all scheming.
If you believe in unconditional love, prepare for disappointment....k that was morose..but someone told me that hope makes even a gray day beautiful. amen.
PS: I finally got a comment on the blog..but hey..the person forgot to (or purposely didn't) put any name and had a link to a blog on notebook computers that was in a foreign language..how's that for amusement?! But hey..tks anyways..whoever you are. Just please just leave a name - I don't trust nameless, good Samaritans.

Food shortage
So yeah...FOOD has been grabbing headlines...for one, the new Sunday Times has so many more food pages alongside other news stories and Singapore also happens to be hosting the umpteenth World Gourmet Summit..pui..
What has been irking me is the way people are WASTING food..and it includes the freeloaders who attend huge buffets and load their plates with food that could feed an entire banquet.
Now, I know the whole African kids argument is just considered intellectual snobbery by most - after all most people find it hard to relate to things that far away. But let's not turn a blind eye to the stuff closer home.
We aren't exactly dying because of starvation here in Singapore..at least there are no records of such deaths...but food is becoming a concern - just look at the various newspaper reports over the past few weeks.
Now I know at the minuscule , individual level there is not much we can probably do. But the individualist in me feels that by wasting a little less and eating smaller portions we shall probably do a bit more service to our body and the reducing food supplies...food for thought (forgive me if you think otherwise)

The farewell..
SO yes...it came...there were some tears, there was some laughter, some awkwardness...but at the heart of it...an utterly mixed series of events..which comprised some flattering and some not so flattering photos, some really encouraging e-mails, some sappy over-the-top, my usual over-emotional moments.
Leaving that desk after 8 months of bumming on it was hard..and I was hard pressed to prevent myself from putting a 'reserved' tag and hot irons in there (just incase someone tries to usurp it). Makes me think just how 'used-to' we get to people, places and other ephemeral stuff and despite the numerous farewells, I still find it impossible to keep myself from getting attached to things that are fleeting in nature.
All the 'paiseh-ness' strikes home later...but at least in the bottom of my heart, I feel relieved that I did what I wanted to do and although it may seem a bit too EMO in retrospect, it makes me feel contented to think that I remained true to myself.
Had dinner with the girls...they made the last few months truly special..But my philosophy teaches me that what goes around comes around..so we part to meet and meet to part and goodbyes are never really goodbyes but more like see you again, if it was meant to be.
Amen.
Shall upload the photos into my newly acquired facebook account..no copyright issues so friends, you can rip to your heart's content!

Journalism...
Yeah...I know I am your typical once-in-a-blue-moon blogger with possibly the most boring blog in blogsphere...but heck..writing for a newspaper takes up too much time to regularly write on a blog as well.
The past few stories have given me a real taste of the age old - the pen is mightier than the sword - saying. When people from the public read your works and write in to you with first hand feedback-both positive and negative- you get the most surreal feeling in the world - people actually take out some of their precious time to actually read what you're writing and at some level it impacts them.
Makes me like this profession even more...
Graduation ceremony next month...I've nearly forgotten what poly life was..will be a positive reminder..also it will be my first 'real' - the graduation attire and everything - ceremony. Look forward to meeting some people after a long time no see =)
Evon, if you're reading this, how about a movie at the library afterwards ;))