It's back to camp for me. And honestly I haven't been a very good girl on my diet. On and off I become very strict with it but there are times I do let myself indulge a little. However, my girlfriend just got serious in losing weight after gaining a good 5kg in a year's span and she's going on a strict fast then diet for a week, starting tomorrow.

With that motivation in mind, I'm reverting back to my liquid fast again tomorrow. Woo!

It's always good to have someone who can be on board with you when it comes to dieting, it's really really hard to diet alone. :(




Especially when the girls around me eat like a pig and never gain weight. -.-
Emo max.

Raya has been really pleasant, we got a week off and I spent a good 5 days chilling at home, and hanging out with my friends every single day. Eating... and controlling.



Caught up with all my girlfriends, ate smoked salmon and watched America's Next Top Model at home from Season 1. Never knew Season 1 was so boring. Yawns. Not much drama and the challenges wasn't even that interesting. But it was nice to see Tyra Banks in almost every step of the way with the girls, afterall, it was the first season. Everyone was so much nicer in the first season.

I downloaded every season and am ready to watch them all, once I get the time, and after reading my book I newly bought. Gosh I do have a lot of books I want to read. Why are there so many authors I love and why are they publishing new books so fast. I only have two eyes okay?!

My latest read: I heart London.
Super chick lit book. But I love it. Maybe because I've been chasing it since her first book and even though it can be a little annoying at times, you know, bimbo-tic kind of writings; but it's fun to read her journey throughout, since New York.

I'm also onto a new book I really want to get my hands on, I'm guessing it's the latest erotic romance book, somehow some of the most romantic books I've read always contain some erotic content one way or the other, and it's incredibly intense. I love it.



Sadly "The Ugly Duchess" hasn't come to Malaysia yet but as far as I'm concerned, it has entered Singapore shore. Woo! It's not too far to travel to get a book, right? Right?!

Here are some photos for the past week:


with Amanda from the model search. 2p?


bought this set of Coca-cola London Olympic glasses from McD for only RM12.90. Cheap right? I didn't even know why I got it. lol


new clothes from Whitesoot arrived just in time for Raya. yay..


nice or not? it's a jumpsuit!


photo from the backstage of a fashion show in Neverland, I'm a mouse. And a mouse trap as a necklace


fell in love with this ring watch from Toy Watch while walking around Pavilion one day. Target this year!





I seemed to be wearing a lot of blue lately. It's not even my favourite color :S


experimenting with pink make up. Pink vs Turquoise.

Someone asked me to do a video tutorial of this make up? What do you think? Would you be interested? Since I'm not sure if my readers are mostly guys or girls. Give me some feedback.

Now that Raya break is almost over, so is my time being away from the camp. Tomorrow it would be back to fasting while the world goes on with their after Raya feast. Boo-hoo~

But before that, let me entertain you with a post of How-to. Something I've been wanting to do and haven't had the time so instead of out celebrating myself crazy, I took my raya break to fix up myself (in the way of 'nom nom nom'), catch up with girlfriends and saving my blusher palette.


Coastal Scents, all the way from the U S and A.

Basically, like most cosmetic users, once and twice you will encounter an accident where your powder palette breaks, or in my case, smashed into smithereens.


ugly sight

How it happened was I placed my lovely lovely palette into my check-in luggage and next thing I know, I was greeted to a luggage of pink and brown shades. T_T
Now you know how those airport personnel handle your luggage.

Note I didn't use the term 'fix' which is the more popular word used on the internet. Because I didn't want to fix it. The problem with using alcohol to shape the broken palette back into a pressed form is that it loses its original texture, especially when said powder palette comes from a quality brand. As shared by another experienced user here.

So in this post, I'm teaching you a way to 'save' (instead of 'fix') your powder cosmetic palette when it breaks.

1. Obtain Air-tight Powder-tight Containers

I got this set from Daiso at RM5. A steal with two twist-able containers that has four compartments.



It even came with a spatula to scoop my blush powder in.


Remember to place a mat/newspaper underneath cause it's gonna get messy!

2. Transfer Content

Slowly scoop up all the now loose powder of your blusher (or compact pressed powder) into the containers, lightly pressed the powder down for more space, if you have a bigger container then this should be easy.



3. Clean Palette with Fan Brush


Your palette should be a mess right now, especially for your other color palette. Notice from photos above how dark my highlight palette has gotten after getting mixed up with the other powder color.


Now for the magic trick: a fan brush.

DO NOT wipe it with a cloth. In fact, do not even brush it off with your usual powder brush. It will mess things up even more.

Get a fan brush, it looks like this.


see how white the white powder palette looks like now (like new)

The function of this brush is to light remove excess powder on your face, especially eyeshadow that has fallen onto your cheeks whenever you apply eye makeup, without affecting your own makeup.

See how one swipe can clean off the palette and make it brand new again.

Before

After

Slowly and lightly brush away all the excess powder left on the palette.

And DONE!




Now I've saved my blusher and bronzer into these light containers that's travel-made-easy; and use them as loose powder, which works equally like a charm. Just tap off the excess when you swipe your brush across the powder.

It's three weeks left to the finale and it seems that I'm not losing weight fast enough, so I've been suggested to go on a liquid fast for 3 days, then break for 2 days and on again.

Technically I'm not allowed to eat anything solid and only consume liquid during my fasting period, which usually consist of sugarless soya milk (yuck) and fruit juices (yum). The first day of my fast went by smoothly but the second day I felt dead tired, I slept the moment I got to the training base, with a swollen foot and a swollen neck (like a mumps).

Definite signs of lack of water, and some proposed lack of sodium, a.k.a. salt. So yes, by the end of the day, I sneaked some biscuits (which consist of sodium), and few other things, thus alas, my fast was broken. So much for determination. -,- but drastic moment calls for drastic measure. Cure fake mumps first, focus on getting rid of un-sightly fats later.

Not to mention it fits in with the current Ramadan period (I can't wait for Raya this sunday when I finally get my time off!! and break my soon-to-be-continued fast), and they say I'm not a religious person. Pfft.

Swollen foot, however, could be the cause of over-exertion; which to be honest, never in my adulthood have I worn 5-inch heels this consistent on such a regular long-hour basis. Bravo. Least to say dancing in them. Cue melodramatic songs.

On the brighter side of things, my photoshoots are covering photos which consisted of makeup looks I really liked lately. Brilliant. Despite the long wait every time there's a shoot, I actually anticipate whatever they slab on my face, fiddle with my hair and woila, I'm a new woman all over again. It sure takes the pain away from my foot and the fast; and the fact that there's never enough toilet space.

Here are some of the photos as a reward to your patience to my ramblings, some of which I'm sure I'm not even allowed to post, but heck, it's not full body so yea, whatever. :p


the cover girl look


beauty make up - my fav


Vier and I


Oriental look, high fashion Nicole


trying on different wigs, same make ups.


I do think white hair suits me, and that red lipstick. Yum~


with Amanda, the most eccentric girl in the bunch. Love her. 

Today is the first day I have a day off since my check in with the girls on the model search two weeks ago.

It's been nothing but tough and tiring. Part of me feel like breaking down and lots of my friends are asking me to quit, due to many reasons which I find inappropriate to reveal here, or anywhere else.

In the past week, I have even gave up on my weight lost program due to my demotivated spirit. It felt like: "what's the damn point?"

Damn right the point.

I'm going to be more positive from today onward. Some of these girls are many years my junior and they could stay more positive than I am, despite the usual rants and complaints and obvious reasons to be unhappy about.

Ordered my first ever soy latte from Starbucks yesterday. I've never ordered coffee, firstly because I never like/drink coffee; secondly, well, I won't pay for something I don't like, not for the price Starbucks is offering anyway.

But for the first time, I was beyond tired. I was fatigue. And I haven't felt this form of fatigue since, god knows, my student exam days? And no matter how much I tried to get myself to perk up, which I usually could despite my tiredness, I couldn't.

There was no more mental, spiritual and physical energy left in me to force a smile.

For years I was used to 8-10 hours of sleep a day. All of a sudden, I had to force myself to sleep only 4-6 hours average every single day, after a whole day of exhaustion, of activities and training and shootings. It's like selling my soul, for free.


The cherry on top (there's always cherry on top) is that I have to come home to a house full of dirty dishes and empty boxes and dead fish. Yes, apparently someone came to my place and ate and left the dirty dishes behind on my table for me to clean (for the same reason I asked the favor to come my place: to help clean the dishes in my sink while I was away because I couldn't even get home myself to do it). And what could be more spiritually uplifting than to handpick two dead clown fish from a mega fish tank, all the while scaring my two remaining and always miraculously still-alive shrimps.

FYI, I did not buy the fish. They were put in my tank while I was away.


It's been really enlightening despite all of that. Yes we must always look on the brighter side of things.
The experienced made me learnt a lot about this industry. To constantly improve myself and to correct the faults I never thought I have. I enjoyed the learning experience, I wished I have more time to learn more about myself and to better myself, if only this was not a competition, I would feel less stress and could improve in my own comfortable time and space.

Anyway I have to go now. My laundry's done. Gotta go hang them and see if I have time to go out to enjoy the rest of my day.

Here are some photos from the model search:

Departing from Lyon, I landed in the post city Marseille, France. Why Marseille? It's the second largest city in France after Paris, I have to find out what's the fuss about.


Where there's a port, there's seafood.



And Marseille is famous for their Bouillabaisse dish: an intense seafood stew boiled and simmered over long period of time with varieties of fish till all the essence of the fish are infused into the soup. A good bouillabaisse is said to be ultra rich in flavor of all the best fish just by sipping the thick fish stock soup; best served with rouille (see wiki) on baguette with shredded cheese.




I arrived in cold and chilly Marseille to a very funky boutique hotel with a very pink room.



Unfortunately, unlike the welcoming apartment, the owner and host of the place wasn't as pleasant. Being a typical rude French, despite me being a girl and the lift to his 5th floor apartment was out of order, he wasn't expecting me to carry my own mad heavy luggage all the way up to his doorstep. What made it so infuriating was that he wasn't some old frail man but a big sturdy muscular and tall man for his age, probably in his early 40's.

To add cherry on top (sense the sarcasm), the apartment was cold as the Arctic, even sitting in my room was enough to shiver me down to my knickers (yea it doesn't make sense, but when you're that cold, nothing makes sense).



My stay in Marseille was a short one as I was going to make my way back to London, leaving France faraway behind, till after Christmas before I make another trip to Paris again.

During my extremely short stay, I visited the Notre-Dame de la Garde of Marseille which was located on top of a small hill.



Just a small climb up and you could reward yourself with a view of Marseille port from the top.





The basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde wasn't big but it was worth the visit considering it wasn't such a difficult journey to make.



Take a walk along Vieux-port and grant your eyes on a vast collection of yachts parked along the harbour.







After that, make your way to Chez Madie Les Galinettes, a small restaurant situated among a row of restaurants and shops next to the harbour, to find one of the best authentic bouillabaisse in Marseille, a.k.a. the world.





At 35 euro it wasn't a cheap dish for a person but when one's in Marseille, it would be a waste not to try it.


starter - complimentary

The bouillabaisse here was a big bowl of thick fish stock soup cooked with five varieties of fish. It's served with a piece of baguette in the centre of the plate, spread with their homemade rouille; and topped with as much shredded cheese as you please, free refillable bowl to one's content,




the server would then pour generous amount of hot steaming bouillabaisse over the baguette.




Oh... imagine the melted delicious cheesy with rouille fused with thick soup all combined into one. It's heavenly!




I couldn't finish the whole bowl, and it didn't make sense to doggy bag soup, so I left Chez Madie Les Galinettes with a warm and filled belly. And a memory of the best bouillabaisse I had ever tasted, two years and counting. I have since looked for similar dish else where but never nearly the same.

If I ever make it back to Marseille one day, I would make sure I'd try bouillabaisse to my heart's content before I leave again.