somewhat overdue

okay so it has been a while since my last post. partly due to the fact that i've been in a bit of a writing rut. and also because its that time of the year when friends who've been back from uni for vacation have to return soon and have been trying to meet up with them as often as is humanly possible. despite having some five days off (including the weekend of course) for chinese new year, i feel particularly fagged out. i've been out till the wee hours of the morning most days, and set a new record yesterday-or rather today-reaching home at 4 in the morning! not that i'm complaining, for i thorougly enjoy my new-found liberty, having spent most of adolescent years missing many a late-night get-together due to having a strict sri lankan father.

pictures below. basically went to the same italian cafe for three straight nights in a row. the nepali waiters were hot, but after the first time the effect kinda wore off. but what to do, it was one of the few places open till late-or at all- during this festive period. and after ten pm all cakes are at half-price. which girl can turn down dessert at a mere $2.50??

you know after having lost quite a bit of weight it comes as a surprise even to me that i'm not more excited over my current physique. its amazing how many things you can find wrong with your body if you try hard enough. but you know what, i blame that on the media. what chance do average-sized women have of accepting their bodies, the occasional love handle and all, when we are bombarded with images of 'perfect' bodies. but luckily things seem to changing. recently Dove launched a 'true beauty' campaign. particularly noteworthy was a video which shows how magazines use the latest in photo-editing technology to give models their perfection. in fact most of the time the end product in glossies are so far removed from the original photo you would think they were of two different people. basically its all one big lie. real women have curves(ha!), blemishes and (dare i say it) saggy breasts. and there's nothing wrong with that. the more we struggle to attain what magazines decide is beautiful, the more we perpetuate this lie, the more frustated we feel with ourselves and the less confident. today i stood in front of the mirror and looked at my body. really looked. its amazing how almost a year of consistently working out can change your body. where there once was only fat there is now muscle. maybe more muscle than is conventional, but to hell with conventional. i was never the conventional sort, and i hope i never will be.

but you know its a funny thing, self-confidence. it has little to do with what you actually see in the mirror and more with self-perception. i blamed the extra weight for my low self-esteem, only to find that after the weight was gone, self-confidence doesn't magically appear. especially for us women who face so many subliminal messages, which tell us we don't measure up to the ideal, on a daily basis. and so i have discovered to be beautiful, you have to believe that you are. know that nobody (or rather no body) is perfect and it is precisely those imperfections that make you unique. beauty is not being decked in the latest size 0 fashion, but rather in your smile, its about being comfortable in your own skin and its about how you treat others. exercise because you love and respect your body, not because you hate it. and low and behold, others will love it too!

(trying) to get my groove on in the mornings

the life, or at least the schedule, of a part-time daycare teacher is far from fixed. you never know what time you're gonna work till sometimes the day before. it keeps you on your toes for sure. this week i'm on the afternoon shift; meaning i work from 1 to 6.30 in the evening. its a pretty cool time to work when the kids decide not to be devilish. usually when i end in the evenings i go to the gym after, but today i thought i'd try going before work. i left home at 9 and reached the gym at only 10.30! completely forgot to factor in the morning jam. admittedly it has been a while since i was in town at that hour.i did an hour-long weight training session, albeit with a somewhat rushed warm-up and cool-down. i was practically shitting bricks on the way back to work because i only left the gym at 12.15, knowing it was at least an hour-long commute. i don't know how i did it but i was just five minutes late. but no sense in giving myself pulmonary stress, after spending an hr trying to do just the reverse. best i leave at 8 instead tomorrow i think...

working out in the morning obviously means no sleeping in, but its great not having to constantly wait for machines to be vacant. thus i was finally able to get thru all the resistance exercises in an hour! yay! another day of cheap thrills :) and the slight increase in weight was due to the bloating during TOTM. back to being 64.9. hope to be able to go down to 60 in the next two to three months. since fasting back in october i have only lost about 2 kilos. the weight is much harder to lose now. but the funny thing is i see my body getting smaller and becoming more sinewed even thought it's not reflected on the scale. and that has been enough to keep me motivated. that and the post-workout endorphine rush.

on a completely unrelated note, one of my colleagues in school is battling with a combination of anorexia and bulimia. she's lost bunches of weight. we were both 67 when i started in october and now she's 58kg, while i'm still 65! she's been having the disorder for a year now and was apparently nearly 90 kg when she first joined the school. according to her, her disorder is a way for her to deal with the stress in her life. i want to help her but other than lending her a listening ear and giving her my support there's little else i can do. as painful as it is to see someone go through something like this and as much as you want for them to get better, they need to want it too. i'm not sure my friend is quite there yet. and on that note we conclude.

fringe benefits?

its been a while since my last post, mostly because my mum has been unplugging various plugs from the pc in an effort to reduce the near-astronomical electricity bill and thus i've been having trouble getting the internet going. luckily my brother was home over the weekend and all the plugs are now where they should be again. and in case you couldn't tell from the photos have been busy catching up with the girls. met up with some old friends, made some new ones. good times.

have been doing the usual workouts. had an appointment with the specialist regarding my knee on friday. he says he's 90% sure the pain i still experience sometimes is due to cartilage damage and doesn't feel an MRI scan is necessary at the moment since the pain's not getting any worse. he's given me some glucasamine(?) to try and says that i need to avoid high impact exercises. i remember when my knee first started hurting last august, it used to be constant and i cldn't work out at all. it's considerably better now and occurs only when i've overworked my knee for an extended period of time. i can even run and go on the stairmaster for a while with minimal pain. its tiny steps but in the right direction no less. i just find it hugely ironic that i had to wait to be plagued with knee pains after having lost 25 kilos. God certainly oprates with a sense of humour.

i haven't seen 64 on the scale all this week. it's been 65.5 most days. i have been having my period tho so it may be the usual water retention. bought a book on resisance training yesterday, and hopefully it'll help provide some variation to my regular routine. i still find it hard to get thru all the exercises that i used to do with din in an hr, it usually takes me 1 1/2 hrs. i waste a lot of time between machines as i've been working out during peak time where most of the machines i need are taken up. thus the need to learn other exercises to work the same muscle groups, preferably using free-weights, which i find much less intimidating.

i've been saying i want to get bangs for a while now and i finally did it today....excuse the sans-make-up-haven't-slept-enough look....

i can't decide as yet whether i like it or not. but its different that's for sure. maybe it'll grow on me, or at the very least to just grow, so its all good. have a good week ya'all!