Heritage

Maryknoll Convent School

Studio White is moving to a new locale near Times Square. Upon signing the new lease, I noticed the lady responsible for rental had very pretty and flowing handwriting. Her handwriting was very similar to a certain cursive script I had to laboriously copy and mark by teachers when I was in primary school.

I ventured a bold question, which I hoped it wouldn't be too impertinent. I said, "Your handwriting is real beautiful." To which she replied, "Yours ain't too bad either." I then asked, "Do you mind telling me which school you went to?" The lady lowered her head and shyly replied, "Maryknoll on Kowloon side."

No wonder it's so familiar. The hoops here and the curls there. I have found a fellow Maryknoller. We then reminisced about the sisters roaming around reprimanding us for running on the wooden staircase, making thunderous noise. One of the sisters would say, "You lot will turn into elephants and not ladies!!" After she turned her back, all the while shaking her head, we would continue our stampede down the corridors.

I have never been big on school spirit, like wearing insignia shirts to announce to the world which school I went to. For some reasons, this lady has invoked a sudden pride in me of our old school. I believe it's this inexplicable charm and demeanor she carries. Cheekily I asked, "Since we are both old girls, would you look out for us more?" She just smiled and said, "We'll see if you girls behave."

How come it sounds like something that Sister Jeanne would say? I have never said this, but I am proud to be Maryknoller!!

(photos: top www.flickr.com)

Breakup Aftermath

Despite it being a classic "He's Not That Into You" breakup with a Gen Y twist, it doesn't mean it did not hurt. There was hmmm, a glassful of tears. I asked a girl friend out to karaoke till 4am to achieve that, the tears I mean. I had to get this supposed "hurt" out of the system.

Since I was at the karaoke to cry, not to sing, my girl friend chose the saddest lyrics, those which I thought were "written for me and me alone". Right. Through teary eyes, I asked her, "Do you have to pick these?", and she said, "You said you wanted to cry, so there you are!"

Aside from having a red nose, I was fabulously drunk. When I woke up the next day, it was already 4:30pm. I rubbed my eyes and read the numbers on the clock and my computer screen. It was 4:30pm all right. I was hung over the whole day and the next. I needed to be conscious for work the next day and I had to do something to get the alcohol and the lingering whatever residual "hurt" out of my system.

I booked myself a 3 hour long spa therapy. Since I wanted to get rid of the toxins, I chose the lymphatic drainage massage and a tummy slimming massage. These were the most painful, but most effective choices to get rid of the toxins. I have tried it before and it was torturous. Well, I figured I'd compare the physical pain to the "ache" I felt in my heart.

Wow, the pain was more than I remembered coz the therapist had to "release" the toxins in your lymph nodes by kneading, pushing and pinching. The "ache" in my heart paled in comparison to this torture. Then came the tummy massage. It would be wrong to label it a massage coz it consisted of all of the above, too. Kneading, pinching and pressing. This lasted for 1 and a half hours.

After that I had a facial. The therapist was telling me something as she went along. The last thing I heard was, "It's going to be a little cool, I will clean your face now." I fell into a coma. When I was conscious, I could feel the therapist lifting the mask from my face. I slept for an hour.

After the treatment, I went home, lighter and freer. I had done everything on the official breakup list. I cried, I whined to my friends, I got drunk, I watched sappy movies, I mourned. This lasted 2 days. I would not comment if he was worth all this, but I really did like him and I was hurt.

However, I am also a big girl and I did not want to waddle in all this negativity. Yes, I needed to mourn and get it out of my system, but most importantly, I needed to move on. I could now compartmentalize my life, so if one part sucks, it would not affect the rest of my life. As for this Gen Y breakup episode, it's over and done with. I still have the bruises on my thighs from the massage to show you how determined I was to rid him out of my system!!
(photo by Gothic Heart)

Believe it or Not

I had been trying to get on line for the past 2 hours tonight. The connection was temperamental and I had half the mind to change the provider once the contract was up. I called the customer service. The first choice I had to make was select a language. I chose Chinese. Then I had to do the usual drill of punching in a whole set of numbers and listen to millions of choices before I could reach a real human.

After waiting for an eternity, a human voice came on line.
She said, "Thanks for calling, but our lines are all busy right now, could you leave your number? A representative would call you shortly."
I was pissed but I politely asked her how "shortly" that would be. It was 10:30pm and she replied, "By 11:30pm..."
I told her that I am working and I needed to get online and an hour was too long.
To which she replied, "I'll mark urgent along with your phone number. Thank you and goodbye."

Jeez, I do pay for the broadband service, what kind of attitude is this? So, I called and punched in the numbers again. This time, I chose English as the selected language. After another eternity, guess what? A human answered and he was ready to help with his broken English.

Since I am blogging now, the connection is fixed, but what I wanted to point out is that you do get better service when you speak English. Yes, it's post colonial, but English is still more respected. When you choose English as the selected language, the representatives are more polite to you and they try to fix your problems. This is no joke.

So when I walk into stores or talk on the phone, I speak English. I tell them I don't understand a word of Chinese. Guess what, they bend over backwards to get me what I want. Post 97 or not, English is still the dominant language!! Believe it or not!!

Makeup Tip 3

Model look from Estee Lauder


Smoothing Creme Concealer from Estee Lauder

This is a simple yet magical makeup tip. Magical in the sense that it is instantaneous, et voila la difference. Notice the eyes of the model above are tilted upwards? Aside from the perfect eye line, mascara and eye shadow, the lifting effect could be achieved by dotting concealer on the outer corner of the eyes.

When we think of concealers, we usually use it for covering blemishes on our skin. Our focus is almost always covering the eye bags and the dark circles, which are the most obvious spots. One place we miss though, are the outer corner of our eyes. The part that is closest to the rim of our eyes bordering our eye lashes.

If you look closely in the mirror, the rims of the outer corner of our eyes have the same shade or in a more terrible scenario, a darker shade than the dark circle. This is the most often missed spot but the most important one for an instant brightening and lifting effect on our eyes.

The rationale behind it is, even if we have sucessfully covered the eye bags and dark circles, our eyes are only san bags and circles. If you look closely in the mirror again, the eyes still lack that luminous look. This is when the magic takes place. Take a tiny dot of concealer and dab it evenly on the rim of the outer corner of your eyes. Now compare the one eye you have dabbed on the concealer and the other eye you haven't.

See the difference? An instant lifting effect! If you are lazy and don't want to put eye line or any makeup, this is the best you could go san makeup, but still have luminous and not drooping eyes. Now get your wand and do some magic!!

(Photos: www.esteelauder.com)

Makeup Tip 2

Ombre Eclat - 4 shades Eye Shadow from Guerlain


Eye Pencils, eye-liner and Kohl from Guerlain

Une empreinte de moi dans la memoire des autres....
A trace of myself, in the memories of others...

Makeup is a process and it comes in little steps, the last and most difficult being the eyes. I envy women who have no eye bags and no dark circles. So do women who have bright, large eyes that mesemerize and dazzle people. Unfortuately, I think these women only exist in air-brushed Vogue magazines.

If you use eye-liner and mascara, even water proofed ones, you might find yourself looking at a panda in the mirror after several hours. Even the best of water proofed eye makeup do smudge. We can only make it last as long as possible without smudging.

The trick to making eye-liner lasts longer, which contributes to smudging as well as mascara, is to put a similar colored powder on top of the eye-liner. The rationale behind it is that even if we use kohl pencils, they are still 'moist' on our skin. Since our skin is warm, it will slowly melt and smudge. Eye shadow, however, is dry powder. If we put a layer of eye shadow on top of the eye-liner, the staying power will be much longer.

Most ladies like to pick black eye-liners, but it's real difficult to find a real black eye shadow to dust on it. I have found a dark chocolate color eye-liner at Guerlain. The color is very dark for a brown eye-liner. The texture is dense enough for a fine eye-line and you can easily find a dark brown eye shadow to match the color.

I haven't used eye liner for a long time until this tip, mostly because of the panda effect. Now, I do put eye-liner and dot eye shadow on top of the line. Well, after 5 hours a panda is forming, but hey, at least I got 5 hours of bright eyes, which is not bad for a makeup tip. Try it, you'd be surprised.

(photos: www.guerlain.com)

Twilight

A few weeks ago, I read "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer. It was entertaining, a teenage romance. The setting was high school, the main characters are all 17, well except the parents.....

As a novel in the vampire genre, it really differed from Anne Rice. There were no gory details, no preying and not a lot of blood. However, there was also not a whole lot of mystery and suspense that made your heart pulsate.

Despite that, I was still anticipating the adapted movie to be released in DVD coz there was a lot of hype over how good looking "Edward Cullen" was. He was good looking, but that was it. The movie was a disappointment. It took the last bit of suspense away from the book. The movie was also cut into different scenes taken from the book, but it was so piecemeal the movie was not fluid at all. I guess the biggest disappointment of all was the absence of chemistry between the main characters. It's a romance after all.

If you have time on your hands and reminiscent of your high school years, you might want to watch it, but the book is definitely better than the movie.

(photo: www.barnesandnobles.com)

Makeup Tip 1

This is one of the makeup tips I got from my makeup class. The main thing is picture a perfect oval shaped face, with the eyes, nose, mouth in perfect dimension. Ok just "picture".

Makeup, therefore, is to enhance our best features and camouflage the not so good features that do not fit the above. One very good tip to instantly slim the face and "make" it look oval is shading. Not a surprise.

Well, the magic is to highlight and shade at the same time, so this little box by Benefit is perfect for the job. The flat brush picks up both colors and the darker shade goes on the jawline and under the chin, while the other side of the brush, the highlight, will glide above the shade on your face, which will enhance your features.

I bought it and the first time I used it, I got a surprised but welcomed comment, that I looked slimmer!! Wow, a makeup tip and some camouflage did it. Now I am complacent into not losing the extra weight. Well, just a bit, hehe.