The Crooked Curve.

Sum up of January. Got a hair cut. Learnt how to smile in pictures. (Hey, I'm doing the best I can alright) Had the best birthday + CNY ever. I have so much thoughts and emotions fluttering about in my head but I do not have the words to pen them down. Oh woes of the Limited Vocabulary. A lot has been happening these few weeks that has really tried and tested my character and my patience. If you do not take one breakdown into account, then yeah, I'm pretty proud of myself for handling things better now. Given these situations a few years back, I would have.. died. Grace under pressure, grace under pressure. So I've had people constantly commenting on how much weight I'm losing. And gaining. It's odd, really. These people will come up to me and tell me to eat more. Then the same people will come up to me a few days later and tell me to eat less. Rachel you look like a malnourished Chinese girl. Rachel you've put on weight! Rachel eat more! Rachel eat less! If I believe everything I hear, I'd be constantly fluctuating between Happiness Experienced When Someone Tells You You're Skinny and Unhappiness When Someone Tells You You're Skinny.

Thank God for Discernment.

What a pointless post.

Rise, beat and fall.

I came to realize that I've had many people come and go in my life. There are people who I used to text, call, msn, and hang out with alot. Not anymore. Facebook assures me we are still friends. We have not "unfriend" each other or blocked each other from our pages.We check on each other sporadically. Even so, it is only a brief "Hi, how are you. Fine? Oh good. I've been fine too. You take care. Alright. Bye."

These people, they all came and left like waves. Rise, beat and fall, leaving all that's left to connect, thin strands of veins on the shore. Their presence in my life all share a common thread. And that is that they've all taught me something. They've all changed a little part of me. They've all somehow come to shape me to be who i am today.

I hope I have made their lives a little better, just like they have all made mine.

This is to the people who came and went.
This is to the people who will come and go.

This is also to those, who stayed behind.

                                                                                       

Thank you.
I love all of you.

Enough

This happened a few months ago.

A friend of mine nearly fainted of starvation because all she has had in 3 days was an apple a day. She was on a diet. She is 35 kg and 4'9. Not skinny enough, she insisted.

I discussed this with another friend who blamed the fashion industry for the indirect and utterly shameless promotion of anorexia.

I do not think it is fair that we completely put them at fault. In the first place, we were the people who deemed waif like figures to be model material. I think that the industry isn't forcing skinniness down our throats but instead just feeding and responding to an inner lust we all (consciously or not) have - to look at beautiful people. And by the standards of today's society, beautiful = skinny.

On the other hand, it is not completely the society's fault either. We've always known beautiful to be skinny.

So it got me thinking that this whole issue is a cycle, really. To play the blame game would be like asking that silly and overrated (yet still somewhat effective) question debaters always pose - which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Or in this case, did our mentality shape the culture, or did the culture shape our mentality?

I do not know which came first. Maybe culture is mentality. Maybe not.

All I know is that this perception of beauty being size 0 will never just disappear. It will take a whole generation of people to start realizing that they have to accept themselves and love one another for who they are and stop looking up to people or things they wish they were. The greatest form of flattery in the world is when someone thinks you worth the flattery. Sometimes I think we're all redundant. I think you are better than me because she thinks you are better than me. She thinks you are better than me because she thinks I think you are better than me. See the redundancy! We're all looking up to people we think worth looking up because everyone is looking up to them. Maybe we're all like that. Maybe we all think that way.

Maybe if we started accepting ourselves then we'd realize what fools we've been.

I do not think it is fit that we throw protests and demand for real sized women to be mainstream models and on the other hand, still allow ourselves to give in to the thought that anorexic models will always look better.

(To come and think of it, what is the definition of real sized anyway? People keep campaigning for normal sized women to go mainstream but normal is such a subjective word you know? To quote Alice in the Wonderland "What if it was agreed that proper was wearing a codfish on your head? Would you wear it?" I guess in my context, normal means not anorexic?)

So I challenged myself, to celebrate my uniqueness and embrace myself in all my imperfect glory. Because that is the way I was made to be - imperfectly perfect. Learn to see the beauty in imperfection and it'll open up your eyes so much more to the beauty of this world.

I am enough. You are enough.

Before 2012

On the last day of 2011, the sky was beautiful. We grabbed my new flashgun and a tripod and shot at an empty space between my church and a Chinese graveyard.

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth 

Would care to know my name 

Would care to feel my hurt.

Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star

Would choose to light the way

For my ever wandering heart.

The vast sky made tiny Japhia looked tinier in comparison. I saw the sky turn, from bright blue studded with white cotton candy fluff to a golden red then to a dimly lit purple and then engulfed by blackness. Nothingness. Beautiful nothingness. I love how God made everything to be alike yet so different everyday. Same same but different. Different and still beautiful. I'll never find a sky like that again because it changes everyday.

So I challenge you, look at the beauty around you. Capture a photo of something that amazes you everyday. Take the time to let God sweep you off your feet and just be simply amazed.



Thank you, thank you Lord.
I wish you an amazing 2012 :)

Test shot

Model: Rachel Alicia
Wardrobe: Model's own

Photos from a shoot I did in Meru with a friend. She was absolutely wonderful to work with. This was my first time doing a fashion shoot, or at least attempting to do a fashion shoot. The second photo is my favourite. It somehow reminds me of Alice in the Wonderland, the part where she discovers the rabbit hole and she is about to jump in.

Special thanks to J of J & P | Photography for lending me your gear and for being a wonderful teacher!

Watching light by the window.

I miss this spot I had by the window.

I liked waking up to sunbeams dancing on my face. When I raised my fingers to face the light coming in through the window, I could shadow play. The shadows I created would fall against the green walls and they would come alive. If I was quiet enough, I could hear the ocean, from where I slept. I could hear every crash and beat the waves made against the rocks.

At night, we would close the curtains for privacy. The moonlight would creep in through the cracks of the curtains. The floorboards above us were made of wood and it would creak whenever people walked on it. The first night started out sleepless. There were dogs, barking by the beach.

I grew so frustrated I buried my head into the pillows. It smelt like a cheap blend of lavender and jasmine potpourri. The pillows didnt do much to block the noise out. So I gave up, and sat by this window. The waters of the pool below was still. I watched the light skim on the waters and thought of my physics lesson, about refraction and reflection.

I think I could like physics if I tried.

The sky was clear and I could count the stars from where I sat. They dotted the skies, little blinking diamonds all of them. They were so beautiful, you'd never guess they were actually large, hot balls of fire if you never knew.

I stared at the moon for a while, wondering if there was anyone on the other side of earth doing the same. I wondered if we could actually see each others reflections on the moon. I wondered if there was anyone on the other side of the universe.

Wondering, wandering thoughts.

There was a kind of magic to this spot by the window.

Like a boss

(Repulsive photos ahead. To be viewed at own risk.)

What would someone have to give you for you to drink a jug of vomit?

What do you think is worth putting live frogs in your mouth for?

In my case, it was a macbook air.

I joined fear factor a couple of days ago. It was done in an event called the Overcomer's Conference jointly organized by my church and a couple of other churches.

In the qualifying round, we had to race to a bottle of coke and a banana. The fastest 8 to finish would make it to the next round.

Priscilla and I were among the 8 who made it.

In the next challenge, we were asked to choose a friend who would assist us. I picked Sujatha and she picked Nicolas. What happened was that the friends that we picked, had to chew bananas and watermelon and juice them with their teeth and spit it into this huge jug. Then the jug would be filled with milk to the brim.

And we'd have to drink it. When I heard that I was like WHUUUUUUUOOOAAAAA

But we did it anyway. So disgusting I know! I threw up so many times.

Priscilla and I were the fastest girls to finish so we made it to the semi finals.

Which turned out to be ghastly.

Before the challenge, we saw this pool filled with dead frogs and I was all cool. I thought that we were just gonna have to pick it up and throw it in the dustbin so I was all:

And then reality hit. They told us that we had to put live frogs in our mouth and run an obstacle then spit it in a dustbin in a total of 5 minutes. The 2 people with the most frogs in the dustbin would proceed to the finals.

We were like. SH** HOWS WE GONNA DO THAT.

But it wouldn't have looked nice to back out from the challenge. We'd look like wimps! So we looked at each other and said, YES WE MAN WE CAN DO THIS YO and encouraged each other with high fives.

Yeah. Like a boss.

Priscilla and I lost to the two other boys though. They made it to the finals and we didnt.

I was abit relieved when I saw what THEY had to do.

1. They were tied up in a plastic case and mice, eels, crickets, maggots and frogs were poured all over their backs.

2. They had to fish 10 yellow nuts out of the bowl (filled with maggots) with their mouths.

This dude won.

At the end of the day, I came to realize that I joined Fear Factor not really for the macbook air but more for the bragging rights I'd have after I finished the challenge.

I mean, how many people do you know can put live frogs in their mouths and then run obstacles REPEATEDLY?

It was also for the experience. And not forgetting the fact that this would be such a cool story to tell people when I grow old and wrinkly and my hands shake of arthritis.

I the man yo!

(Yes I do realize this is an extremely unflattering photo)

It's funny what people would do for something they think is worth it you know? Oh, the things people would do just for something they think is worth it.

Photocredits: Jung Harn and Japhia Wong