Freeing my Ugly.

--------Readers be forewarned of the horrors that lie ahead.----------

In my self deluded world, I believe that everybody has an ugly. Whether we are born with the genetics of gods and goddesses or with the genetics of the opposite of gods and goddesses, everyone has those uglies. Sometimes ugly is clearly visible displaying itself 24/7, other times it's hidden, only emerging after the night has slept and you are alone ready to face the ugly yourself and only yourself.

What do I mean by an ugly?

Well, you know, it's just when people get ugly. And I refuse to believe that nobody never gets an ugly every once in a while. If you believe that you do, contact me ASAP. I need to know your secrets, or better yet, just tell me what plastic surgeon hooked you up.

An ugly is not a bad thing. It's just simply a part of life. It's a human thing. And recently, I've been facing a whole lot of ugly everytime I look in the mirror.

Now most fashion bloggers would never let their readers see their uglies. Afterall, they do have to maintain an image of a glorious fashion gal that looks so fashionable in whatever duds they throw on. Fashion is an image. They take pictures, post their daily outfits, pose with poise and awkward grace. All the while keeping their uglies hidden; locked away in the bottom cellar only able to come out when the lights are out and the camera is switched off.

I, however, am not most fashion bloggers. While I don't find myself gifted with genes of gorgeousness, my ugly has come out and has overloaded my normal level of ugliness. I would like to show readers that I too am human and have an ugly. Hey now, no nasty comments.

Actually, I the real reason isn't to prove that I'm human, because I'm sure you can tell, I'm human all right. The real reason is I think I look quite funny fugly tonight and I just had to post a picture. Take a look if you dare.

If you are blinded by what you have just witnessed, you have no right to sue me because I warned you in the beginning.

The collage totally screams, "WTF, am I back in 8th grade?!!>?!" and I think I look like a teenager going through puberty. My sister made fun of my retainers and told me to talk properly. Hey! I can't help that I have a lisp. I tell her to shutup, but as you know my "shutup" turns out funny and ruins the whole power of the word.

I had a dentist appointment yesterday and my dentist finally caught me in my not-wearing-retainers crime. I haven't been caught until now, it's been what, 5 years? Hence, I am wearing them 24/7 hoping that my teeth will shift back to its straight shape or else dear mommy and daddy will be shelling out a few more Benjamins for a pair of new retainers. I didn't know I had to wear them forever. I did know after I found out a few years ago, but I'm a ortho rebel. Rawr.

There you go. I have revealed my ugly to the whole wide world and it has never felt better. Or maybe my ugly has been out all this time in my posts and pictures except that I was too biased to notice. The picture may not seem all that bad, but trust me, if you zoom closer, it's all there. I got the pimples, the dried pimples, the dead pimples that won't go away. There's the un-smooth skin, blotchy red spots, spotty dirt filled pores, boogers, extra long nose hair, eye bags, and good ole retainers. I've got the works. I call it combination like combination pizza, I got combination ugly.

In a way I think being ugly gives you character. I prefer old people with their massive wrinkles and sprinkled on aging spots to young people because their unbeauty gives them character.

Free your ugly. It's dying to get out every once in a while and it'll save you the hassle as well from trying to keep it hidden. Smile big with your colorful retainers, wear your retainers out to town, leave your eyes unlined. But don't do it too often because, well, then that'll just be ugly.

I shall go to sleep soon. Resting and dreaming and letting my ugly roam the night. Hopefully, the morning will come and my ugly will have wandered back to it's home. But I do not mind if it doesn't peacefully go back. I'll let it hold on to me as long as it needs because as my theory goes, everyone has an ugly.

Having an ugly is nothing to be ashamed of. After all it's just natural beauty.

Life part one.

As a so-called "fashion blogger", I obviously care a lot about the “outside” and whether it be posting what I wear each day, analyzing certain trends or showing off my latest thrift loot. While all this outside material does matter a lot to me, I strive to be a lot more in my own personal life and the life I project when I spill my thoughts out through this blog. Because despite all the materialism, superficiality and outer importance that I may portray through all my pictures, there is a deeper messages I like to send out from time to time whether they be hidden in my DIY posts or blatantly stated out loud.

Today I will blatantly state the message that beauty starts from within. So cliché, but so true. And the same came be applied towards fashion. It all starts from within –heart, mind, and soul. It takes a lot of self-confidence to express ourselves as an individual through fashion. I’ve known people who would say “I would so love to dress up like that if only I were x number of pounds lighter or if I had the figure for it”, and I want to say to all those people out there, just do it! Wear what you want to wear. The chances that your body will change permanently are slim. Sure you can diet and exercise all you want to maintain your ideal figure, but to have those activities constantly on your mind is pure torture. Instead of waiting until you are right to wear what you want, you should dress for yourself now. I am not by any means saying that people shouldn’t exercise and maintain a healthy lifestyle. What saddens me the most is when I hear girls and women complaining about their bodies or making negative remarks towards themselves on their appearance. Self-negativity is the ultimate harm anyone can do to themselves. It’s like taking a dagger and stabbing yourself. Now why would we want to do that? We are all individuals and look different. Just by changing our attitudes, it truly does make a difference. It is hard to gain that boost of self-esteem. Some people never can make it but if we all start sending a positive message perhaps the next generation of women will all start to feel beautiful both inside and out.

So I’ll start with myself. I am just an ordinary girl who maybe sometimes likes to dress a little unordinary, going through the ups and downs to transitioning from girl to woman. (The word "woman" still sends shocks down my spine; I just want to stay in my child mode as long as I can.) Despite my "whatever" attitude to what people think about me or how I look and I'm not just saying how I dress, there are little snippets of moments when I get self conscious about the way I look, body, face, feet. Sometimes I wish I were skinnier, had slimmer legs and arms. I wish I had a longer neck or if I didn’t have too many freckles. Then of course I wish my feet were smaller so I could fit into cute sample size shoes. I wish for better skin and a hairless arm. I could keep wishing for different things forever. Then one day, I just said forget it. Okay, it wasn’t one day, more like many days. I shouldn’t waste my time worrying about such superficial things. I should get on with my life and do things that make me happy like fashion and art, music and dancing around like a fool.

Perhaps it’s all the messages from the media, from our family, from our friends of what we should look like because that is what is beautiful that has gotten many people to the state that they are in. Certainly, I don't like it, I would suspect that most other women would agree with me but somehow we end up accepting it as fact, as truth and therefore our standards and views of beauty have become terribly distorted. Sure we’ve seen the emergence of “let’s accept all types of bodies” movement, but really, in comparison to all the other messages out there it barely leaves a dent.

However, I have always loved Dove for their consistently wonderful Campaign for Real Beauty. I recently checked out their new Reality Diaries. It is basically a multimedia website of four girls life, much like, what do you know, a diary. Shocker there. It’s a six week following of these girls everyday lives dealing with real life problems. I see a lot of myself in Irene, the Chinese American self-proclaimed “theatre geek” except I’m the self-proclaimed “art geek”. She deals with issues such as being the only Asian in her school and even wished she could change her flat nose. I have a flat nose too and have at times wished had had the perfectly beautifully pointed European nose but now the only reason I would want to change my “equilateral nose” is because my glasses keep slipping off and I must fix it to save myself from looking like a granny. The diaries are not just about self-esteem issues with body image and perhaps that's why I found it so enjoyable to watch.

Sorry for such a long post. If it didn't make sense, it's okay. I'm not offended.

I have a buttload of homework already. Better start sooner or later.

Fancy Feet

I love shoes as much as the next girl. Even with my wide size 9 feet, when I find a pair of darling shoes that fit like Cinderella's glass slippers and I see my nicely painted red toe nails popping out, everything feels right. But there is one problem with my feet - they're extremely dry. So whilst my fancy feet look good from the top with my d'aling pair of shoes on, they tell an entirely different story underneath.

As embarrassing as I am about my feet, I believe there are a lot of us out there with the same problem. Or maybe I'm just deluded into thinking that way to make me feel less like a dry feet hideous monster.

On the days I'm not being lazy, I'm walking around a lot, especially at school. And constantly wearing dirty flipflops on many occasions, I realized that I have not treated my poor feet well and now there is the evidence of my neglect. When I went to the doctors last week, she asked if I had any more questions. I did. I had a lot and it didn't even have anything to do with why I was there in the first place.

What's this thing on my arm? Why is my skin so bad? What's that under my arm? What are these little spots? Why do I have dry feet? What can I do about my dry feet?

She answered all my questions like a pro. I was impressed. She told me that for dry feet soak it in warm water, then use a pumice scrub to get rid of the dry skin. Then put on baby oil or Vaseline and wear cotton socks over it. I'm sure this treatment is nothing new. In fact I think I read about it somewhere awhile ago. So yesterday I gave it a try:

Soaking my feet while reading Harry Potter. Still haven't finished it yet. Want to savor the last few moments we have together *sighh*

My pumice on one side and brush on the other foot scrubber, thanks Target.

I slathered Vaseline and then as told put them in socks. I slept with them last night. I woke to still dry feet. -__-

It takes time. Afterall Rome was not built in a day, and soft baby feet will not emerge under my crackles of dry skin in a night. I hope it works because sleeping with socks feels really weird.