My stomach is growling really badly right now so I should probably eat but I wanted to quickly start on this post. I turned twenty-one on 23rd December last year and it was pretty much my most dreaded birthday. I used to get really excited for it when I was a little younger but since my birthday is always during the school holidays, I never really got gifts from my school friends (except from my closest friends) or had any in-school celebrations. Everyone's always traveling in December so I never had friends who'd want to meet up with me and celebrate my birthday until I got to university. I still remember my first little "surprise" for my 19th birthday at La Marelle with a few of university friends. Anyway, let's take a little trip down memory lane.

Anyway, 2017 December wasn't really going well for me, in fact — everything was going wrong. Coupled with the fact that I pretty much despise my existence and regret ever being born, I was ready for my birthday to be a complete non-event. I was wrong.

I met up with Vict/Nat/Shao/Crys for tacos after their polyclinic orientation ended, and you have no idea how much I missed them. The tacos were actually fantastic, I forgot where we got them but I had the fish tacos and they were ah-may-zing. We still weren't really full after that so headed to Geláre Bugis+ to get some waffles. I hadn't gone out much after coming home from Melbourne so I decided to splurge and get some fancy banana waffles with a huge scoop of ice cream. Vict started vlogging a bit and I was whining because they were taking forever to serve my waffles but when it finally came — they started singing happy birthday and I almost cried y'all. I'm super observant so I usually suspect when things are weird but I had no idea they were gonna do that. I love them so much I'm so glad I met them. I hope our 2019 US Road Trip really happens. Anyway, Shao took out a Sephora bag from behind him and handed it to me and guess what!! They got me the Fenty Beauty Match Stix Trio! 

Last but definitely not least, the Divas and I met up and we had dessert at Swensens. What did we even have for dinner?? I completely forgot. But suddenly mid-dessert, Fatin & Sya handed me a surprise birthday gift!! They were so sneaky I swear. Literally the day before, Fatin was innocently asking about the palette and asked if it was good etc. I had zero suspicions. SNEAKY sia. But yessssss I've wanted this Urban Decay Naked Heat palette since it came out. So. Beautiful. I tried it once at Sara's house party when Insy brought it and my jaw dropped at the pigmentation. I would say Juvia's Place palettes are still the most pigmented and have the best texture but I've been using Naked Heat every. single. time. I. go. out. I'm obsessed. I'm a sucker for warm tones. Thank you babies :')

Alright, I think it's never too late to set some goals and deadlines for whatever you want to achieve so here goes! I feel like I'm going to focus on two things this year which would be to lose weight & to write more. 

Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

Losing weight is definitely necessary because I've been unhappy with my body for so long and I've tried starting several different exercise routines but I never stuck with them because I either got too busy with school work or just couldn't find the motivation to carry on. But since I have a lot of time on my hands now and no school to bother me, I can finally really focus on working out and eating healthily (as best as I can lmao I'm a sucker for food).

So here are some fitness goals that I feel are achievable —

                   —   25 minutes 

                   —   20 minutes

                   —   17 minutes

   ☻    Fit into old jeans 

                   —   Wear Forever 21 jeans comfortably (31 inch)
                   —   Wear my Forever 21 jeans comfortably (30 inch)
                   —   Wear my New Look jeans comfortably (30 inch)

   ☻    Be able to do a 1 minute plank without dropping 

   ☻    Be able to do proper push-ups for a whole minute

If you're thinking this is all super easy then you have no idea how terrible my stamina is. Back in junior college, my best timing for 2.4km was 20 minutes. I have never passed NaPFA in secondary school or junior college simply because of my 2.4km run timing. I cheated once in Secondary One because I was about thirty seconds too late from the cut-off time but that was the closest to passing I had ever been. And I know I've seen people do 50 sit ups in that one minute effortlessly but I start screaming like a woman in the middle of giving birth after my... 16th sit-up? So I'm really hoping that 2018 is my year. I believe in myself, I can do this.

Writing more is my second goal and I think this is important because I tend to keep everything to myself — loljk I rant a lot to my friends — but I do think it would be good for me to write everything out so I can get it out of my system, but to also sort all my thoughts so my head's not so much of a mess. Hopefully, writing would be cathartic for me and that it would also help me mentally and emotionally. I feel like I'd write in private a lot as I think that would be therapeutic but I do also want to keep this blog updated so my only goal is to write at least once a week. So since it's already the end of January, there's 48 weeks left and therefore, my writing goal would be:

   ☻    Write 48 more posts this year

That's all I can think of right now —  I will be doing an update on this post at the end of March. And that's it! I think both are quite achievable goals if I put in the effort. This is my year!!
#GetHot2018

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Adios

♡ Tiara ♡

So yes, I was in London. I counted down to the New Year with my family and a whole lot of strangers. It was packed like a can of sardines.We left our hotel at 11+ because it took a lot to convince the father to allow us to go see the fireworks. My sister and I had a few locations in mind after doing a lot of research but the father was very insistent on just following where the majority of the commuters were heading towards? He said "Do you think you know better than the locals?" I mean... I researched the best spots so obviously there's at least some truth to the locations I had chosen. Anyway, we ended up taking the tube to probably Waterloo or St James's Park Station (I honestly can't remember) and stood somewhere behind the barriers that were there. I just remember Big Ben being in my line of sight (Found the pic from Google because I only had Snapchats of the fireworks but this was my exact view!) Bad memories from the father aside, my trip to Europe was wonderful. I never blogged about my Europe trip, I think. I went to Zurich & Geneva in Switzerland, then Paris, France and finally London, UK. So if you want to read about it or wanna know what my itinerary was (halal food recommendations, hotel recommendations etc) (I planned it from scratch) then leave a comment or tweet at me (@therebell)!

Not exactly a highlight of the year but definitely a major experience for me. First relationship, first breakup so it was crazy overwhelming for me. As much as I would like to not admit, I was a complete mess for months. A total wreck. We broke up in February 2017 and I think I'm finally over it now and that took ages but I'm finally okay. I think I'm able to take it as a learning experience. I certainly don't regret being with him because we had a lot of great moments and a lot of firsts for me – first time eating Stuff'd (LOL don't judge me it was life-changing), first time stargazing on a mountain in Indonesia, first time going to The Projector, Henderson Waves, Cloud Forest + Flower Dome, first (and last) time eating gyoza, and let's be real – my first time going on a date haha. So I mean, sure I'm bitter, but I'm not going to let that overwrite the fact that I was very happy in that relationship, while it lasted. But now I'm ready to move on to better things!! 

Over the past two years, I've had multiple crazy hair colours (managed to strike that off my bucketlist!) I've gone blonde, turquoise, green, purple, red & black. This year I've had pretty normal hair – I had a short period with greenish-blue-purple hair because I wanted to finish off whatever dye I had, then I dyed my entire head black because the green was so hard to get rid of. And finally at the end of the year, I bleached my hair a lot and dyed it a shade of nude brown. Now I'm trying to focus on keeping my hair strong and healthy!

No pictures for this one either because PDPA lmao. I got to participate in a surgery for a thigh abscess removal and it was pretty cool even though I was terrified. I was standing there right next to the surgeon with my ears wide open, willing myself to magically develop bionic hearing, waiting to hear instructions from the surgeon and then passing the surgeons the correct equipment/instruments with the correct technique! I was shook. The room was cold but I was sweating. It was a pretty cool experience, scrubbing in, wearing my sterile gloves and that gown and shit. A few weeks after that, I was working in an Obstetrics Unit – Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. I saw and touched an aborted fetus, I helped out pregnant women pre- and post- birth. It was nice. Scary, but nice. 

I always thought my skincare was on point and I pretty much only did cleanser, toner and acne cream at the time. Man, I was delusional. I've always had oily skin so I skipped moisturiser/sunblock because it always made me feel greasy. I was wrong. I started reading r/SkincareAddiction and learned a lot. 

Here's my skincare collection now:

(L-R): Back Row – Etude House Wonder Pore Freshner, Cerave PM Facial Moisturizing Lotion, COSRX Ultimate Nourishing Rice Overnight Spa Mask, Origins Drink Up Intensive Overnight Mask, Origins Clear Improvement Active Charcoal Mask, Origins Out Of Trouble 10 Minute Mask, Hada Labo Gokujyun Lotion, COSRX Centella Water Toner, D'RAN Tea Tree Calming Toner. 


Middle Row – Klairs Freshly Juiced Drop Vitamin C Serum, COSRX Centella Blemish Ampule, TIAM CSource Vitamin C Serum, The Ordinary AHA 30% + BHA 2% Peeling Solution, The Ordinary Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%, Retin-A 0.05%, The Ordinary Azelaic Acid Suspension 10%, A.H.C Phyto Complex B5 Ampoule, Hiruscar, COSRX BHA Blackhead Power Cream. 

Front Row – COSRX Honey Overnight Mask, COSRX PHA Moisture Renewal Power Cream, Kiehl's Ultra Facial Cream, Alba Botanica Hawaiian Facial Mask, Sand & Sky Pink Clay Mask
.

I took this picture a couple months ago and have added a couple new products since but I'm still testing them out! Obviously this is a lot of products, and I don't use all of them everyday. (My favourites are the ones coloured purple). Right now, my routine consists of the Klairs Vitamin C Serum OR Retin A and a whole lot of moisturiser. My skin has definitely cleared up a lot but it's not perfect so I've still got a long way to go. I totally recommend going on r/SkincareAddiction or r/AsianBeauty for skincare tips/recommendations!

In October 2017, I decided to get my shit together and lose weight. I did it. I lost 5.8kg in exactly a month. My weight fluctuated throughout November and December and I was in a funk throughout most of January but I just started exercising again yesterday so hopefully this year I'll finally........ do this right.


Just a quick little section for some tv show recommendations. Started watching these in 2017 so if you're looking for something to watch in 2018, here you go:

(L-R): 1st Row: Chicago Fire, Jane The Virgin, Z Nation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place


2nd Row: Fear The Walking Dead, Younger, Shooter, Timeless, Code Black


3rd Row: Merlí,  Zoo, Grand Hotel, Jessica Jones, T@gged

Obviously I watch A LOT more series than this, but these are just some that I started in 2017 and they're some of my favourites that I really really enjoyed. Sometimes I livetweet while watching some shows so you can check those out here.

3 palettes that I absolutely adore. Two I purchased myself and the third was a gift from my friends.
Juvia's Place The Masquerade Mini Palette, Juvia's Place The Nubian Palette & Urban Decay Naked Heat Palette!!! Love all three, super pigmented, very little fallout. I'm obsessed.

Probably the best time of my life. I went with my friends Fatin & Syahirah and I really want to do an entire post about it soon.......... hopefully I'll get around to doing it sometime soon. Please leave a comment or tweet me if you want to see pics and highlights/itinerary for my trip to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia thx

Until next time,
♡ Tiara ♡