owww

just when i thought my skin was behaving well,
two pimples er, "grew" overnight.
one day i was miss smoothie,
the next day i could feel them in my skin,
those huge a**shole pimple types.
then when i woke up this morning,
the white "head" part was all out!!
(sorry am i grossing anyone out here??)

so i squeezed 'em.

i don't care what people say,
that you shouldn't squeeze your pimples
and blah blah blah.

that's nonsense.

when they are still "un-ripe", i'll leave them be.
but when the white pus comes out,
how can anyone leave it like that and not touch??
i can't go around town like that!! no way.

so now my face has two really angry red spots.
one of the zits was on my chin and those on the chin
are by far the most painful *#&!@*!^@(# ever.


i have a real inferiority complex with my skin.

well my sister never fails to remind me how vain
she thinks i am.
well i am.
if i'm running late and i'm meeting friends,
i won't make them wait, but i'd make my family wait
while i put on some foundation.

i always had pretty good skin, up till when i was about 18.
well yeah there were the teenage-years' zits here and there,
but my skin always behaved pretty good.
once, when i had the rare huge zit on my forehead,
a friend even made a comment like,
"oh yes! finally you have a zit!!"

that all changed when i was about 18-19.

well i went with a friend to get my make-up done for prom.
we were graduating from junior college (like high school)
and at that time i wasn't exactly very good with my make-up.
so i thought, "hell, it sounds like fun", and joined my friend
for a make-up session.

i remember thinking that those brushes looked a bit dirty,
but i thought,
"well what do i know about make-up anyway?"

prom night came and went and i had a ball of a time.
the next day, my face broke out in some allergy attack.
the allergies turned into some gross rash.
the gross rash turned into much grosser pimples.
the pimples became full-blown acne.
i refused to go anywhere.


i had always been a very sociable person,
and i had always loved going out with my friends.
but at that point of time in my life,
i had so much pride (well i still do)
and i refused to be seen like that.

i was also experiencing many upsetting changes
within in my family, and i think all the anger and stress
that had built up within me, decided to just come all out
in full force, and the dirty make-up brushes were
the last straw.

for almost a year, i hid away in my own hermit shell.
i was working at my parents' company, and would tell
all my friends that i was bogged down with work and that
there was no way i could meet.

well i WAS bogged down with work,
but i could make the time if i wanted to,
but i refused.

the problems at home and the stress at work made me
a very very angry person.
i had so much anger in me at that time;
the anger very often turned to tears, and i would cry
many times a week in the privacy of my own home.

having a face like what i had made it all worse.
i had always been very confident in myself,
and had always been a leader in school or
some monitor or class chairman, and had been
captaining my school's hockey team since i was 13.
so you can imagine how much pride i had.

i think the worst thing i ever did, was when i was out
in a supermarket, and saw one of my juniors from school.
i almost, well i practically ran.
just to escape from her.
just so that no one i knew could see me.
because i didn't want anyone to see me.
god, I didn't even wanna see me.
it was pathetic.
i certainly felt pathetic.
i remember i went home and cried.
i thought, "what has become of me?"

i had a very very rough time.

well after some visits to the doctor,
my skin has cleared up.
it's a lot better than what it used to be,
but i still get some really huge pimples
from time to time.
and because i have sensitive skin that scars easily,
they take a long time to heal.

i still have my acne scars from years ago.
it's not that visible sometimes, but it is extremely
visible under certain types of lighting,
even with make-up.
without make-up, it's always a little red
and i hate that.

i do go out without make-up these days,
like when it's super casual.
but because i also believe that one should always
look as presentable as possible,
i do like to use some cover-up when i go out.

my sister thinks i'm crazy.

but i can't help it.

sometimes i look at girls, or even guys,
who have really smooth, spotless skin,
and i get terribly jealous.

i also put on a lot of weight when i was in japan.
most of it was gained in the first few months i was there.
now, i can rattle off in japanese and speaks as quickly
as i can in english.
but back then, i didn't know anyone and i couldn't
communicate very well.
there was the option of making english-speaking
friends, but because i really wanted to learn the
language and learn it well, i forced myself to not
make any english-speaking friends if possible.
so that i had no choice but to learn japanese.

well my plan worked out in the end
and i made tons of friends,
many of whom i became very close with.

but the first few months were very difficult times,
and i was often very very lonely.

my family had always enjoyed good food.
my parents didn't have the luxuries we have now,
when they were younger.
my mom's an excellent cook, but my parents often
brought us to many yummy places for meals,
telling us that they wanted us to enjoy the good life
that they never had.

so when i was lonely, i turned to food.

that never happened when i was in singapore.

in a short span of like 4-5 months,
i put on so much weight,
i couldn't fit into ANY of the clothes
that i had taken along with me to japan.

but staying in japan on my own, gave me a lot of
time to myself, and i think i've really matured over
the last 3 and a half years.

i've learnt to come to terms with a lot of things,
and one of those things, is about how i look.
i don't think i'm particularly ugly,
but i know i'm waaaaay far off the "pretty" zone.
i'm short, and i've put on a lot of weight,
and well, i still hate my scars,
but i'm not so upset about it as i used to be.

okay okay, so sometimes i look in the mirror
and go, "UGGGGGGGGGHH!"

sometimes i really consider asking my parents
for some cash to go do something about my scars.
but i think it'll be really expensive and at 24,
although i'm still a student, i can't just be asking them
for money like that.
how much will it cost anyway, a couple of thousands?

but i think i'm okay with being me for now.
i loathe that i've put on all this weight and can't
wear more fabulous clothes,
but i'm happy.
and now i'm exercising and back to playing hockey,
i'm really feeling good about myself.

although i do wish i had the money to just get
liposuction or something so that it'll save me all
the trouble! haha!
(but i've read and seen pictures of how liposuction
is done and it sounds terribly scary! i don't think
i can handle that!)

oh well. i was never THAT skinny to begin with,
but i was a very healthy and fit person.
i used to run marathons!!
i could run 2.4kilometres in 10 minutes!!
(in singapore schools, we have to run 2.4 kilometres
in a fitness test every year)

i used to have classmates who would faint after just
one lousy kilometre, but the fitness test to me,
was like, easy-peasy!

for hockey trainings, we used to run 4kilometres
and that was just warm up! then it'll be followed by
2 hours of gruelling training under the hot sun,
and we'd do up to 200 push-ups in one session at times.

thinking of how fit i was back then,
and how unfit i am now,
really makes me sick.

i don't want to be like model-perfect-thin
(okay i want, but it won't happen)
but i just want to be fit and healthy like how i used to be.

oh god, i've never ever gone on a diet my whole life.
i have friends around me who are permanently on diets,
but i don't believe in dieting.

but now that i've got some time in singapore,
i'm gonna really work hard to get back into shape,
and if it means also cutting down on yummy food,
then....sigh... i guess i'll have to. boohoo.



anyway, it's really late into the night now,
almost 4:50am as i'm typing this.
for the past 24 hours or so,
this really old retro song has been playing in my head.
"love in the first degree".
do you know that song?
by bananarama.
(are they the original? i've no idea)

i love this song.
it's so nice and dance-y,
makes me feel like going karaoke.
this is like my all-time favorite retro song.
it's been a favorite since i was a kid in the '80s.

i did a search for this video
and watched it for the first time in my life.
wow, it's really the '80s.
everyone looks gay! haha!!
the guys are girls and the girls are guys!
check out those male dancers!!
they are like 100 times more graceful than i'll ever be!
wow!

"only you can set me free
cos i'm guilty (guilty!)
guilty as a girl can be
come on baby can't you see
i stand accused of love in the first degree"


please watch it!!
turn up the volume and dance around madly!
do your best shimmies!