Having it all, then slowly watching it all die

I've reached a stage in life where I'm so content, that I feel like I have it all. A stable and loving relationship, a great drama-free family, great friends (finally!), financial freedom to some extent, and best of all, the flexibility of being self employed.

I'm past the days of being overly emotional, but I do admit my teenage years were trying, and the two years I spent working corporate jobs was unbearably depressing, it was difficult to even drag myself out of bed every morning.

That all changed when I finally had to do some soul searching and figure out what it was that would drive me in life, and make me happier. That's when I left the corporate world and became self employed.

It seemed like my world was my oyster - I felt I had a lot of untapped potential and was eager to release it without the constraints of being tied down to doing things the way other people wanted me to do them.

It was basically all high flying from there; the money I earned was finally inline with the effort I was putting in. I was seeing instant results, plus I had the time to pursue my dreams. This year I admit I felt like I was at the top of my game. I made my first car purchase; my lovely Volkswagen Polo, something I would never regret buying as its served me well. Then came my first property investment a few months later. I started feeling like I might be in a bit of a pinch, but then, as always, I was confident that as long as I kept making an effort, I would still be making money.

Now, ever since I started being self employed, I'm at an all time low. A big chunk of my income from my lip balm business is now coming to a halt, mostly due to my supplier's decision to double the retail price, making her product so uncompetitive in the Malaysian market, that no one wants to buy it anymore. It's not like she cares; I doubt that I'm a huge contributor to her business and its one market that she's probably willing to let go of.

Another big chunk of income came from my selling on a Singaporean shopping portal, and that was mostly due to the efforts of a very efficient and hard working account manager, who has since left the company. The result? I can't even log in to sell my products anymore, let alone have any chance of them being promoted. How about my eBay sales? Restricted. As eBay has super anal rules, I can practically only post up 6 auctions every month. How can that be effective?

What's frustrating more than anything, is that these three factors are totally beyond my control, and not having that control is what led me to being depressed when I was working corporate. It's the worst feeling ever, and I honestly feel like I'm back at the drawing board, analyzing what other potential businesses there are out there that I can conquer. But seriously with the loans and fees and what nots that I'm having to shell out cash for, I'm once again on a depressing uphill battle.

Ballet Leotards - The New Age Chastity Belt

I love ballet to bits, it's my new passion! Well, my only passion. It was just one of those things that you think only happens in the movies.

I was stuck in a rut, experiencing a quarter life crisis, with my ego shattered to pieces by my boss who described me as "souless" and "passion-less". Thinking back on those days, honestly speaking, could anyone EVER be passionate about men's razors?!

But I digress.

On a whim, I decided to join an adult ballet class, since I was newly self employed and ready to exploit my freedom. In the words of my former colleagues, it's called being fun-employed! I remembered loving ballet when I was younger, but only did it til I was 10. Anyway, joined my first class, and experienced this roller coaster of emotions! Birds were singing, flowers were blooming, rainbows were shooting out of my ears and bodily orifices! I knew I was in love. It became one of those things I looked forward to doing on a daily basis (ok, the only thing I looked forward to doing) and the time I spent dancing, took all troubles and worries away.

I ended up taking classes 4 times a week. I would take more, if 1) there were actually more classes to take, and 2) if the classes weren't so ridiculously expensive.

My point is, if you have a young daughter who loves ballet as much as I do, always encourage her to do as many classes as possible. Not only will it nurture her talent and passion, I guarantee that she won't be doing the nasty with some boys.

I mean, have you SEEN what ballerinas wear?!

To demonstrate my point, I will now narrate what happened during my class tonight:

Class just started, we're all warming up nicely at the barre. We're halfway through our plies, and thanks to all the bloody squatting (to all the ballerinas out there, yes, I know we're not really squatting, but it does feel like it ok!) I have this sudden urge to pee.

I rush to the washroom and I:-

1) Take off my hip aligner belt
2) Peel off my leotard. It's body fitting mind you, it's a pain in the arse to pull it up and down.
3) Pull down my tights and undies. Which are also bloody tight and a pain to pull up and down.

That's just to pee.

Yep, at least 3 layers of clothing to remove before everything's gone. 3 layers of tight clothing, I cannot stress that more! By the time everything's off, you won't have the energy to do anything else.

And whomever watched Black Swan, and got the idea that ballerinas are all sexed up and get high all the time, you have got to be joking. Play back the scene where Tomas is groping Nina. Key word, groping. Nothing more. It's just too much of a hassle to do anything else.

Anyway! I hope this strange message actually does help to encourage you guys to send your kids to ballet!

Change of Heart

It's been 2 years since my last blog post. My "passion" for writing whatever I wanted to just went "fssst" and "poof" into thin air. What happened? I got greedy and materialistic, sad to say.

I became too ambitious and wanted to keep one of those blogs that everyone reads. The ones which I could make a killing out of from my readership. I wanted to transform this blog into "one of those" blogs!

So out comes the checklist - at that point in time, what did it take to own a "successful" blog?

1. Pictures and loads of them. The most successful blogs I've seen are those that have practically more pictures than words. I know, reading crap isn't as much fun as oogling that hot girl's cleavage.

2. A pretty face and a hot body. I say this because my boyfriend personally ONLY stalks blogs which have pictures (first point!) of the pretty blogger fully decked in make up, false lashes, colour contacts - ok a nice rack is also definitely a plus point there. Someone who looks good, and relishes in their narcissism. I have tried being like that, but after many, many futile attempts, I have abandoned trying completely. I am just not that kind of person. I don't even like to take pictures!

On that point alone, I don't even like wearing make up. In fact, I DON'T wear makeup and can't be arsed to do so! I am a very low maintenance, live-in-tank-tops-and-loose-pants kind of girl.

In other words I'm very lazy.

I could say I'm finally now comfortable in my own skin, and will not attempt to be someone I'm not. I don't mind dressing up for occasions, like the odd wedding and gathering I attend like, 4 times a year, but NO WAY could I do it every single day! I shudder at the thought.

3. Beauty or Food Blogging. Now I ADMIRE beauty and food bloggers, because unlike MOST bloggers which fall into point 2 above, their posts are full of substance. It takes a good handling of the English language to actually come up with all the adjectives to describe products / food. It takes time and dedication to write the posts. Unlike pretty bloggers who can finish up the writing portion of their blog posts in just about 30 seconds*

* I am not trying to be a bloody bitch and dismiss all pretty bloggers. It just so happens I'm very sore about a certain incident. I spent a good amount of money on an advertorial by a famous blogger, just to have churned out a good sized piece of CRAP. To add further insult to the injury, she blogged another post just less than 24 hours later full of nonsense SHOPPING pictures, which totally diminishes the impact of my advertorial!


So I actually tried beauty blogging (see my previous posts) but have failed dramatically. Sorry, I don't actually use enough beauty products to justify turning my blog into a beauty review site [see: Am too lazy to wear make up].

Food blogging is totally out of the question. There's no way I could actually refrain myself long enough to take pictures of food before actually scoffing it down. I enjoy food, I don't ever want to relate food to work of any kind. Plus I don't take pictures, enough said.

After all is said and done, I found that making money from blogging isn't for me and so totally gave it up. Until today. After my horrible experience with the advertorial, which was just last night, I realized that I didn't want to make money from blogs the way some people do, just by being pretty. I wanted to write stuff with substance! I wanted to be myself! Who cares if 99.9% of the global population wont' give a rat's arse about what I write or even come close to reading this?

From now I'll be writing to amuse... even if it's just myself.

Conflict Resolution - Not taking sides!

I'm pretty sure everyone's had to deal with major conflicts before in their lifetime, and I'm also pretty sure everyone else, like me, detests them. Some resolve them by facing and dealing with it aggressively, others deal with it passively, or just plain ignore it.

I fall into the latter category.

Taking as an example, a common conflict between two parties who are dear and close to you. When they are fighting amongst themselves, what do you do?

The natural reaction for the two parties is to look to you to take sides. "Well? Who's right? Aren't you going to support me on this?" They look to you for support. And for me, well I just don't give it to any party. I stay out of the way, choose not to get involved, and let them duel it out themselves.

I seriously HATE choosing sides, and hate it more when I'm forced to. And if I am, I STILL won't choose sides. If you see your parents arguing, eventhough you may have your own opinion on who is right, and who is wrong, would you back one parent up over another? I definitely won't, I love both equally and siding one just adds fuel to the fire, plus builds contempt between yourself and the party you didn't support.

I have often been blamed and frowned upon by not taking sides. But so what? I still choose not to, and I won't ever choose sides, so don't make me, and don't blame me for keeping quiet.