There are slightly less than twenty drafts for upcoming posts in my account, but I've decided to cut myself a little more slack and go with the flow tonight, to reminisce how this space used to be truly a virtual junkyard for my thoughts. I guess this post will show you a glimpse of how it used to look like, but then again it's impossible to replicate something from the past because we move on with time. This post is entitled "I'm still finding my way", mostly referring to how I'm making use of my time at this point in life right now. I think I'm constantly lost, both geographically and metaphorically. Either way, I'm really bad with directions. The good news? At least I'm conscious of it and constantly trying to steer myself back onto the right path. But there is no right path. There is only the destination that satisfies.

The one enlightening moment that made me realize I've lost my way: I don't know how to smile anymore. I don't mean the twitching of the corners of my lips upwards to make a U-shape. I don't mean compressing my lips into a nice curvature such that it doesn't show too much wrinkles at the side, or trying to enlarge my smiley eyes as I do. I forgot how to smile. Every single time I turn to the camera non-impromptu, I almost snap into the standard expression immediately. There's no confidence to speak of anymore, nor is there a sense of self-worth. There is only this eagerness to impress and to create "Instagram-worthy selfies". I don't speak for anyone but myself on this matter, but I think I won't be the only one feeling this way (or I hope to think so). Confidence has diminished into nothingness.

The second enlightening moment: I photoshop my photos way too much. This is also an extension of the first point and the reason why my production rate of posts is slowing down a lot. I will present the most genuine reviews when it comes to beauty products (ie. not photoshopping hair quality for hair products but I'll still fix my peeling skin condition), but I can't help but feel self-conscious whenever I don't. It's more addictive than makeup or Pringles. It rides on the desirable idea of constant improvement and not wanting to regress back into the relatively uglier state. I start worrying about photos that other people have taken of me, and whether they will look different from the ones I post. So I try to strike a balance between over-photoshopping and nude-photoshopping (like nude makeup, you know?). I begin to understand why people like Naomi Neo and a lot of other bloggers liquify their faces, boobs, waists, arms, eyes, etc. to make themselves look better. You can say that it's fake, but then makeup is also fake then, right? Following this slippery slope logic, everyone is fake unless they wear nothing, don't ever shave or shower. You get my drift.


I know I sound like I'm defending photoshopping selfies, but that's not the main point. What I'm trying to say is: it's not as if we photoshop to make us feel extremely attractive or superior than others. It just makes us feel adequate enough. It nurses our insecurities of being slightly more exposed in the public eye. Plastic surgery is still in the no-go region for me, partially because I am afraid of pain/failure of operation and also I find that it will be unnecessary adjustments. Then again, opinions change over time and I might, too.

The third enlightening moment: when I'm busy, time zooms past. Last Friday felt like yesterday. What happened to the time? I'm flying to France in ten days' time and all the French words I know are "I don't know how to speak French. Can you speak English?" Okay, maybe a little more than that. But anyhow, I'm completely floored by how overwhelming work can drain time away from me. And life is accumulated time, and I don't want to spend my life working myself to the bones. But there is some happiness in pursuing passions and goals.

Last: I don't want my blog to be all "glamour and good food" as if my life is all that jazz. It's not. The behind the scenes of doing product reviews always create a mess of my room, food tasting sessions can seriously test the limits of my appetites, and events are less exciting than you think. I read a lot of blogs. Fashion, food, lifestyle. I have an extensive reading list that I can't finish checking all of them out in a day. But I'm often surprised by some blogs which show their lives as a bed of roses. Sure, they can choose to filter only the positive stuffs on their blogs because they don't want to bore their readers with emo talk like what I'm doing now - completely understandable. Then again, I'm not sure what sort of angle I should proceed in. I'm more comfortable with a style including a mix of honest BTS (instead of act-glam shots) and thoughts about doing the post itself rather than just... the post itself. I would seriously hate to turn this into an advertising platform (though I do have a few product reviews coming up... bear with me). Heck, a blog is one of those things in which I can be my own boss and I owe nothing to anyone. Guess I found my answer through writing once again. As you can probably tell, I'm overthink a lot.

For now, good night! It's already 2 in the morning - gotta wake up at 7 tomorrow. A relevant (viral) video if you haven't already watched: