a crazy little thing called LIFE

time to say goodbye!

2009-10-27T16:59:00.001+08:00

ladies!

i have made the move to wordpress since my blogger account failed on me big time. i couldn't upload images etc. long story short

this is where its all happening now! http://crazylittlethingneela.wordpress.com/

please follow me here!

loads of love to all of you

i love my weekends!

2009-10-25T17:12:00.004+08:00

what a weekend! i had the most fabulous time of my life. sadly though i know have to catch up on some reading and oh so boring lab reports that i wont be able to do a proper post. so let me leave you with some photos of what's been happening in my crazy little world.....

ahm multiply this bar by 1000 then you know how many of these I've been enjoying

some of the goodies from topshop! they were suppose to be at the end of the post but my anal computer wont let me move them around!

mac eyeliner, kiehl's moisturising cream and a hair mask for healthy hair

every girl is happen at Starbucks right?

oh oh the big topshop bag!

neela is so HAPPY!

hmmm... couldn't resist having another

yummy!

yeah what on earth is that? a hickey maybe? *i wont tell*

what did you do neela?

i posed with my new love, i call him Mr. Hat and we have a hot and steamy love affair!

proper post coming very soon ladies! wishing you all a happy sunday!

xoxo

honey i'm tougher then the rest

2009-10-23T19:47:00.007+08:00

happy friday ya all!

i am currently sitting comfortably in front of the sofa listening to one of the most beautiful songs i have ever heard. Bruce Springsteen's tougher then the rest. this song has been part of my life since i was a little girl. i used to dance and sing along to this song when i was younger and admire the beautiful couples that were featured in this video and dreamt of my prince charming. with whom i'd one day be featured in this video too.

i had 2 tough days but now its the weekend, time to relax and recharge. on thursday i got home from uni and was so dead tiered that all i wanted was to pass out right away. once i reached home though i realised that my maid was just vacuuming our house. so i did what i could do

i put on this massive super practical noise pollution protectors, a blind fold and was safe and sound asleep till the evening. upon awakening i felt so much better. amazing what a little nap can do to your mood and spirit.

the other day i was out with my mum searching for a closet for myself. i might have outgrown my old!?! oops too much clothes shopping, a side effect that comes with giving birth to a daughter i guess. so as we were driving around town or lets say walking around i spotted something very interesting.

did you know that Katharina actually is already famous??? at least in singapore she has her own furniture store called dreams!?! interesting stuff right? Katharina next time you should tell us! you cant keep secrets from me

so what goodies made me tougher these last few days?

a seducing wrap made with organic cheddar cheese, quorn burger, salad, tomato, cucumber and loads a ketchup

why seducing? well look at my face? my best friend nearly passed out after taking this photo. she loves to make fun of me in silly pictures. that's what best friends are for right?

lecture fuel

oh and this tempted my taste buds very well, i think i overdid the salt a bid but this chickpea- cauliflower soup fit the spot after my beautiful nap, beautifully paired with purple sweet tatar fries. hmmm...

this was just a i have no idea what to make but i want pasta bowl! its turned out perfect. the sauce was a MISO (yes again) tofu- soymilk mixture with zucchini

and finally i had my first peanut butter and jelly larabar! oh my god and i went to heaven! this is fantastic. larabar always knows how to please me.

last but not least i'd be really happy if you all could help me out a little. i am looking into buying a new camera to take more professional photos. i am unsure if should get an SLR or just a normal digital camera. any feedback, product review whatsoever appreciated. thank you ladies and enjoy your Fridays

i am sending you all my love and may your inner beauty shine even greater today! and remember we are all tougher then the rest!

someone please turn on the air con!!

2009-10-21T16:38:00.005+08:00

i know I've said this a billion times but its SO FREAKING HOT here right now its unbelievable. i feel as if everything is melting as soon as you make a step outside! global warming anyone?

i try to stay indoors in the air con at the moment cause it makes me so damn tiered to be in this humid heat. i know, i know air cons are bad for the environment but you know sometimes in life you need to do what is best for you. and since i don't want to go running around with a major headache I'd rather suit myself to some cooler air.

so this morning i woke up looking something like this!

yeah i know SHOCKING!!! i looked awful and what made things worse was that super annoying pimple above my lips. how the hell did he get there overnight?

i realised the only way to make myself feel a bid better was to go shower and get ready for uni. the outcome looked something like this

yeah i know you can still see the little nasty boy but hey at least my eyes have realised its actually daytime now and decided to 'depuff'.

so i proudly ventured out of the house ready to learn something new today!

what did i learn? oh you really dont want to hear this but let me tell you

so the next time someone calls you an Asshole, you can actually tell him he's right and that he's one too.

what?

okay so let me explain, after our mummys and daddys have a jolly time together and little embryo neela was made the egg starts to divide right? well the first cells that form from this single cell are actually the cells of our anus, or in common language our ASS. how weird is that?

that's why humans are part of the group of animals that are called Deuterostomes. So i guess we are all assholes after all!

okay lets end our little biology class right here now and move onto what my stomach was doing while i found out that i was an asshole.

digesting! hmm love forever, luna smores is probably my favorite protein bar

best butternut squash soup ever

some more 'ugly' German food, homemade potato salad and katharina's amazing rotkohl and a quorn burger (appetizer was glass of shiraz)

alright my loves, that's all for now! i now need to do some internet browsing of what to cook up tonight with the remains in my fridge!

oktoberfest

2009-10-19T16:12:00.005+08:00

as a German i think it is my duty to present to you a post on the most well known festival from Germany that attracts so many foreign and local tourists from all over the world to the capital of Bavaria Munich in Germany.

don't really know what oktoberfest is all about, no worries wikipedia knows best!

Oktoberfest is a 18-day festival held each year in Munich, Germany, running from late September to early October. It is one of the most famous events in Germany and the world's largest fair, with some six million people attending every year, and is an important part of Bavarian culture. Other cities across the world also hold Oktoberfest celebrations, modeled after the Munich event.
The Munich Oktoberfest, traditionally, takes place during the sixteen days up to and including the first Sunday in October. In 1994, the schedule was modified in response to German reunification so that if the first Sunday in October falls on the 1st or 2nd, then the festival will go on until October 3 (German Unity Day). Thus, the festival is now 17 days when the 1st Sunday is October 2 and 18 days when it is October 1. The festival is held on an area named the Theresienwiese (field, or meadow, of Therese), often called d’ Wiesn for short.
Visitors also eat huge amounts of traditional hearty fare such as Hendl (chicken), Schweinsbraten (roast pork), Haxn (knuckle of pork), Steckerlfisch (grilled fish on a stick), Würstl (sausages) along with Brezn (Pretzel), Knödeln (potato or bread dumplings), Kaasspotzn (cheese noodles), Reiberdatschi (potato pancakes), Sauerkraut or Rotkraut (red cabbage) along with such Bavarian delicacies as Obatzda (a fatty, spiced cheese-butter concoction) and Weisswurst (a white sausage).

taken from here

of course i have taken part in this celebration many many times in my life. this is thanks to the wonderful Swiss and German clubs here that host a gigantic oktoberfest once a year on the German schools fooball field here. that's one event no German misses here. even though the entry is insanely pricey BUT you get to feast on this

i agree, not to appetizing BUT hey its a traditional dish! appreciate other cultures!

my bestie and me, and YES i am a little drunk right then and there

German bakery still make the best rolls, pretzels etc no matter what!

Germans can actually dance !?!

awww... i always bought a heart that said 'i love you' in case i met my future husband (hasn't happened yet though)

how could you not enjoy a beer on oktoberfest?

and of course a round of jaegermeister with friends is always thrown in

now i have one more thing to share with you, i hope it works. it is a video that was recorded of me when i was 15 at oktoberfest.

yes i was very drunk while shacking my bootie that night and YES i had an amazing time. and YES the music is always filled with classics which just makes the whole festival even more cheezy. yet i still LOVE IT!

if you ever get the opportunity to attend an oktoberfest please do so. the things you discover about the German culture there are never to be found elsewhere. the best place to go will always be Munich though. the heart of the oktoberfest!

i hope you enjoyed my little journey around the oktoberfest!

Ein prosit der Gemuetlichkeit!! (cheers in German)

carbulosity baby

2009-10-17T19:52:00.006+08:00

happy deepavali my friends! (what is deepavali???? find out here)

its been an amazing Saturday here in hot hot hot Singapore! yes this afternoon my mum checked the our thermometer and it read 34 degrees Celsius (around 96 Fahrenheit). Super hot.

Never the less i did venture out with my mum on our shopping trip. in terms of the shopping i wasn't too successful but i really enjoyed getting all glamorous to go out. i love spending some me time trying to figure out what to with my hair, my eye make up and of course what i'll wear.

since its a public holiday today here because of deepavali it was insanely busy everywhere. and the mid- season sale had started as well so many fashionistas including myself where out and about looking for something nice with spice!

this is not fashion, but my mum had to buy a couple of things for the house and kitchen and i could not leave these two behind?

how awesome is that? health nut? CHECK! fitness freak? well more of Yoga freak! DOUBLE CHECK! my tea tasted so much better in these already!

right now everything is perfect! i am scared to say it but it really is that way. of course there a few things in life that are bugging me a little but overall i am happy with what's going on. the most beautiful time of the year is slowly coming closer and its less than 2 month till my brother comes back home for the holidays. i've only got about 5 weeks of Uni left and then i am DONE with my first semester! i cant believe it! this time has been crazy, unpredictable but most of all extremely HEALING!

i think this is probably what healed me the most! my beautiful CARBS! oh how i love you!

in honour of miss katie i had to pay my respect to these saccharides! what would i do without them. and let me tell you it was a though THOUGH decision to only pose with my muesli collection. i could have posed with just about any carb on this planet because i love them!

some other things that have been keeping my NOW happy tummy busy

after reading about these boys also on katie's blog i decided to give them a try. and i must say for a faux meat burger these were pretty damn good. better than boca and morningstar i'd say

paired with butternut squash fries, ketchup and a little salad with vegan mayo dressing . please excuse Mr. bread that made its way into the photo but while those squash fries were roasting i couldn't resist the temptation of my latest addiction, the spelt bread!!!!

just a little comfort food of aglio and olio zucchini fusilli with basil

haven't tried it but i boy am i excited!

that's all for now friends! in my next post i have a few surprises for you! i'll give you a little hint.

OKTOBERFEST!!!

keep the good, discard the bad

2009-10-15T17:01:00.005+08:00

one more day till the weekend! are you as excited as i am?

i am so glad that this busy week is coming to an end i hopefully can take the weekend to relax and recharge a bit. i think some yoga and some shopping will be involved in the pampering program that will be happening over here for me this weekend. i also really want to get a mani and pedicure. i feel like my nails just grow like mad all the time. i swear i cut them almost every 3 days. they just grow really really fast. must be the good fats that i have been consuming loads of lately. thanks omegas, i love you too!

i can't believe how much my mood has changed today. i woke up feeling so demotivated since i knew i had to go through this exhausting 5 hours of labs today! BAH! and the worst part of it is that the lab is carried out in a non air con lab. still though we need to wear long pants and sleeves as well as closed shoes with socks in case some chemicals might spill on us. well so i am standing dressed like i live somewhere in the Antarctic in a tropical climate humid lab. for 3 HOURS! does that sound like fun? thank god the former 2 hours are spend in an air con lab that is much more comfortable. oh well, for the love of chemistry i will even master this.

so ladies, i seriously don't like to brag in life but i just really really need to share this!

i was so HAPPY when i saw this! aww i had worked my bum bum off to hand in this report for my chemistry module and was so glad that it came back good.

but then i figured, all good things come in pairs right? *drumroll*

second report! A* baby!!!! WOHOO!

now i am happier than happy!

so enough of the bragging let's get down to more serious things in life like eating!

creamy tofu- cauliflower soup with nutmeg

brown rice, spinach and tofu wok-fried with soy sauce, liquid braggs, pepper, and rice vinegar

paired with rice crackers and ginger sweet chili sauce from the ginger people

new addition nr.1 cedele's ( singapore only decent bakery) organic spelt sunflower loaf

addiction nr 2 miso paste!! so good with just about anything!

one more thing i like to say is that i DONT just get A for all my assignments and tests. so if you feel like a fool now because maybe you didn't do so well on your last test than be aware that no one is perfect. we all have good and bad days. but what we need to do is focus on the good things in life. so what if you got a D for that last test. at least you got a B or an A for another. so go celebrate the good things in life and forget about the bad things. life is too short to spend time dwelling on negative things!

and now i am off to take a nice cold shower after that 'hot' lab!

see you soon

i don't need a size and a weight, i look best naked!

2009-10-13T16:25:00.007+08:00

and its Tuesday already!

for those of you privileged people out there who celebrated Columbus day yesterday welcome to the start of the week! sadly in Singapore Columbus was not a very important figure so no public holiday. the next public holiday that we have is actually not far away. on Saturday is Depavali, a Hindi festival of light. It's equivalent to the christian Christmas so its a very important day for all Hindis . however having a public holiday on a Saturday is no difference than having a normal Saturday except that you have to wait even longer in Mango or Zara at the fitting rooms and crowds are everywhere.

this would probably lead me right into my random fact of the day: did you know that Singapore is the second most densely populated country per square feet! that's right! and according to the government that should increase even more. right now about 5 million people live in singapore. for your reference singapore is about the size of 693 square Km (about 3.5 times the size of Washington D.C.). Please note that the population of DC is 600,000. Singapore is aiming for 9 million in the next 40 years. But who knows where i'll be then!?!

are you getting hungry now after reading all this geography stuff? I am! well let me feed you!

roasted red pepper and tomato soup with rest of vegan 'mayo' dressing

paired with peppermint tea (for the tummy! remember?) PURPLE!!!! sweet potato fries (ahm more like chips, so crunchy) and more mary's crackers

katharina was right! the way to my mum's and my heart is through our stomachs!

together with Mache salad topped with the other half of my vegan mayo dressing and a side of cheese

while trying to understand what that dude called Einstein all proposed i needed some brain food!

back to the start of this post. what do i want to say with the header of today's post? well its simple. I dont need a clothes size or a number on the scale to determine who i am, what i am and how i want to look. i am naked in the sense that i dont want to measure myself against anything. i refuse to be graded by society to fit an ideal. i am where my body and my mind want to be and where they can be in harmony. i dont walk 1000 steps everyday because some professor figured out that that;s the minimum amount of exercise one should get. No i let my body tell me how much exercise it wants. the key is to listen to what our bodies have to say.

best example would be after eating my kabocha. in the afternoon i had a sandwich and some carrots (aka Vitamin A) and then at dinner i had the Kabocha ( Vitamin A again). I swear to god that the next day when i woke up and saw a mango (Vitamin A again) in my fridge my body said 'No neela i really dont feel like mango today, something like an apple or a kiwi would be better now' There you go! that's how we learn to listen to our bodies. They are smart things, they know what they need.

of course this way of communication does not always work straight away but it can be acquired, it can be relearned when you give your body the time and patience to talk to you again.

So let me rephrase what we learned today! I don't need a clothes size or a number on the scale to shape my personality and to determine who i am. I like myself best NAKED, pure and untouched, the way nature has made me to be!

help save my larabars from hungry people!

2009-10-11T17:00:00.005+08:00

thank you all for your wonderful get well wishes!

I'm sure thanks to them and a few chemicals that i received from my doctors visit i am feeling much better. sipped on gallons of peppermint tea and enjoyed probably the most carb-hugging diet i have ever eaten. when my tummy is up sad i try to avoid fiber at any chance and stay with dry easily digestible foods. i think there is something really true about the words 'your body is a temple'. once i started listening and respecting my body, he gave it all back to me. so thank you tummy for feeling better today. I'll take care of you!

today was one lovely day. my mum and me decided to head to IKEA! my dad left for a business trip to china so its only ladies in the house today and ladies need to go out shopping!

before we left i noticed something suspicious in my mum's bag.

what? a larabar? yeah my mum has been converted to a no-blog but bloggies food lover! from lara to lunas to clifs she loves them all. but boy she gives those bars a hard time when it comes to ranking. nothing can beat larabars according to her. well this lady has got taste i would say.

what's even more surprising is that when i told my mum i'd be making my kabocha she promptly replied. 'oh i'll have some too!' well what to do you know? turns out my mum is going to go on new food adventures just like me.

maybe i need to start guarding my kabochas in the future?!?! what do you think? a hungry mother can be your biggest rival when it comes to raiding the fridge for yummy food. but that's fine with me. i love to share food. i think that's one of the reason why my grandma is always on about feeding me with as much food as possible. its a way of saying ' i love you and i care for you!'

food is a social connector. refusing food that someone offers you is like saying i dont want your love to most older generations and sometimes still today. so next time someone offers you their lovely home made cookies. dont decline, have one!

sadly i dont have that much food to share with you since i didn't find my last two days meals to exciting. just bread, crackers, oatmeals and more bread! but my pesto pasta deserves a spot here.

simple olive oil sauteed summer squash and zucchini with flax pasta and basil, salt, pepper

paired with cucumber salad dressed with homemade salad dressing with my new red wine mustard

stay tuned for some major food porn coming up!

i decided to give veganomicon's silken mayo dressing a try today. i just finished preparing the sauce before writing this post and it already tasted delicious before even dressing it onto anything! i am hungry now! bye bye!

S.O.S.

2009-10-10T17:10:00.003+08:00

hello my friends!

as much as i would like to sit here and entertain you all with what's been happening in my life, i need to take a rest today. sadly after all the worries that have been floating around in my head my IBS has overtaken my tummy this weekend.

i have been a sufferer from IBS since 3 years now and do still get a lot of bloating, cramping and nausea from my stomach. I'm taking it easy today and will just be visiting uncle doctor once again and sipping on some calming peppermint tea.

if anyone has any good tips or advice how they cope with a bloated and cramping stomach feel free to share!

have a lovely Saturday everyone and I'll try to do a proper post tomorrow!

never take anything for granted

2009-10-08T17:00:00.006+08:00

happy Thursday everyone. the weekend is just a day away and i just finished my last exam for the mid terms! i am so relieved all the stress is finally over and i can relax a bit.

today has been a rather rainy day with almost no sunshine. very odd for Singapore but at least the temperature has come done by about 1-3 degrees. it feels so COLD already. ha ha. i think i would die when i move back to a cold country.

after my last exam finished my mum and me went grocery shopping or lets say produce shopping. we stocked up on fruits and veggies and some other essentials. and then... i was so happy to find some really really amazing things!

aww i am so excited to try these tonight. especially since seeing all the amazing sandwich creations on my favorite Peanut's blog i had to try what chutney and cheese would be like.

for the mustard it was a real though decision. they had so many that sounded like heaven. there was chili mustard, beer mustard, german mustard, french etc you get the idea. but i settled on this one after sampling through many of them. the chili sounded great but was just a tad bit too spicy in the end.

outcome of the trip for my part. mum's produce was a bit camera shy you know? (please note. this is not all i eat. as i said this was produce shopping, as in fruits and veggies for maybe 1-2 days! i dont live on this only)
can you spot my kabocha?? love this!

this was my first attempt of making kabocha. i roasted it in sea salt, canola oil and cinnamon. then i threw it together with some spinach, summer squash and a dressing of EVOO, salt, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon and honey and some toasted walnuts. it was a winner! i was inspired by this recipe but didn't have any feta cheese to throw into.

i paired it with some polenta slices topped off with hummus. gorgeous!

good old oatmeal, eaten sometime in the middle of the night while enjoying some good old blog reading!

so what is up with the title of my post? well some things have happened in my life which i can not say i am very happy with. but i cant do nothing more than to accept it the way it is and get on with it. but this once again has helped me to realise that we should never take anything that we have in our life for granted. be it your family, your education, your money, your health, your house... well the list can go on and on i guess. but through this i have once again realised how privileged i am and we all are. YES WE ALL ARE! we are sitting in front of a computer, have water available to us at any time, have electricity, Internet and much much more. we need to start living in the moment and appreciating the moment that we have.

i hope this experience of the past few days will make me stronger and push me even further to reaching what i want to be in life.

most desirable place to live in

2009-10-06T16:51:00.005+08:00

while enjoying my nourishing bowl of muesli paired with a green tea this morning i came across something very interesting today. it's the time of the year again where the UN ranks all the countries in the world for their living standards. let me first give you a brief view of the top ten from this index

The most desirable countries to live in

1.Norway ????

2. Australia (think surfers, nice beaches, great countryside)

3. Iceland (ahh maybe not)

4. Canada

5. Ireland (homegirl... did you hear this?)

6. Netherlands

7. Sweden

8. France ( oh la la)

9. Switzerland (brother Jann, you're in the right spot)

10. Japan (duh Sushi)

where's Singapore?? and the USA??? and Germany??

oh boy i guess we need to catch up to make it into the final 10. So the criteria that these statistics were based on was the GDP (growth domestic product) per capital, life expectancy and education. Well that explains why Norway is in the first spot but if you live in Norway it is pretty damn cold. Did anyone notice that trend too? All the bloody cold countries are amongst the top place except for the Kangaroo Land.

Be sure to look at the complete list here.

So after that i thought to myself. What is the most desirable place for me to live in? What would my criteria be to be ranked in the top ten?

Personally for me living conditions are really important, i need to have my space as in a garden, a nice house in a quiet area. Community also plays a really big role. How friendly the people around me are. How much they interact and integrate foreigners is very important to me too. Of course GDP is important too but money is not everything in life. Good food is a criteria, as in loads of local produce, farmer markets and a great variety of different foods. (Something i dislike about Singapore is the fact that everything needs to be imported due to the lack of land for farming. Too much carbon dioxide wasted there for sure.) Good weather and safety also come in handy at the end of the day.

yet nothing is better than my own sweet garden in a beautiful home that i share with people i love the most.

So what is important to you? What do you like/ cherish about

your home? What do you wish to change?

Onto some foodies now

some BBQ, sunflower oil, soy sauce baked tofu

does this picture need any words??? you tell me?

rainbow salad ( or mix everything from nuts to squash to salad in a bowl)

veganomicon mac n cheese flax pasta (sorry for the dark picture but it was just about to rain outside)

cucumber and radish salad to join the pasta

have a great Tuesday my loves

good morning to you

2009-10-04T17:02:00.004+08:00

let me start this post with the time of the day that i often cherish the most. the peaceful morning of every awakening day. there is something special about mornings. everything is still so calm, your body slowly awakes from its night rest and the the good old newspaper that the mail man just dropped off at the door step.

i have to admit, i have long been a person who hated early mornings and could sleep until the late afternoons. i guess i am getting older now and my day begin earlier too. however most important thing about starting my day right is with a great breakfast.

when i first started reading blogs i was introduced to the classic bowl of oatmeal. don't get me wrong, i love oatmeal and I've had it many times before but somehow Germans eat oatmeal differently. we never cook oatmeal and our oats are usually in the form of muesli and paired with yogurt or milk but never cooked. the cooked ones are usually served to people with upset stomachs that cant eat anything else. but being the little adventurer as i am i have had several bowl of cooked oatmeal and i am hooked. i can now completely understand why some people get up earlier just have a bit more time to savour their oatmeal.

never the less do i want to share with you how i usually start my day. since its always very hot and humid in Singapore even in the early mornings i tend not to cook my oats. so take a look how this little german here starts her day

add around 150-200 grams of yogurt or one tub of fage. i use 200 grams fage 2%

pick your favorite muesli, oats or granola or mix all of them together like me

i usually add about 1 cup of muesli as in 80-100grams since i like a big breakfast but you can also use 1/2 cup or whatever suits your appetite

top with 1 sliced banana

add about 1 cup of soymilk or any milk of choice

mix in your favorite nut butters

top it with some fresh fruits like berries

all mixed together and enjoyed with a white tea with mint

this is a great and filling breakfast that keeps me going and doesn't let my blood sugars drop. its also wonderful and easy to make cause it needs absolutely no preparation in advance. so if you forgot to soak your oats. no worries this will still taste good.

hope you enjoyed and are hungry for breakfast now

obsessed

2009-10-02T11:19:00.003+08:00

currently obsessed with everything red

red nail polish

red ballerina shoes

the red bag

red lipstick

and of course the red dress

could you blame me for my obsession?

just a normal day

2009-09-29T20:55:00.005+08:00

my day began with the rise of the sun and plenty of warming sun rays. I love waking up in the mornings slowly opening my eyes for a few seconds, then closing them again. Gently awakening my body from the rejuvenating sleep it had fallen into earlier on. Quietly and peacefully i say my inner mantra to myself and begin my day.

one of my exams had been postponed to next week which meant that i had less worrying about some studying tonight to do and could speak in some me time today.

as i was sitting in my tutorial i realised that i had made several mistakes in the exam that i took yesterday. At first i panicked, i screamed inside and started hating myself for being so careless and stupid for not noticing my mistake earlier on in the exam. But then i realised i can not be perfect! i will never be perfect, all i can do is die trying or live for the moment and accept myself with all my mistakes. I did. its okay not to be 100% perfect. its okay to just be me right here right now

life is good here and i am enjoying every single moment of my days. its when you start to appreciate the little things in life that's when you are really living. when you breath the freshness of your young spirit in and breath out the toxins that have been part of your life for far too long out. i am so grateful to whatever turned around in my life that has made me person i am today and i would never for one second think about making a step backwards. freedom is the most beautiful feeling anyone can imagine. freedom to choose and live the way i please.

on the food side of life i have finally gotten my hands down on the amazing Polenta that this beautiful lady has suggested to me. Ladies let me get this straight, Katharina is a angel! Polenta is such a great grain and so easy to make.

I just used about 1/2 cup of polenta corn grits ( Yes i used the degerminised one)

about 1 1/2 cups of water

salt

pepper

olive oil

garlic

fresh basil

voila! c'est manifique!

paired with skewers of grilled peppers, mushrooms and broccoli spread with olive oil and sea salt. After i removed them from the oven i added some lime juice to taste and cottage cheese.

my day will end with plenty of sunshine, but this time its coming from myself, my own inner sun that found its natural source of energy again

examache and yogache

2009-09-27T16:47:00.005+08:00

happy Sunday everyone! ah i wish it wasn't Sunday at all since my exam week will be starting tomorrow. i wish i could say i feel ready or on top of my revision plan but my head seems to be somewhere else these last few days. it hasn't gotten easier with all the buzz that is going on in Singapore with the Formula 1 being held here this weekend. i hope you're all watching!!!

i can still recall this day last year when i lived in London and me and my high school friend's reunited at one of their Kensington apartment. we had a wonderful afternoon filled with loads of laughter, good food, some wine and most importantly watching our 'home' being broad casted on star sports.

so a year later i am sitting here over my books and trying to memorize that when you react an alcohol with a carboxilic acid you get an ester! did you know that? chemistry is fun no?

to try and relax in between i have doing some gentle yoga but my body is still trying to figure out how on earth its suppose to cope with all the ueber- flexi poses that i have been trying lately. think eagle, think lotus seat... you get the idea, i call it yogache!

let me fast forward to some more glamorous things that have been happening in my crazy little world.

radish, cucumber and mache salad with evvo and balsamic, salt, pepper

flax spirelli, homemade tomato sauce and veganomicon's tofu ricotta

cucumber, roasted yellow squash and mushrooms with olive oil and herbs, roasted walnuts, bbq sauce and spinach

sweet potato fries in honour of this little miss here

adzuki bean, tomato. cauliflower and sour cream stew with tumeric

best 'waiting for my food to cook snack' kashi's cracker

i know that i used to stay away from posting food on my blog but i have to say that my attitude towards this has changed. i no longer abuse food, i see it as a way to nourish myself and to stay healthy. i eat wholesome, balanced and healthy meals everyday and i have give up the fight that i have fought for so many years of my life with food. i love food, i love flavours, i love experimenting with new cuisines and i am ready to depart from my fear of the unknown to explore all the things that i haven't discovered yet. i have simply realised that fighting a battle against myself will never make me happy. i might not look the way some stupid ideal in my head wants me to look but at least i will be healthy and happy. so let me say this once again, I LOVE MY BODY and i feel wonderful eating good food with great company and enjoy my life every single day. I'd rather give up all the endless inner arguments that I've had with accepting myself than to be healthy.

praise the french politicians!

2009-09-24T10:59:00.004+08:00

how would you like it if every photo of the 'perfect' woman in your favorite magazine came with a health warning?

According to newsagent Reuters that's what french politicians have in mind to prevent the promotion of unrealistic standards of female beauty. According to Ms Boyer ' These images can make people believe in a reality that often does not exist.' This law will apply will to all 'photographs that have been retouched to modify the physical appearance of a person' including press photographs, political campaigns, art photography and images on packaging as well as advertisement.

We are probably all aware of the fact that most brands and fashion magazines alter the way that their models look in advertising campaign. But sometimes we forget that what we see in a photo is not actually the way this person might look naturally.

Anyone breaking the law in France may need to pay up to S$78,000 (52,000US$) for an advertisement that did not have a health warning on it.

if only all politicians were as insightful as my lovely neighbours the French!

c'est si bon!!

after a long weekend

2009-09-22T16:45:00.004+08:00

a long weekend was ended yesterday with a lovely family dinner on the last night of my aunt's stay. it all started with some tasty wholegrain bread spread with 'heaven' hummus'

accompanied by loads of crackers dipped into hummus

and a wonderful refreshing bowl of salad with grilled bbq vegetables and mango, perfectly dressed in balsamico and olive oil

off to start the week that lies ahead with new energy and spirit!

sunday= funday!

2009-09-20T16:39:00.006+08:00

happy sunday ya'all!!!

and what a beautiful one it is over here! the sun is shining (DUH!!!), i had a wonderful morning together with family, a good 30 min yoga podcast with Dave Farmar (love his guy) and a much needed chit chat with my best friend. can this day get any better? maybe when i tell you that i am doing a gossip girl marathon tonight?

i am so happy to have my mid-term break next week and no lectures to attend. however the not so cool thing is that right after this week i have mid-term exams which means this week is pretty much dedicated to studying. i feel like my brain is completely empty regarding school work. so the last few days have my outlook has been something like this sadly.

on Friday i had such an amazing night. after dinner i went star gazing at my uni. it is part of one of the physics modules that i am taking. i was so amazed by the beauty of the sky at night time. since singapore is an extremely bright city at night it is so hard to even see any stars at night but with the right equipment there i managed to see everything i wanted to see. looking at Jupiter and its 4 moons as well as Saturn and several binary stars just made me so damn happy. our universe is fascinating and there are so many unanswered questions i would love to explore some day. so i spend a wonderful evening under the open sky, quiet, peaceful and yet so close to everything i needed.

in the last week i have been taking a few trips to thailand's cuisine. it all started with my mum coming back from grocery shopping with a big pomelo that got me craving pomelo salad!

i mixed some romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and pomelo in a bowl and dressed it with sweet Thai chili ginger sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, salt, pepper and some lime juice! accompanied by some bbq tofu and loads of kashi crackers. (please excuse the nasty pictures, it took me a while to figure out how to turn the flash off on my blackberry camera)

i have also fallen in love with adding nutritional yeast to the top of my salads! so good! tastes like real cheese with added goodness. and NO i dont only eat salads, just the past few days i have been craving them.

what's a girl to do without hummus?

i've also been trying loads of new things that my mum and me bought this week. well actually i have seen most of these on some blogs and was so happy to find some of these things here. singapore i guess you do have a taste for the finer things in life!

hello 'good' kitty wine for the good days! HAHA! asia has 'hello kitty everything!

hello 'bad' kitty wine for the bad days

heaven on earth fage! still cant believe i used to eat 0%! in the bin 0% goes and here comes my new love fage 2%! so good!

in between studying and eating (wow challenging life at the moment neela!) Big catch up time with my dutch friend Dorine and my Kiwi friend Katie! fun fun!!

excuse my rather critical face, i just hate photos!

life's good and i love being who i am, just ME! have a beautiful Sunday

best friends are forever

2009-09-16T20:16:00.005+08:00

i had a very interesting day today i must say. i have been feeling a bit sickish the last few days but finally awoke to a more normal me today whish felt great. i geared myself up for uni and ready to get my brain activated again!

the morning wizzed by like all the morning do spend at uni and i found myself back again at 4 when my classes ha finished and i was off to meet my best friend with whom i had a little 'date' today after we had been in a little argument since a few days.

i cant even say how much i love this girl! she has stood by me every single day of my recovery and has been there during the ups and down of this roller coaster right. even though we hadn't been speaking, when we saw each other we just both starting running towards each other and broke into tears and hugging as if we hadn't seen each other since years. it was beautiful!!!

i realised very quickly that probably 99% of our fight was initiated by the ED-ME, that is the pure selfish, rude, ignorant and cold-hearted Neela that i no longer need and want in my life. my best friend is a genius. she can distinguish the two and she said to me 'Neela, do you know why i still care about you, call you, love you and pray for you after all this time? Because i know that the real Neela that i love from all my heart and know is still inside there. She just needs to get louder and stronger.'

I loved these words. And once again it all fell into place. I know what i am doing is right. Recovery is a bumby but beautiful road that will lead me to a happy me.

i know that ED make you loose a lot of things in your life that were once important to you. i remember Jenny once mentioning that she didn't take the time for herself to make herself look pretty because she didn't have the energy to do so. how crazy is that? how can a beautiful women like my Peanut Butter Princess not care how beautiful she looks? dont get me wrong i am not trying to say she needs to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror! OH NO! this girl is a natural beauty but everyone should care for themselves and take care of their bodies right? that's what i am talking about. oh and Jenny no worries you look a million BUCKS this time around!!

thanks to my best friend once again my day is getting brighter although the sky is getting darker (yeah night time here) who cares? night time= party time alla wino and good company. my aunt just arrived yesterday from Germany. I haven't seen her in over 10 years and it is so nice to have some good family time outside in our garden under the crystal clear sky (not really) paired with my favorite Shiraz red wine!

ole!

what's your secret?

2009-09-12T20:00:00.005+08:00

good evening ladies, i hope your weekend are well in the working and you are doing what is good fro you.

i have been desperately looking to find things that keep me going through the day. i often get home from university rather tiered and worn out. now don't get me wrong i absolutely love the modules i am taking at UNI but i still don't feel right there. i feel so different to everybody else but not in a good way. i know i am different, the way i speak is different, the way i look is different and i sometimes feel like people don't know how to approach me. i usually wake up with a lot of energy to start my day and to make it stay a good way. once i reach uni and i am sitting in my lecture i feel better. i love learning and i love having things in life that challenge my way of thinking.

however at the end of the day i am not happy. i am not happy with my decision of going to university here. exactly one year ago i left to London to attend uni there and my excitement was much much greater than my excitement now. i would never blame this on the people here, NO i think a lot of it has to do with myself. i dont let myself be happy.

i often come home after a day of classes in the late afternoon/ evening and that's when all the dark clouds seem to hover over my head. i keep trying to convince myself that i am a failure, that i will not pass any of my modules, that i will never find a job and that i will just never be happy so i should stop trying now!

why do i let this happen? why do i allow myself to get trapped in this negative cycle of thinking?

i want to find way to cope with challening and frustrating situations. i want to able to deal with life, i want to stop being afraid and face my fears because i know that when i do i realise that all my fears where completely unnecessary.

i have found some inspiring things i try to remind myself of on such days get help me focus:

- if the classes at university would be so tough that only geniuses can master them, why are so many people at university? are they all little Albert Einstein's?

-i deserve to be happy. i was happy for most of my life until i began to think about why i am the way i am and when i started to doubt my happiness

-if other people refuse to eat or don't eat enough its their own fault. i know how important nutrition is after all these years and i know that a good functioning body needs its fuel.

- i want to be kind to others, i want people to think of me as a warm hearted person. but i cant be warm hearted to others if i am not warm hearted to myself.

and now i want to know from you, what do you do to keep yourself on track? may it be with your life, your friendships, your food, your exercise, your shopping? what are the things you remind yourself of that give you the energy to get you through the day?

I'd be honoured to hear them

and 2 super good giveaway to check out!

Taylor's yummo luna bars

my favorite german blogger ;)

to my anonymous commentor

2009-09-06T18:09:00.002+08:00

thank you very much for making me aware that you were triggered by the photo i have posted for my previous post. i am very sorry to have 'thrown you off yesterday' but i don't think you quite understood the message i was giving in this post. neither did i ever say that this model's legs look attractive nor did i say that i would like to have legs like this. i know that it was probably the picture itself that might have triggered you. if that is the case i have you tell you from my heart, you should NOT be sitting in front of a computer and searching the net. if an image of a skinny women has the power to control your whole day's mood i think it is best if you seek some professional help until you are strong enough to face the truth of this world.

i posted this image because after more than 6 years of anorexia i know that avoidance will NEVER cure or help my anorexia. so dealing with triggering things in life is something we all need to face!

i wish you all the best in your recovery and hope that you do not see me as a rude and cold-hearted person because i do understand where you are coming from. but saying that an image controls your whole day is not normal and is a great cause of concern to me for your health!

think thin legs are sexy? think again!

2009-09-05T20:05:00.004+08:00

4th week of uni has finished and i can not believe how fast time has been passing. right now i like where i am. i am student. i am getting better by the day. i feel stronger, more confident and the support of my family, my friends and the blogging community has helped me made the most impossible thing (that's what i thought a couple of month ago) happen again. to restore neela. my person, my personality, my laughter and my life.

so my day only got a little bit brighter when i opened the newspaper this morning to read something that has to be shared here.

so do you think this lady has got hot legs? think again!

well let me tell you. according to a new study that was published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) the thinner your thighs are the higher your risk of heart disease.

women and men with thighs under 60 cm (24 inches) in circumference face a far higher risk of premature death and heart disease.

Dr. Berit Heitmann and Dr Peder Frederiksen (my two heroes) of Copenhagen University Hospital examined data for 1436 men and 1380 women in the 1980s in Denmark. Over the next dozen years, more than 400 participants died and another 540 suffered either cardiovascular or heart disorder. Those with the thinnest thighs - less than 46cm- were more than twice as likely to die from a heart disorder.

so let us reevaluate the price of having those nice thin legs shall we?

maybe something like this might be just as good and healthy after all.

can you understand now why i just love being a scientist? we just discover the most amazing thing don't we?

for all those who have a blog on wordpress, I CANT COMMENT THERE!!! WTF! i am getting so annoyed by this. so please if you have a blog there do not think i am ignoring you, i just dont know what technology has got me into! any help greatly apprechiated!

life is not a linear equation

2009-09-01T20:19:00.004+08:00

lets talk about the math of life shall we? what is our life? well in numbers it would be around 29200 days, 700800 hours or 42048000 min for the average 80 year old person. loads of time to fill with beautiful memories of friends, family and all the other crazy things that we meet in life. the life of humans is complex. from a very young age we are drilled to meet up to expectations that our society puts upon us. may it be that new barbie doll that you just had to have as a 6 year old because all of your friends had it too. or may it be the iPod touch or even better the iPhone. these materialistic things had to be part of our life so we'd feel part of society, just as if they would give us an identity.

moving away from materialistic things there are of course the expectations of going to high school and graduating with good results. now this speaks for the society that i grew up in, but here i was expected (not by my parents) but by friends and teachers to attend an elite university. yes i am talking about Duke, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge. all these were universities my school wanted their graduates to get into. the thrive for the best in life seemed to follow a linear equation with an awfully steep gradient that increased every year. the things that are expected from young adults like myself have gone beyond what any young person should pushed to.

when i applied for medicine in the UK i would have never expected to go through the amount of extra work that i had to fulfil to even be one of the thousands of people that are trying to earn themselves a place in medicine. of course i can understand that universities try to select the best achievers in academics to fill their places for medicine as it is a though and rigorous course. however i feel that this boundary that is set up for medicine is debatable. would an a* student necessarily make a good doctor? surely not, a good doctor needs to be more than just a chemistry genius and a math ass. a doctor needs to have a passion for his occupation, he needs to understand the mental and physical aspects of our body and needs to understand and diagnose illnesses that arise from both.

why am i writing all of this today? well i feel i always push myself to catch up with this accelerating gradient of the linear equation of life. whatever i put in for the value of X i expect myself to get an outcome of a much greater value for Y. no matter how hard i try to put in all my effort for X i am never quite satisfied with the outcome for Y. i am a perfectionist. i expect my gradient to be constant and my linear equation to be a perfectly straight line.

wake up neela, this is not reality. life is not a straight line. life is a bundle of ups and downs and the way you can interpret this line is by keeping an open and honest perspective on life itself. it will never be easy to climb back up to a positive gradient after a downfall and it is not always easy to get down from an all high to a normal level. but accepting these ups and downs and the unpredictable times that they arise that is LIFE itself.

i can never tell what this line will look like for tomorrow or the future. but what i can do is change my way of thinking about this line. today was a downwards trend for me personally. i am tiered, worn out, confused and maybe a bit helpless. but does my line end here? no my line doesn't end. it only gets moment, motivation to slowly or fast climb back up where it needs to be.

even though i often feel like i cant control this line and its direction i am sure that i do have a slight influence in which direction it might be heading next and can prepare myself for what lies ahead. like tonight, my line is pointing downwards yet i am sitting here of my comfortable sofa, listening to Andrea Boccelli and realising the world is not such a bad place after all. i am in control of it and currently i like the way its going.

and i can feel at the tip of my fingers that tomorrow will be a positive gradient day again. or maybe i should just remember that life will never be a linear equation anyways!

2009-08-29T20:20:00.004+08:00

its the weekend! YES! well its half over for me already but it was a gorgeous saturday for me

let me share some tips with you all how to make that saturday or weekend for for you too ;)

-wake up to a heart-warming bowl of muesli

-skip the workout and head out to the city

-stop at shopaholics paradise aka ZARA

- head down to MAC and get some of their lovely ladies to give you a complete makeover ( and maybe discover that green eyeliner can work wonders for you too)

- admire having some dudes stare at YOU! damn right! you got something going there girl!

- feel beautiful inside out!

-you should consider heading home when this situation occurs like it did with me, in case it doesn't feel free to shop till you drop!

overall how was my saturday?? I LIKE IT, I LIKE IT A LOT!!! (anyone remember this from madagascar 2)

have a lovely weekend ya all!

this is from my heart

2009-08-21T20:14:00.003+08:00

i have something really important to talk about in this post. i was very concerned over one comment that i received on my previous post regarding my social interactions with only 'white' people.

'do you limit your friendships to white people??? sorry i don't mean this as a rude comment, but i found that remark quite strange as an expat myself. what i am most thankful about being raised internationally is learning to be color blind. '

thank you so much for pointing this out to me. after i read this comment i went back to my post and realised that what i wrote was NEVER in any way what i actually meant to say with those words. i would never ever limit my friendships to white people. i mean first i would need to ask myself 'what is a white person anyways?' myself for example, yes i may be off white skin but i feel as a world citizen and therefore of 'no' colour. and that makes me a person of all cultures. i find it wonderful to have an expatriate commenter on my post to highlight this to me.

i have always attended schools that had more than 50 nationalities being educated under one roof. and i could not stress enough how proud i am to come from such a multi-cultural background. i have come to learn and appreciate all cultures and religions that are out there and have developed a great interest in learning and understanding each one of them. this was also something that the college ( the United World College of South East Asia) i attended emphasized very much in their education. we humans are all the same no matter what colour or background we have.

in the post before i said that i have seen some white people around the University here in Singapore. what i actually wanted to say with these words is that i am happy to see other foreigners attending the University with whom i can share my life living as an expat in Singapore and hear about their experience being in Asia. also i am very much interested in studying abroad for a semester next year and it would be great to meet some European or American students who can share with me where they are from and what their countries have to offer. however i would never limit myself to speaking only to these people. i have already met so many wonderful students in my first two weeks at the new university that are all from different background and of course locals as well. surprisingly i actually feel myself being more open to Singaporeans than to Germans. this is probably because i was raised in their country and have much more experience with this culture than the culture of my roots.

i would be terribly upset if someone ever thought that i was a racist or that i would limit my friendship according to someones looks. if that were the case i think i would one of the most ignorant persons around and i would have never deserved to have grown up in a multi cultural city as Singapore. i only feel disguise for racist people and hope that i will never have to meet one in my life.

as a German i do feel that i have quite a large responsibility to prove to the world that i am not made of what the history of Germany is made up off. i know that a lot of young Germans don't even worry about this anymore BUT i do! i do always make that extra effort to show people that i am open to each and every soul that crosses my path. in addition to that i have educated myself over a long period about the holocaust and the Jewish religion itself. this helps me deal with comments i sometimes read or hear about German citizen.

i have been born into a German family. i speak German at home. but outside of my home i don't have a nationality. not because i am ashamed of my nationality, no i just feel like i don't need one. as i said before i am a world citizen. i am from this world where all humans are equal and the same in my eyes. and anyone can join me in this world and I'll be happy to meet them. i hope this clarifies a lot of the things that have been misunderstood on this blog

as you can see throughout this post i have included various photos of me and some very good friends. each and everyone of them is from a different country but in my heart i feel like we are all from the same place. we laugh, talk, eat, dance and celebrate all in the same way and that's all that matters to me.

before i make up my mind abut anything or anyone i try to explore, to learn and to appreciate where this thing or person is coming from. this way i hope to achieve a dream that i have dreamt all my life and that is

may there be peace amongst all of us on this earth

i'm still alive

2009-08-19T21:08:00.002+08:00

proper post coming up very very soon. i am thinking a 'how to survive uni in the first few weeks' kinda thing.

have had many ups and downs this week already but i am not letting go!! i know i need to do this and the only one standing in my way is myself. i am the one saying i cant do this, I'm not smart enough etc but i know i am. DAMN RIGHT! i am doing this. and guess what there actually are some white people here. and they may be male gender too. stay tuned for some white people stalking posts in Singapore.

happy hump day ladies!!!!

the shoe dilemma

2009-08-14T17:22:00.004+08:00

i need new shoes ladies. like desperately need new shoes! some sandals would be nice but i also wouldn't mind something more solid like a pair of moccasins or ballerinas. well easier said than done. i am a European size 40. not the clothes size but the shoe size. i think that's a US size 8. not really that huge just average considering my height. however Singaporean ladies are petite and have small feet. in most shops the largest size you'll find is a bloody size 7 or 6. bah!!! and then

the party ends before it even started.

thank god at around 4 my sweet blackberry rang and i received a mail from my one and only Emergency Shoe department shop that stock up to size 10 informed me that they are having a 70% sale this weekend! YES! god is really out there i guess.

hopefully after tomorrow i can proudly say my closet is looking more like Mrs. Carrey's. oh yes TOUCH MY BODY ahhh... SHOES!

ladies I'm off to get the weekend started and preparing mentally for my mega shoe hunt tomorrow! aww gotta love the weekend

tomorrow is always another day

2009-08-12T20:10:00.003+08:00

my first day at uni kicked off today. over organised as i am i had this day all planned out, ha well that's what i thought. it turned out that everything was completely different to what i had imagined it to be. seeing over thousand new faces today, walking through various corridors trying to find a certain lecture theatre and reading up about macro and micro economics surely put my poor little heart in a bit of a tumble.

i have to admit i was not prepared for all these new things and didn't think that seeing so many new people would have an effect on how i feel. how did i actually feel? i felt lost, overseen, maybe not special enough to stand out of the crowd? or was it just the fact that i always was the only ang moh (ang moh is the chinese word Singaporeans use for 'white' people).

i have a though challenge ahead of me trying to fit into this society. i feel scared and insecure tonight. but i am not giving up. this is my first day, my first try. i'm 21 years old and waited for this for such a long time. i need to stop asking to be somewhere else right now. no matter where i am i have to live with myself, nothing can change this. instead of running away from my problems i will face them.

let the battle begin

energy boost and national day!

2009-08-09T16:55:00.004+08:00

happy Sunday everyone! what a beautiful one it is!

well technically it actually isn't in terms of the weather but that doesn't seem to bother me much at the moment. i had a very interesting and challenging weekend but today i am ueber proud at myself for staying on track and loving myself the way i am.

it all started on Saturday when mr. Porsche came to pick me up. it was all very nice in the beautiful car and i was delighted to finally be reunited with my favorite food in the whole world. Thai- Vietnamese- Laotian cuisine alla Indochine.

i have to admit that i really could not hold myself together and just dug into the food we had ordered as it arrived. in Asia you dont tend to order your own meal but rather have several dishes and share them. every person then gets a portion of steamed rice to go along with all the main dishes. never the less my 'date' did not hesitate at all to make some comments about my rather indulging appetite.

'wow for someone with an eating problem you do eat A LOT! i really dont think you need to worry about being thin anymore and should rather watch out not to become fat. its really unhealthy to be overweight you know!!!'

aw yeah, i guess you can imagine the expression on my face at that point. not to mention that he is a third year medical student. i chose not to say anything. i know deep down inside what this boy is talking about is NONSENSE!

but ladies, that wasn't it. when the bill came our food came up to 103$. i actually expected him to pay so i only asked to be polite if i should pay. well what do you think mister says? 'yeah its 103$'. so i took out a 50$ note from my purse and gave it to him. 'aww that's 51.50$!!' he kindly replied.

what the f***??? how god damn stingy is this guy??? obviously my date was more than over and i was so happy to return home asap. my parents were having a party at home and mister Porsche kindly invited himself to join us. ah yeah very awkward too. let me tell you it was a very weird night at home.

when i went to bed later at night Anorexia did try to haunt me down and started to analyse what this guy had said earlier on in the evening. thankfully i was too tiered to obsess about it at that point. this morning i woke up and was more than happy to realise: this guy has some serious problems. life with an eating disorder is shit! its depressing, its time wasted and boring. isolation is your best friend because you don't have any friends who you could talk to.

i can only agree with what Debbie and many other bloggers have said about this horrible disease. and i think it is so pathetic to have this inner drive to look sick. why would we want to look ill and miserable? is that attractive? no its a way of saying, i cant cope! my life is too overwhelming. well today i realised that there are better and safer ways of saying to people around me that something is wrong with me than to starve myself today.

if you are reading this and you find yourself struggling. ask yourself? is this the life i deserve? is this how i want to live and should be remembered for?

i dont want to live this way! i want to be remembered for as anything but an anorexic.

when we are stuck in this ED we dont see what we do to ourselves. we feel strong to be so restrictive and powerful over our hunger. whereas normal people might actually laugh at us while we check every nutritional label on yoghurt's in the dairy aisle to find the one that is 'perfect'!!!!! whereas the non- ED person grabs one, pays, walks out the door and gets on with life.

i am getting on with my life. i am starting my studies this week and i am so glad to finally be able to start living my life again!

thank you to everyone who has supported me and reassured me that this is the right thing to do. and how do i feel? FANTASTIC! because i know i'm worth it.....

onto some foodies things. i still had two clif bars waiting for me to be eaten up and this was one of them. i have never ever had a clif bar before and let me tell you this baby and me... aww it was love at first sight. RIP inside my happy tummy.

also 4 lovely bloggers were so kind and passed this award to me. i was so amazed to hear that all of them valued my honest comments so much. i was so happy to hear that my comment can change the way you might thing and help you get back on track. cause that's just what the purpose is of me posting on other people's blogs. we can all do it and beat this negativity out of our life. well and if you dont have an ED and you read this then i hope that you can take some of my spirit and positivity from this post and bring it into your life.

i dedicate this award to all the wonderful readers out there. you have all helped me realise that i can get out of this mess even if i have lived with it for more than 6 years. i thought the damage i had done was irreversible and that i would have been unable to escape to freedom from where i was. i decided to take small steps with all of your help. and the most amazing thing happened: i saw the beauty of this world and started to recognize the amazing grace that my body carries if i nourish it.

one more thing before i go! its Singapore 44th birthday today and i want to wish all Singaporean reader and of course international readers a happy Singapore national day! fireworks tonight!!! (i shall try and imagine that these fireworks are a reward from the Singapore government for me) haha oh i'm a dreamer sometimes......

my super sweet surprise from Emma!

2009-08-06T16:40:00.004+08:00

Thursday is rolling around fast again this week and the end is in sight. the weekend seems to be calling my name. i have made some plans out for the weekend since my parents are having a BBQ for 50+ years of age people and i am not looking into joining them with my fit and young 21. i am going to my favorite restaurant Indochine on Saturday with a friend. i shall travel in style on Saturday evening since my little spoilt friend got a Porsche for his 21st birthday. ah yeah i was pretty shocked too when he told me. but never the less at least i get to sit in it and enjoy the music of its engine. i hope he'll let me snap some picture of it. he is very protective. no idea why??? maybe that's a men thing.

before i will reveal my surprise i had to show you a photo of my lovely dinner last night.

i left behind my usual hard-core vegetarian diet and delightfully feasted on this wonderful organic wild salmon. it was fantastic. i drizzled some olive oil, lemon juice, salt pepper and some herbs on it, snuck it into the oven in foil for 15 min and the beauty was born.

alongside i had a wonderful bowl of organic salad with loads of veggies and some bread with avocado slices on it. the salad was dressed with what it loves best. simple balsamic vinegar, evoo, salt, pepper.

just another morning bowl of muesli, granola, banana, soymilk, yogurt, nuts, sunflower seeds and of course blueberries

so yeah this was me enjoying my breakfast i guess. i just missed the mouth a bit there with the camera.

so what's my super special surprise. well i has speechless when this wonderful package arrived from a wonderful girl named Emma. i was close to tears when i opened it and saw what was inside. i never ever imagined meeting a person a kind and loving as my friend Emma.

i love clothes made from organic cotton

how cute is this top??? and i love the details that Emma beautifully placed on it. wonderful!

a super sweet card and of course a blogger must have in a package. a bar! uh and its one that I've never tried before. yummy yummy!

Emma you sweetheart. thank you so so much for this wonderful present. i have no idea how to thank you for this. well i do. i shall send you something back in the mail asap. or may i say as soon as my life involves other things than just bidding for a stupid university module. blahhhh!

in my next post i want to talk about making choices in our lives and deciding on which path to take in life. i shall see what will come out of it soon.

Geneve RAW!

2009-08-03T20:19:00.002+08:00

you will not believe what i am doing right now!

i am sitting in front of the TV and watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations and guess where Mr. Bourdain is in this show? you guessed damn right: SINGAPORE! this is too funny. i am praying that you will see this show wherever you are. i really love how he portrays this foodie land and the local people here. especially the Singaporean accent that truly is not missed in this episode.

now lets move on to the title of this post

arrival in geneva after a 13 hour flight to frankfurt, 3 hour transit and another 1 hour flight to Geneva. But that's nothing if the reward is seeing my beloved brother

first impression: NICE!

cute cafes everywhere

my brother's small house ;)

desperate need of a hand wash after applying some weird glitter cream in The Body Shop. yuck!

mum was happy, i guess

brother's office (right next to the poshest hotel in Geneva)

and then after many beautiful hours spend together with my brother the sun sadly set on our holiday and we were off back to Germany

hope you enjoyed my little holiday to Geneva. i am happy to report that i figured the whole NUS system out today an i am feeling much better today. actually i feel pretty damn good today. i have an amazing surprise waiting for you all in my next post that seriously made my day today.

life is beautiful, experienced this all over again today

2009-08-02T16:42:00.003+08:00

i have had a very good sunday so far. i woke up early at 8 (yes this is super early for me) but i am really liking getting up early i must say. i love going downstairs for breakfast whilst my parents are still asleep and have the whole dinning room to me. its so peacefull and since i am not very talkative in the morning i couldn't imagine a better company at this time then just myself.

the reason for why i was awake so early is because on my last post a blogger from singapore who is also starting at NUS now wrote me a comment. she hoped that i was feeling more calm now about the whole bidding system and my modules since the bidding round 1C was over now. ahh what??? NO i had no idea that we were supposed to start bidding in round 1C. i was told that new students are only allowed to bid from round 2A which starts tomorrow. so there is my dilema!!! i really had a little freak out yesterday after this and what made things worse was the fact that when i check on the online bidding portal i discovered a sad sad truth. most of the modules that i wanted to take were not available anymore. WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN TO ME??? you must probably think i'm so dumpass who has no idea about anything in life. and that is just what i think right now too.

all i wanted was to run away from it all! this stupid system! i was so so god damn angry and mad at everything!

it was saturday night and i really wanted to do something but after all of this i just watched some TV to calm myself down. i just began to accept that i cant change anything about it now anyways since its the weekend and no biding whatsoever happens now.

well i guess i learned my lesson today

do your own research about thing (eg. when the bidding for new students REALLY begins)
no matter what happens in your life, you need to keep going
new things are scary for me but also all new things get old some day

i'll be back tomorrow with geneva shots. hold on

german lesson nr.1

2009-07-31T16:36:00.004+08:00

its been almost a week my loves and i can feel its been way too long. its been a few really hot days in Singapore and time seems to fly by. i've had a very roller coaster emotional week with up and down but now its friday afternoon and i am so ready for the weekend. i just came back from my hairdresser where i enjoyed an amazing 30 min head and shoulder massage (yeah that's how cool service is in asia at hair salons) and i am feeling fresh and chic with my new (or old) look.

my mum flew in on Tuesday evening from Frankfurt and it was lovely to see her again. i still am trying to figure out how my mum manages to get a really good tan every time she travels to Europe in the summer. she always looks like she actually came from the tropics and is now going back to Europe. maybe i just need to watch out for her a bit more when she is there. i really should ;)

in her gorgeous red new suitcase my mum could not help but bring her daughter some much loved goodies back. my favorites, all in German....

gliss kur 3 min intense hair treatment for dry hair (LOVE these)

bebe young care daily moisturiser, organic vegan skin moisturiser with avocado and nivea day cream

the smell of heaven. flora by Gucci and burberry classic

two of my boyfriend also snug their way into my mum's luggage. what's mandelmus??? aha! first German lesson here for all of you. go look it up and tell me :)

ah NO my mum did not bring this back from Germany for me!!!
i could not help but snap a shot of this when i saw it at a pharmacy today. looks too good to be true ha?

well ladies and gentlemen i am officially a student of the National University of Singapore since monday morning. i still dont know if i should be proud of that. i guess i should be. if i hadn't chosen the path that i took in my life i might not be here right now. so i guess i can be proud of taking care of myself and making it here. at registration i was desperately looking out for some western-looking lads but was really really disappointed. so i guess i wont be meeting my further husband at Uni. maybe somewhere else.

i am still completely confused about the whole system of NUS. when you choose your major you dont just go to your lectures as you want you have to bid for your lectures!?! yeah i'm not inertly sure how that's gone work. but i've heard its like an auction and the one that bids the most gets the place. oh god, loads of drama ahead my way. i was really panicking yesterday evening when i was trying to figure out what to do. i didn't know how much to bid, when to bid, where to bid. it was all really confusing. i felt SO OUT OF CONTROL!!! guess who wanted to come knocking on my doorstep this time around to tell me he's got everything in control. ED in person. sadly though i had company around and couldn't let him in this time. sorry mate maybe next time.

on my next post i will be posting my pictures from Geneva since my mum has them on her laptop here now. hope you guys are all ready for some beautiful scenery of Switzerland. until then i say

auf wiedersehen

this is how i like spending my weekend

2009-07-26T16:35:00.003+08:00

time is flying, seriously! its already sunday but i feel like it was only monday last week. i cant believe my mum is already back in singapore in 2 days (damn... there goes running around naked in the house) and UNI has started. hurray!

now onto my weekend. i had a wonderful friday that i spend with my best friend who is going to uni with me. in the EARLY morning (ahem 10.30am) we headed over to Uni for some induction talk. and my worst fears actually came to live. in a lecture theatre as large as the largest movie theatre you have ever seen i realised i was the only 'white' girl. hey i'm not being a racist here but i do prefer to have a few people from my cultural background around me. hmm... i guess i will have to go searching for them in year 2 or 3 or maybe in other faculties. i'll keep you posted!

so friday wasn't much of a blast until i got a call from a really really good friend of mine who took chemistry together with me in IB. he told me he is in singapore and is waiting for me to meet him. can i say no? of course not. off i was to meet him after not seeing him for half a year.

he actually lives in london now and studies Genetics at UCL. bright men (thanks to my help) haha. no he is a clever guy. what do i like most about him. his confidence and his taste for the finer things in life.

on saturday afternoon we decided to head down to a cafe called cedele along with my gorgeous friend alessia and enjoy some coffee/tea/iced latte and some daily delights...

the ice

latte girl

i was so impressed when he came back with this little platter of different cake and pastries sample. it was perfect. i love that about him. he is such a gentlemen, hold the door for you, pays for your drinks, hands you his jacket in freezing london winter so you dont feel cold. and not because he is hitting on you. NO! just because he was raised that way. now thats how i like my guy friends.

after that we headed back to the st. regis hotel where he was staying and chilled by the pool (please insert my face and body into that picture. i mean someone had to take a photo right so i couldn't lie there and take the photo) it was amazing.

it wasn't the best weather day but at least you weren't melting away by the pool

aww what a sweetheart. love this guy

it was a wonderful day except for only little incidence that really shook me back into reality again. while waiting for a table at cedele a mother with her daughter was standing in line behind us. i cant even say with words how horrible sick this girl was. the power of anorexia had overtaken all her life and she was in a dramatic state of health. never the less she seemed to have spend a whole day shopping with her mum. i was so deeply disturbed and triggered by this girl. she slipped past me and alessia and went to the cake buffet where she literally spend half and hour looking at all the cakes and deciding not to have any. i knew what was going through her head. she was counting, counting calories, obsessing, thinking again, recalculating. IT WAS A DISASTER.!!!!!! she went to look at all the jams, spreads etc they were selling, read every single nutritious facts until finally she was released when a table became available to her.

by this time i was just sitting there and trying my best not to let it bother me.

about 25 min later after she had read the menu a million times she left the cafe. where did she go i thought? maybe the bathroom? i dont know.

when she returned 30 min later i could not believe my own eyes. carrying around 5 huge grocery bags she came back! she had gone to the SUPERMARKET!!! hurray! where else to further indulge in some food porn. and that's when i realized ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!

why am i writing this here? why am i being so evil and putting down this girl i dont even know?? this is not my intention. my intention is to show how SICK PATHETIC AND LONELY an eating disorder makes you. of course i was angry seeing here. and why? because i saw myself, i saw how i used to be or maybe sometimes still am.

but i have had enough. i never ever want to go back to a state like this again where all my life revolves around groceries, calories, calculating, obsessing! no more!

i feel so sorry for this girl and that she has nothing in her life that gives her the strength to live a happy life. she is fooled by anorexia to think that life has a purpose the way she lives it. to starve, to loose weight and to destroy yourself. i pray that she will soon realise what this is doing to her poor body.

when i arrived home at the end of day, cuddled into my bed and closed my eyes i knew that i had made the right choice in choosing recovery. i got to laugh with my friends today and indulge in what i wanted to. i didn't need to sneak out of a cafe and a nice afternoon with my mum to look at food again. i am not that emotionally and physically hungry anymore. i am getting more satisfied with feeding myself the love that my body deserves.

medical check-ups and product reviews

2009-07-23T17:01:00.003+08:00

hello earthlings!

i hope everyone has had a lovely week so far. i must say i cant complain after the huge mall ION opened this week to the public. i feel like i lived in the UK when i went down there yesterday to check it out. its full of British Labels and British eateries. Funny no? Well i certainly dont mind having another Topshop in Singapore as well as Warehouse and of course the usual Mango, Zara etc. But what i was most dazzled about is that this shopping mall goes into the ground till 5 levels. okay i hope that made sense but you know you have B1 which is your first basement level and then B2 well this mall goes all the way to B5 and up to i dont know where since i didn't go the the highest floor. WOW. yeah it is pretty amazing. you can actually get lost in there.

now onto some more important things like UNI. today i finally dragged my bum to get my medical check up in time for registration on monday. i have my first day tomorrow actually where we will be introduced to the system, moduel bidding etc. so i hope that will be entertaining since it requires me to get up at around 7.30!!! oh god well it better be good.

my check up was all well. funny enough the doctors here always seem to think i must be the healthiest person on earth. 'wow such low blood pressure, you are such a SLIM, HEALTHY, YOUNG women no wonder! good for you' is all the doctor had to say about me. yeah i guess i wont go on about this anymore that people here just dont understand what an ED is. it also didn't really seems to bother him that i hadn't had my period. 'its okay when you're young they can be irregular.' okay i didn't know irregular means 6 years no periods!!! hmm...

after 3 hours of waiting for chest x-ray results and reading out letters loud from a distance to check my eye side i was done and hungry. thank god i had remembered to bring one of my beautiful larabars and ones again the day was save by LARABAR.

now onto some products review

i was so excited to find a bare naked granola in singapore. i literally jumped up and down in the store. since lovely tori had mentioned how good they are i couldn't wait to try them this morning.

but i guess i had the wrong flavour/package/ i dont know what but it tasted disgusting. so chemical and fake that i literally thought of throwing my muesli bowl away. but please dont be alarmed, my parents raised me well and little neela finished her breakfast.

but after it i felt a little like this

and here he is the bad boy. i would love to try some other flavours of bare naked if i can find them somewhere. which flavours have you tried and you thought tasted good???

now i want to end my post with a few things you guys need to check out. first of all there is the amazing blog 'we are the real deal' also focusing on healthy body image. i also read up on one of the authors of this blog mamaVision and i can only take my head of before this lady. she is wonderful and it is really inspiring to read her posts. please take a look and read what she has to say and i think she is an EXCELLENT example that full recovery is POSSIBLE!!!!

and i managed to check ou this lovely girl's blogs giveaway

and of course my girl's giveaway emma

did you all the see the amazing photos of the solar eclipse??? the universe is amazing no?

where is the love?

2009-07-20T16:08:00.006+08:00

what is happening to our world as i speak? what are we humans doing to each other? what are we doing to our planet?

the outbreak of the swine flu has affected over 95,000 people around the world in over 122 countries

The Tennessee shooting in which 2 people were killed and 7 wounded

the rivery between the North Korean Leader Kim Jong and the rest of the world over its nuclear weapons

and most recently the Jakarta bombings in which terrorist who stayed as hotel guest blew up two bombs at the Jakarta Ritz- Carlton and Marriott Hotel. 9 people sadly lost their lives and dozens were wounded

why am i writing this here today? to show the reality of life. the gift of life.

i want to learn to never ever take my life for granted. innocent people who would have loved to have lived a long and happy life have lost their lives in these events. our world needs to change. we all need to change to make this place a better place to live in. and you can start today. close your eyes and imagine your biggest enemy in front of you. now let him go, let him be free. send him love and peace in his live. care for the people around you and for yourself.
the only way for us to make this world a place to live in for all of us is when we live as a community.

may this day bring peace to you

be sure to check out emma's givaway... yum yum!

home alone 1

2009-07-18T16:26:00.009+08:00

oh boy oh boy.. what have i gotten myself into. yes i am home alone for the weekend. while my mum is still back in good old Germany visiting friends, travelling and SHOPPING (aehm mostly the last actually) my dad decided to responsibly leave me on my own and travel to Bombay in india this week. so here i am home alone. YAY! well i actually like having people around me and after my brother cute little flat in Geneva and 3 people sitting on a tiny ikea couch to watch TV i kinda feel lost in my house right now. so i am keeping myself occupied by meeting my best friends who has also just come back from Germany. more on that later. and of course i have some very nice visitors or should i say permanent guests at my house. its almond butter, peanut butter and cashew butter. and guess what they all came from this country called Maranatha??? weird ey? well let me tell you this they are a tasty bunch of guys. i am liking them.

i was even happier when i spoke to my mum yesterday and she told me that she bought some more almond butter for me from germany. germany's organic product range is amazing. DEBS if you hear me. when you get to berlin all i can say is CHECK IT OUT! oh and organic shops are everywhere there. its like a cultural movement. i shall post a photo of these german fellows when i have welcomed them into my house.

god my first night alone was a bit creepy all alone in my house. i locked the door twice, checked all the windows were closed properly and left every single light that i could possible find on. no not really i wasn't that scared. i actually had a good first night. however the second night which was last night was damn scary. i was sitting in front of the TV watching some Anthony bourdain 'no reservation' thanks to Jaime, who highly recommended this show, and suddenly heard this scratching on my door. well i thought it was my door turns out it was this huge wooden candle that my parents have in the entrance way. its basically wax inside and wood outside. i was pretty disturbed by the noises that kept coming from the door but thought is was a small lizard that are always found in the houses here. don't worry they are just a few cm long and really not dangerous. well anyway this morning when i came down for breakfast i knew who was scaring the hell out of me last night. meet Mr. noisy!!!

yep.. it was him. gross!!! haha!! what else could i have done then run upstairs again and get into my uniform to turn up for duty!!!

and then i killed him!!! cold hearted. head on with the fresh newspaper of today. it was a bloodbath, i tell you. rest in peace Mr. noisy.

okay so before i move on to what my best friend told me yesterday i must make a statement and clarify something. i do NOT live in a dirty house!!! my house gets cleaned everyday by a cleaner. these cockroaches do not come because its dirty in singapore. they always come. singapore is a tropical country and the amount of insects that come around here is a bit greater compared to colder countries. just to clarify this :) (

so yesterday my best friend and me headed to town to catch up before she took part in the mass movie marathon of the new harry potter. i guess i am the only one by now who hasn't seen it??

anyway she told me that while she was in germany she visited a friend of ours in hamburg. turns out this particular friend actually lives with my EX BOYFRIEND (who i might still be madly in love with since i dream about him 6 out of 7 nights a week, ahhh oops) and you might have not read those brackets to realise how weird i am!?! and turns out my ex boyfriend is flying to shanghai soon to work there. OMG!! does life get any better. i mean okay shanghai is about 4 hours by flight away from singapore but hey that's better then 13 hours to frankfurt and then another 5 hours by car to hamburg. obviously after i heard that i had to use my gorgeous blackberry to facebook stalk him and TALK TO HIM. and guess who already replied??? haha you tell me....

yes indeed yesterday ended with a lot of laughter and excitement for me. funny though, when i feel love in my life i feel free. free to choose what i want to do. and that's something i really like getting used to... let there be love xx

oh and did i mention he is single???

oh and be sure to check out emma's lovely giveawayhttp://emskee.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/50th-giveaway/

home not so sweet home

2009-07-15T16:51:00.004+08:00

the long and wonderful holiday is coming to an end and i find myself back home in humid and hot singapore. and crazy as it is i have the feeling like i have been away forever. i feel like so many things have changed here while i was away. or maybe it is just me who has changed. changed for the good, changed to believe in myself and changed to stop preaching and rather act!

still during my time in europe i realised that even though singapore has been my home for such a long time i know now that once i will be done with my degree i will be moving away for good. i love singapore with all that it has but i think deep down inside i belong in a place somewhere in europe. i love how european and western cultures are a lot more open and straight forward whereas asian tend to be very shy and held back in many situations. i dont want to be a racist in any way, i am fully aware that this is just a cultural difference and that a very straight forward person can come across as very rude in asia as compared to europe. so dont get me wrong. but i think the part that attracts me to europe the most is the fact that i dont need to be comparing my european body frame to asian body frames. which means trying to fit into mango's and zara's asian customized size 38 or 40 even though i am no where near a size 38 or 40. but these things do affect me from day to day.

actually just when i arrived in singapore and quickly poped into the duty free here to buy a parfum i was really annoyed to hear by the sales women about 'how beautiful it is that i am so slim and how wonderful to be so attractive' ahhh?? pardon? you call no boobs and no butt attractive? well i dont think so. i tried to tell her that i was actually trying to gain a bit of weight only to hear her reply 'oh no dont ruin your figure, you will become fat!' well thanks for the reassurance. if you ever come across my blog let me tell i did NOT take your advice!

yes, sadly this is reality here sometimes. of course not every singapore thinks this way but sadly the majority does.

what do i miss the most after coming back here? probably this

gorgeous chateau de chillion

beautiful lake geneva

maybe you are getting quite annoyed by the whole geneva, geneva, geneva thing but i guess this city really sybolized change for me. i brought so many changes into my life there and i am ueber proud to say that each and every one has stayed with me since returning home. yes the evil spirited voices came to hunt me down last night when i was lying in my own bed but i loudly shouted back at them ' i am the happiest that i have been in a long time. i might be heavier, i might treat myself better, i might spend more, i might indulge more but i will never ever return to the places you pushed me to be'

i always had moment in my recovery where i would find myself thinking that so many people live their lives with an ED so why should you recover. i can see so many just living. (dont get me wrong what i am trying to say is that you see people who have manipulated their lives in such a way that the ED can always have a palce in their day) and i always struggeled to convince myself that such a life is HORRIBLE, boring, depressing and very very lonely. after this holiday i no longer have these thoughts. i know now that i will either recover or die. i will never ever choose to live with the Ed in any way. i dont want to die either since this world is much to beautiful to leave it by choice. so i will recover. fully! no matter how many tears it will bring to the anorexic part of me i will fight. i will talk back, i will not listen and i will live my life to the fullest again.

be sure to check out heather's lovely giveaway!!!

please dont tell me its OVER!!!

2009-07-11T16:38:00.005+08:00

please excuse the layout of this post but i cant seem to move my images around my blog. argg.. stupid blogger!!!!

why does time go by so fast when you are having the most amazing time of your live? ah boy i guess everyone feels this way. never the less i had the most wonderful time in Geneva with my brother and am now stopping over in Germany. i am actually in the little town about 20 min from frankfurt where i was born. its called seligenstadt and if you translate this it mean 'town of the holy'. can you tell what i am trying to say here guys? i must be special :) haha no i am just fooling again.

so let me recap on the past weeks. well starting of with my departure from singapore. i absolutely dread flying as i mentioned before and i was really nervous the whole day of our departure. when we got to the airport and my mum and me checked in we were sadly told that they were trying their best to even get us two seats together as the whole plane was fully booked. obviously i was freaking out inside at this point. i really really needed to sit by my mum in chase we would experience turbulences. i get so scared that i even start crying and shouting so it is quite advisable to have someone next to me who will comfort me. otherwise the journey might end in a catastrophe. so we waited and waited till the lovely lady from the check in counter came back. and then.... what did she say???? i couldn't believe my ears!!!! 'we have found two seats for you together madame. we have upgraded you to business class'!!!!! OH MY GOD!!! i couldn't believe it! the last time i flew business class is about 4 years back and i was dying to fly business again. HURRAY!!!!

the day was saved. i had a wonderful sleep in the lovely sky beds from Qantas paired with champagne, smocked salmon and toast and loads and loads of good entertainment. i even got a pyjama to wear during the night. how cute.

we landed in Frankfurt and then took another one hour plane to Geneva where the best brother in the world was patiently waiting for his mums and sister. after that, well it was all wonderful. i enjoyed a great time in Geneva with loads of shopping, eating and just enjoying the chic flair of this french speaking city. oh yeah i was a little lost on the first day when i realised that EVERYTHING was in french. starting from ordering, to grocery shopping, to clothes shopping to communicating. so i did have to dig deep into my brain and bring out those few things i remembered from high school. well it worked i guess :)

i have SO many pictures but sadly they are all on my mum's camera and her laptop. when she returns to Singapore i can get all the photos on my laptop as well and post some here.

however i did take a few shots with my baby aka blackberry bold as you can see above. (even though they should be down here)

oh and before i forget. check out the lovely bars my brother brought back from new york for me. ah i was so happy. i could not resist and already had quite a few bars in Geneva. all i can say is yum yum yum!!!

so before you get too bored i will update you when i am finally back home on other things that have been happening in my crazy little world. but before i go i just want to say that before this trip i had no idea how wonderful this life is when anorexia is not in the world. thank you. and goodbye anorexia.

i love you Jann and Mama, thank you for this amazing time together

oh and be sure to ckeck out my beautiful girl's (Jaime) giveaway!!!!

la vie est manifique a geneve

2009-07-03T23:20:00.003+08:00

if i had ever know how wonderful it is to be in geneva i would have come here a long, long time ago. its only been 36 hours since i arrived but i can't express with words the amount of change that has taken place inside of me. i realized so many things about myself and saw what i never thought i'd see back home in singapore. i think it was the most theraputic thing to do to take a holiday and be away from home. seeing myself from a different angle has helped me realise what i really need to do and change to become myself again.
geneva is filled with beautiful, confident and chic women who are just wonderful to look at and probably one of my biggest inspirations in a long time.
and yes here in geneva i have finally given up the habits that have plagued me all so long. i no longer want to waste my life thinking about food, calories, fats and so on! no here i have learned to taste food, to enjoy every bite of it on my tongue and to apprechiate the value of good food.
i dont need you anymore anorexia, i have found the love for my family, my friends and the love for myself.
i have see the most good looking men that have ever crossed my way and i no longer need to be made believe by you that they could never be mine. i know that if i am true to myself this man is only a few dates away.
thank you god
i am usually not very religious but before i went on this trip i asked for strength and courage to guide me on this trip. and here it is, right by my side to make this summer a summer to remember.

bisous de moi a tous! la vie est manifique...

leaving on a jetplane

2009-06-30T17:59:00.003+08:00

fellow bloggers, this is it. the time has come, all bags are packed i am off to EUROPE!

i have internet at my brothers apartment so hopefully i can catch up with all you lovelies. please excuse my absence for the first few days. i am beyond excited.... summer 2009 here i come!!!

what is happiness?

2009-06-28T16:26:00.004+08:00

'state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy'

taken from google dictionary

what is happiness? what is this feeling all about? can it be bought? where do i find it and what does it take to become happy in life.

these are probably some of the most difficult questions that every person is trying to answer for themselves. every day we try to chase this feeling in our daily live and try to plant one of its seeds in our soul so that we are forever content with who we are and what we do. do we succeed? sometimes. its all up to one themselves to find out what really makes one happy.

still we get convinced by our society that purchasing designer clothes, bags and jewels worth hundreds and thousands of dollars will finally bring what we have been thriving for from day to day. others believe that setting the highest academic records will bring them to a place in life where they will feel an overwhelming sense of happiness.

the way we perceive happiness changes as we grow older. when we are young the new barbie might have just made our day whereas when we grow older that gorgeous dress at H&M totally hit the spot. but is this really happiness or just a materialistic way of trying to consume and buy things that act as a replacement for the feeling of happiness. do we fill our souls with unnecessary things to cover up for the lack of fulfillment that is actually inside ourselves.

i sometimes feel this way. like i did today. i spend the day browsing through the zara store and buying a few items for the summer. but did i really need to get these things. did i really need another pair of ballerinas in my shoe drawer? i dont know. but what i really needed today was to feel happy, to feel like i had a reason to be where i am and doing what i am. so why did i believe these buys would make me happy today. well i did walk out of zara feeling happier. looking at my brand new clothes i liked what i saw and i liked picturing myself in them tomorrow.

Freud believed that happiness came from love and work and honestly after thinking about this for a while i must say that in the society that we live in this is more or less true. the real roots to happiness have been changed. we are driven to excel in our careers. we get too much satisfaction out of performing well in our careers. which of course then lead to the assumption that endless amounts of money are what make our lives fulfilled.

love on the other hand is what i believe is the true key to happiness. never once have i not felt wonderful when i felt loved. love is the most powerful driving force that nature has to offer. and love is all around. the only things that can change this is how much i am willing to accept this love. do i want to let people love me and feel the sense of content that comes with this great love? in order for someone to love you, you need to love yourself. i am willing to try to love myself with all the that i have. this is my main purpose for recovery. i want to find that happiness that anorexia has stolen from me.

addictions create a false impression on you in terms of happiness. i was fooled to believe that a lower number on the scale will make me happy and i was fooled to think that isolating myself and starving would make me happy. i have been there, i have seen it. not for one second have i come close to the happiness that i felt when i kissed my last boyfriend. not once did i even come close to the feeling that i get when my mum hugs me. i know now that addictions are false illusions of happiness and i want to destroy these memories from my mind so that i can find what really makes me happy in my life.

so i guess today these buys at zara did make me happy. and the fact that i treated myself to the foods that i was craving for. what will make me happy tomorrow? i dont know. its a surprise. but i am hoping that as time goes by and i become more rooted and stronger in believing in myself i will know just how to take care of that little tree of happiness that is starting to grow back inside of me once again.

it's the final countdown...

2009-06-25T16:39:00.003+08:00

yes it sure is. i am leaving in less than a week to my little Europa trip. i am so happy to see my brother very soon again and i am also very excited to explore the beautiful city of Geneva. i have never been there myself but everyone who has been tells me the city is wonderful. we shall see.

now of course i am a bit worried about flying and leaving Singapore during this h1v1 crisis. its been spreading rapidly itself in Singapore since this city is sort of a hub and transit point for many tourist from abroad. many come here stay for a few days and then travel on to Thailand, Indonesia, Australia etc. so of course Singapore confirmed its first case about 1 month ago. since then the number has been increasing by about 20-30 people everyday. sadly the virus has spread so far that even the community has been infected and not only people who have been abroad fall ill but locals who have come into contact with foreigners. so of course i am worried to catch this stupid virus on my trip BUT i decided to stay POSITIVE! you only live once and not going on this trip would be a huge loss for me. so let's face it neela!

also i am terrified of flying. i actually loved flying when i was younger and absolutely enjoyed the take-off and landings. But i guess once i grew up and realised that i might really die in on of these enormous planes i began to develop a phobia of these load machines. it doesn't help either that my home country is about 13 hours away from where i live by plane. so every year i have to bite the sour apple and get on a plane to take me back home to see the rest of my family. well i guess that's the price you pay for abandoning your entire family and moving half across the world into on to a small tropical island. i have been actively planning how i can keep myself occupied on the plane. if only there was Internet then I'd knew what to do for 13 hours. BLOGGING!!

now let us now onto something more positive. of course i am slowly starting to pack the things i will be taking with me to Europe. it is so weird to even bring warm clothes. i mean for me even 25 degrees Celsius is cold. being used to Singapore super hot weather anything less is consider artic for me. so let's what is on my summer 2009 travel list this year....

i shall bring (or maybe buy if its not in my wardrobe yet)

pair of ray-ban ( never to be spotted without these)

a gorgeous pair of gladiator sandals

rep nail polish

marc by marc jacobs shoulder bag

and my favorite dress of all times kate moss for topshop white dress

please add 30lbs to the model in the picture in your mind, i don't do the whole thinspiration on this blog. thank you

one more thing i want to talk about is that i have been reading on many blogs people say that full recovery is not possible. you will always have some issues with your food and be extremely healthy and conscious of what you are eating. however i must say that i completely disagree with with statement. full recovery is possible. its a matter of choice. what you choose to do with your life. sure if you dont dare to face your biggest fears and if you are not strong enough to face up to and challenge your ED then you will never fully recover. seeing my mum as an inspiration i can never stress how much you are able to completely overcome this illness even if you have battled it for many years. all you really need to do is to let go. and that includes everything the Ed is giving you. the hard part in recovery is that we always find part of the ED that we like or have gotten used to. for example maintaining a low weight. if we keep staying at an underweight body weight our brain chemistry changes. we get what we call distorted body image and we tend to be very body sensitive. i do not wish to list all the changes that occur in your brain when you are underweight as i am sure most of you know what happens when your brain is starved. in simple words. your mind is not working properly at this point. so actually arguing with your ED at this point is even more ridiculous because we cant even think straight anyways.

moral of the story. full recovery is possible. AMEN

Friday is screaming my name and i am happy to see my lovely kiwi friend (well she's from New Zealand that's why she's a kiwi) who just came back yesterday from uni is Australia. HURRAY!!! i cant wait...

my operation beautiful

2009-06-23T16:57:00.003+08:00

as part of the wonderful operation beautiful that is spreading amongst the blog world i have decided to dig out one of my favorite pictures that i had taken back in London. i absolutely loved the campaign that was introduced by pret-a-manger to encourage people to eat healthy rather than watching exactly what they weighed and panicking over ever little gram they gained or lost. which of course is stupid. our weight fluctuates all the time and why shouldn't it?

i actually decided to give this a bit of a thought today. why are we so paranoid with maintaining our weights to the exact kg or maybe even gram and in some really horrible cases Milli gram. yet we eat different foods, drink different amounts, sleep different amount, are exposed to different weather conditions but ask our body to react the same in all situations. what are we actually asking our body to be. yes we are actually making him a robot by telling him to stay exactly how it is. no movement, no breathing just a living space for our weight-obsessed souls. is that the way our bodies should be treated. it sure must be some damn great invention by god since it takes 9 long and exhausting month to even make something as close to a human body, a baby, that is capable of only breathing. then it needs to be carefully nourished and taken care of to grow for 18-21 years to reach a point in life where medically it is considered a full grown human being. however changes are constantly happening in our bodies. our cells renew themselves every few hours depending on the type of cell. our bones keep rebuilding bone mass till your mid thirties as well. isn't it fascinating to think of all the amazing thing our body can do? how magically it adapt to different temperature zones, time zones, cultural changes and many many more. not even having mentioned the other fantastic things our body can do like healing its own wounds, reproducing lives, regenerating and so on. shouldn't we all realise that this thing we live in deserves so much more respect than being placed on a damn scale only to be punished if the number the scale reads disagrees with our mind???

i think it is really important that our society, like Megan mentioned, needs to change their perspectives and respect for the human body. we need to learn again to live our lives and thinking about the consequences our lifestyles have on our body. we can not ignore the signs our bodies give us when we need a break. our mind and body need to be one. and the only way to achieve this is through balance, moderation and inner peace.

celebrate the beauty of you body and accept it with all it's flaws, if your beautiful on the inside your outside will always shine with you too

i love america!!!!

2009-06-20T17:01:00.005+08:00

finally after waiting patiently for some weeks i got my package from my brother in the mail today!!!! YAYYY! remember how my brother went to the states for the first time to visit his girlfriends family. yes that was back in may and my super awesome best of them all BROTHER and his amazing girlfriend decided to buy me some fabulous clothes and send them to me here. WOW!!! i love it. i couldn't wait to get home with the package after picking it up at the post office. and once i reached home all i could do was rip the damn thing open to find all the wonderful things!!!

I LOVE YOU JANN AND GIRLFRIEND (i dont know if you want your name to the written out. but you know who you are and have no idea how thankful i am for this stuff) thank you so much!!!!!
i especially appreciated the little 'whole food' bag that came as a prove that they had been to whole foods in San Fransisco.

sadly i have had 3 horrible days, i came down with a stomach flu and have just been feeling really ill and nauseous all the time. yuck.. thank god today i am feeling a bit better. i have surely had enough ensure for the last 3 days to last me for life. but i really didn't want to let this flu affect my weight in any way because i have worked so hard to get where i am and i will not fall back a tiny bit.

another thing i wanted to mention on here was that i finally found a yellow-free alternative for all those 'i am turning yellow from eating sweet potatoes' people that are out there in the blogger world.

and the star is........

Satsumaimo

yeah you must be thinking 'what on earth is that? very simple it is the japanese sweet potato. so what's the difference?

read here....

Satsumaimo potatoes are mainly harvested in fall. They have dark-pink skin and are slightly sweet, and the taste is similar to yams. Satsumaimo potatoes originally came from south America through China. They are sold fresh at grocery stores and are also used to make shochu (distilled liquor) in Japan.
Satsumaimo is a common ingredients for tempura. Also, adding diced satsumaimo when cooking steamed rice makes imo-gohan (satsuma-imo rice). Usually, satsuma-imo are used to make desserts or snacks. Easy ways to cook are grilling or steaming. Grilled satsuma-imo is called yaki-imo. Grilled/steamed satsuma-imo are simple but are popular snacks in autumn/winter in Japan. Candied satsuma-imo, called daigaku-imo, are also delicious snacks. Japanese sweet potato cakes are simply called sweet potato. Sweet potato cakes are usually oval shaped and are golden yellow.

The wonderful thing is that these taste sweet just like sweet potatoes but have a light nutty taste to them. delicious, a bit like almond. baked in the oven for 35-40min they make a wonderful source of complex carbs for your meal. their flesh is white to yellow and therefore contains no vitamin A but more vitamin C than the normal sweet potatoes. i know vitamin A is very healthy for you too but getting to much everyday can lead to the not to attractive yellow skin. so go out there and buy yourself some japanese sweet potatoes and let me know how you like them

wishing you all a wonderful weekend and hope you are all having a great summertime

shop till you drop

2009-06-17T17:00:00.005+08:00

you guessed it! this morning i opened up the Singapore Straits Times and there it was. MANGO SALE 50% store wide! WOOOHOOO! first thing to do was to call lily and share the wonderful news with her. we immediately decided what we needed to do. go down to orchard road and hunt down every single mango store out there for the lovely goodies. well not every single one of them but we did manage to visit the 2 main ones. and let me tell you mango sales in Singapore are battle fields. its so fun. you have to push your ways through the crowd, grab what you can and literally apply full body force to make your way through the shop. if you feel really patient you might consider lining up in the mile long queue that are standing in front of the changing rooms. and in chase you have didn't know you can only try 5 pieces at a time MAX! if you have more... go ahead and re-queue again for the remaining items. it's a though though world out there. but hey at the end of the day you saved some MONEY!!!! yay!

outfit for the day... kate moss for topshop dress

upon arrival. queueing up to enter the store? say what????

Oh BOY it really is true

i guess it doesn't look so packed because you cant see all the 'black hair heads' :) but it was so so crowded

gorgeous Lily

girls gotta refuel half way through right.... what better what than my favorite Larabar

sorry for being such a retard but i have no idea how to rotate the photos on here

lily is trying her best to model the wallet she picked out and please not the never ending line up to the changing rooms in the back.... which goes on......

and on.... and

on.... OH BOY! Singaporean women are damn patient. some true shopaholics I'd say.

wow what a day. oh i almost forgot to show all the goodies that i snapped. well my best steal was a leather jacket for 129S$ which is about 100US$. nice job neela :) i will just post photos of my outfits when i wear them and then you can see all the things i bought.

i do realise that its kinda stupid to buy a leather jacket when you live in a tropical country but hey remember i am going to Europe for 2 weeks. that's good enough for me. haha

now thanks to tori i decided to give the clif nectar bars that my organic store had just imported a try and i must say that they are a lot better than i had expected. i tried the cashew, vanilla and lemon and thought LEMON??? yuck.... i couldn't imagine having a lemon taste in my bar but oh boy was i wrong. that was another tasty bar that just gave all the energy i needed after this shopping day to write this blog post.

i am off to a cool shower followed by a good dinner and then some major TV marathon to wind down. have a lovely wednesday all of you other time zoners!

2009-06-14T16:51:00.003+08:00

i have finally found some time in the day to devote to my blog, it is a beautiful sunday here in singapore with loads of sunshine. i have been having a really slow and relaxing day and only escaped from my house for a wonderful massage in Holland Village. it was perfect and just what i needed after all these busy days. i still can not believe how everything has changed so much for me in the last few weeks. my acceptance into uni, the summer moving closer and closer and my overwhelming sence of peace inside of me have made my life an aweful load easier. i find that i am not as anxious and nervous anymore. i am more rested and balanced in terms of my moods. of course i still have times when i dont feel right in my skin but overall the picture of myself has changed a lot. could it be due to the many omega 3 and 6 that i have been eating with all these nuts and larabars in my mouth?? maybe...

i have been thinking about where i want to take this blog and what i really want to gain from it. of course it primarily should help me discover who i really am and what i want to do in my life. but most of that i have been hiding on this blog. my passion lies not in art or literature or design... no i am a scientist. i need to be in a lad with hundreds and hundreds of chemicals and make each and everyone blow up in a test tube. haha

well not necessarily that but i do love to experiment and just get to know the world on a surface that is not visible. the macroscopic view of the world! but not to worry my friends i will not bore you to death by telling you about all the wonderful elements that are out there and all the different techniques there are to purify a sample, i will just update you on latest health discoveries and probably also evidence from the scientific world to show how dangerous and life- threatening mental diseases are.

oh and may i introduce my room at this point???

no no i am just being silly today.

on the foodie side i have managed to haunt down some cashew cookie larabars. OH MY GOD!!! why on earth didn't anyone warn me before??? they are so addictive. i absolutely fell in love with these wonderful bars. i am still wondering whom of all of you lovely ladies to blame for my new addiction since i have heard so many of you say they are a MUST try. well i agree they are.

on friday i went for lunch with my friend lily to a really nice cafe/ restaurant named cedele. all their breads, cakes, pastries and desserts are trans fat free and they claim to only use 'real ingredients' in their food. hmm sometimes i wonder what non- real would be? i mean everything is REAL. even artificial flavours are real cause they are there! oh well.. enough of language and knowledge talk. our lunch were sandwiches which were fabulous. I enjoyed a 3 mushroom grilled sandwich. the photo is taken from the Internet because my friends dont know about my blog as mentioned before. since i am talking about photos i rarely post shots of my foods because i am really embarrassed of the quality of my photos. my camera is probably as old as digital cameras are and the size of a shoe box. so bringing it to places and making nice photos is not the easiest thing to do. my apologies for that.

now i would love to hear some feedback from all the lovely American bloggers here. my brother is heading to New York next week and promised to bring me back some bars from america that i can indulge in when i go and see him in Geneva in 2 weeks time. so please let me know what other must have bars, snacks etc he should buy to feed his hungry sister???? i am excited to hear from all of you.

before i go i just wanted to congratulate all those that have finished their High School, A-Levels, Undergraduate, Postgraduate!!! Well done everyone for working so hard. and now lets all enjoy the summer of 2009!!!!!!

let the party begin

embracing who you are

2009-06-12T17:35:00.003+08:00

i am wishing you all a wonderful Friday, i have been very bad with my blogging lately but i have been out and about all this week and had the most amazing time of my life. so many of my friends who have gone abroad for university have come back over the summer and it is the most amazing feeling to be back and reunited with them. i am so happy with myself and the path in life that i have chosen right now. i chose to live, to accept myself and work towards becoming one again.

i realised so many things last week and i think the most beautiful gift i could have ever wished for was given to me. and that is love for myself. soul and body combined. yes my weight has gone up over the last weeks but am learning to see this as a wonderful and healing things rather than a frightening thing. even though one week my weight had increased more than i had hoped for i thought to myself 'hey this is okay, i am going to respect my body for gaining this weight. i have put my body through so much so i am willing to let him have a word to say now that he is thankfully healing himself again'. our bodies are so amazing in every way. they are the ones that keep our soul rested and they are the one that carry you everyday wherever you want to go. i am so grateful that even after abusing my body for so so long i have no damage at all in any parts of my body and i can not say how wonderful it is to know that.

but now i am taking care of this wonderful thing that was given to me. my very own body. i will nourish it and look after it the best way i can. my health is my priority.

i feel so light and peaceful tonight,

i laughed so much today and the last few days,

it is so wonderful to be able to experience life in such a graceful way,

i smell the summer, the sunshine and life's beauty

i am beyond excited for the summer

i am FREE.....

if you're happy and you know it clap you hands!

2009-06-05T17:12:00.004+08:00

CLAP CLAP!!

what a beauuuuuutiful Friday it was been....

what have i been up to

-wake up CHECK!

-make myself look pretty CHECK!

-have a banging bowl of oatmeal, nuts, bananas, nut butters, raisins, muesli, CHECK!

-see my lovely nutritionist CHECK!

-meet all my goal from her for this week CHECK!

-go SHOPPING with the girls (including lunch and haagen-daaz ice cream) DOUBLE CHECK!!!

yet to come...

-savouring all my new buys (see picture above)

-feasty dinner (no plans yet on what and where but hey still have some time)

-girl's movie night

aww wonderful and just in case you were wondering is my blog is on SALE as well in Singapore all i have say is

(that weird looking mixture of a lion and a fish is the national symbol of Singapore. the Merlion, see you even learned something new today)

i'll be back tomorrow for a longer post

and before i forget ITS FRIDAY!!!!!!! YAY!

because YOU are worth it

2009-06-03T15:19:00.003+08:00

look in the mirror every morning, afternoon and evening and say these words out load to yourself, yes i mean it. just go ahead and say them, even if there are times where you dont believe it or think otherwise. deep down you know that we all deserve to be happy and healthy people. sure maybe right now you think, ha do i deserve this, do i deserve these extra pounds and that new dress, those fancy shoes? i dont because i haven't achieved anything yet in my life, i haven't found a summer job, i haven't been socialising, i haven't gotten the grades i had hoped for. So what? you deserve anything any day and any time just because you are alive, you are making a difference to everyone around you by just being who you are.

i want to dedicate this post to bringing out your inner beauty. sometimes i am unable to shine from the inside out, yes of course how could i be shining if I'm struggling? so now i want to explore how i can change my feelings if i try to bring this beauty from the outside in. by buying myself a new outfit, a new shampoo, a new haircut, a massage and maybe some new food. i don't need to achieve anything to be good to myself, i can just reward myself for living my life and being who i am.

so today i have stocked up on my favorite hair shampoo brand kerastase. yes i know they are pricey but i just love all their products. and after all that my hair has been through it surely will appreciate the extra care.

hair shampoo for weak hair, dry hair and fine hair

deep nourishing hair trreatment

anti-frizz serum (must have in humid singapore)

i also snapped up a face cream from Lavera, my favorite German organic skincare brand

and of course my body wash and body lotion that will nourish my skin today from the outside.

the outcome.......

awww i feel great outside in :)

i am so glad that i have been feeling very positive lately about my journey. i feel more balanced and stable where i am now. i have taken several big steps towards health which i was more than terrified of but i am so glad that i did. i was rewarded with inner peace. whenever i get negative thoughts in my head again i try to remind myself of my goal 'i want to start university in august, i want to go to Geneva at the end of June, i want to be healthy, i want to have my period back and most importantly i want my life back.' of course anyone can fool themselves into thinking that living with a mental disorder is perfectly fine and i am sure there are many days where yes it may seems perfectly fine to you, but then again would you want to miss out on all the wonderful things that are going on around you that you can not take part in? should i really stay in tonight and eat what i have planned or should i go out meet my friends, laugh till my tummy hurts, feel good about myself, not count calories, enjoy the night and even wonder where all the time has gone??? i think i prefer the second option much better. i am not going to be sitting in front of this laptop when i am 10 years older complaining about what i just ate, and that i still haven't had my period. no i will be sitting here and telling you about my beautiful little daughter that is nagging me to go play with her. that is what real beauty is. the beauty of life...

take a little step today, another one tomorrow and you will see that you, you future and living your life is SO worth it!!!!

adios may!

2009-05-31T15:20:00.005+08:00

i had such a great weekend!

it just whizzed by and i treated myself to so many wonderful things this weekend that i can not stop smiling right now. life is good! that's all i can say. when you're mind is at peace you can actually taste the wonderful spiciness that life has to offer. i am so glad to have my friends around me and i am also beyond happy to have such an amazing family.

yesterday was my mum's birthday and we had a beautiful morning where we went to the florist and bought flowers to brighten up our house a bit. and what better way to do that than to buy huge buckets of colourful, fresh smelling flowers? after which we went up to the British club for a chill out session at the pool. ahhh... nice.

in the afternoon we headed to Holland village. its this cluster of little shop houses where all the expats and artistic crowd of Singapore meet. my mum and i enjoyed a lovely afternoon tea/coffee at the beautiful organic cafe bunalun. i couldn't control myself in their shop and had to get some spices and groceries to take home. sorry but this place just looked fantastic and its all organic and locally sources. very nice indeed. i cant believe i haven't been here more often.

oh and yes enjoy the show...

after that we headed to a little spa called ambrosia where we both enjoyed a relaxing 1-hour massage. oh my lord. i felt so good after that. i was literally thinking to myself 'wow the world can be so wonderful if you are good to yourself.' i knew that i would feel guilty for being so good to myself today but i decided that rather than falling back into old pattern. i am going to make this my new way of living. to pamper myself, to treat myself and most importantly to love myself.

before i forget i not only want to say happy birthday to my beloved mum. i already did of course. but today is BIG BEN'S birthday. oh and guess who's been there? haha.. sorry for the angry face in the photo. it was bloody cold and yeah it was just about to start raining once again... welcome to london jemima might say?

lastly i want to thank the beautiful tori and jemima for giving me this amazing award.

you have no idea how much this means to me. i always sit in front of my laptop and think, aw i don't think anyone really cares what you say or think, but then all the wonderful comments from all the lovely people out there are just so great. so thank you all for being there. this is why i would like to give this award to everyone who reads and follows my blog. and i must say that i think we are all making amazing progress in making this a healing and healthy blogging environment where everyone can find there own inner peace and love ourselves.

life

2009-05-27T15:19:00.004+08:00

Life

life is an opportunity, benefit from it.

life is beautiful, admire it.

life is a bliss, taste it.

life is a dream, realise it.

life is a challenge, meet it.

life is a duty, complete it.

life is a game, play it.

life is costly, care for it.

life is wealth, keep it.

life is a mistery, know it.

life is love, enjoy it.

life is a promise, fulfil it.

life is sorrow, overcome it.

life is a song, sing it.

life is a struggle, accept it.

life is a tragedy, confront it.

life is an adventure, dare it.

life is luck, make it.

life is too precious, do not destroy it.

life is life, fight for it!

written Mother Teresa

contributed to this blog by my mum

the weighty issue

2009-05-25T16:21:00.003+08:00

i am wishing all of you a wonderful start to the new week this monday. i am actually hoping that it is not as hot wherever you are as it is in singapore. it hasn't rained in a while and the heat is just building up and up. never the less i had a beautiful weekend with loads of fun.

friday night was awesome. i didn't take any photos of our feast since my friends dont know about my blog and i dont want to share it with them at this point. i am not sure what they would think of me having a recovery blog. they dont see anorexia as part of me at all. i dont tend to share that much information about my Ed with anyone other than my best friend.

on saturday was the university open day where i went with my mum, best friend and her older sister. it was nice to visit a few lectures and meet people from the uni and get to know all the societies that are present at NUS. there was even a student from the university of california, Berkley, where my lovely stef will be heading. he was on a student exchange program here and talked about what he had learned during his time in singapore. so stef let me know when you're coming then for your exchange program??? :) yes?

then on sunday i really wanted to talk about the main focus of my blog here but then i realised our Internet was down. i went downstairs to check what was wrong with our modem only to find a very disturbing smell lurking in the house. turns out the adapter had melted and our wireless router was damaged. DUH!!! well thank god that i live in singapore where shops are open 24/7 and my dad kindly agreed to go and buy a new router. thanks dad (even though you dont even read this blog). so that made me postpone my post till today

so what is that super important thing that i wanted to talk about. well i just felt this urge to let this out over the past few weeks. i have been reading quite a lot of people talking about bmi 17.5 as healthy. i just felt that it was not okay to declare and underweight bmi as healthy. i think i should always remind myself that a healthy bmi starts at 18.5 and that a bmi of 17.5 will only get my body out of medical danger. however being at a bmi of 17.5 does not equal health in many bodies. i know a lot of stars, models have low bmi's and our world is obsessed with skinny people but i think after recovering from an eating disorder i want to be healthy. i want to be a women with a regular period that is not dependant on birth control. i am sure most us know that inducing a period by hormones does not prevent osteoporosis. i need to keep telling myself this because i often tend to overlook and blog out the need to reach a state of health in that direction.

i know that when we all work together on this we can become a positive community that fights all together to destroy anorexia and its terrible consequences.

i also did a bit of research on body weight and recovery and came across this really interesting article on this blog called 'feasting on research'. it really opened my eyes that staying in a certain weight range that is not healthy for our bodies only is another way of keeping anorexia in our live. i would be denying myself to live if i wouldn't allow myself to be at a certain weight.

It turns out that settling for a body weight even slightly below an individual's healthy set point can have long-term effects. A group of researchers at Schneider Children's Hospital examined the relationship between body weight, metabolism, and menstrual status in a group of normal weight adolescents with a history of AN, BN, and/or EDNOS. In a subset of these patients, resting energy expenditure was measured via indirect calorimetry.

The non-menstruating adolescents had an average of 98.5% ideal body weight, while adolescents with regular menses had 102.8% ideal body weight. Furthermore, the amenorrheic group had a significantly lower resting energy expenditure, indicating that their bodies were still operating as if their diets were restricted. In fact, this group also consumed a lower-fat diet than the menstruating group, which tacitly implies that these teens were still restricting their diets, even if their weight was within the "normal range."In growing teens, even a short duration of amenorrhea can result in significant bone loss which can only be restored by full weight restoration and the resumption of menses.

we need to listen to our bodies and give them what they ask for. i really want to try and find my set point while regaining my health. i shouldn't focus on x lbs that i have in my head but rather a place where my body is comfortable. where i dont need to follow a rigorous exercise regime and precise food intake to keep myself at this weight. i need to let go of controlling and hand over that control to no one else but my own body. he will know best when i am healthy. denying myself the last couple of pounds is what the anorexic voice loves to make us do. its another way of staying safe. however i think to really recover we need to let go of all aspects that this ED has to offer. remember, its all about moving out of comfort zones and into the unknown yet beautiful opportunities that live has to offer.

i hope you understand the message of this post. i am not attacking or refering to anyone who maintains a underweight bmi. i just wanted to note that we need to remind ourselves of what a healthy bmi is. in the end it is not your bmi that will make you healthy. its when your body naurally tells you you are healthy, when your mind is at peace and when you can taste the sweetness of life on your tongue everyday....

love is all around me

2009-05-22T16:52:00.005+08:00

wow... my life has just changed 180 degrees in 24 hours and i must say that i cant complain about the changes that have occurred. of course i feel overwhelmed by anxiety but i am pulling through.

so lets take a quick recap of what has been going on. in the beginning of may many of my closest friends have returned to Singapore and i have been seeing many of them. yet they still noticed that i wasn't as socially involved as i used to be. so my very smart group of friends decided to take me onto a very unexpected journey. tonight they will be coming to my house to cook for ME! oh my god! when i first heard of my ahmm... should i call it LUCK!?! i was extremely uncomfortable with this and was trying my best to find a way out of it. but then i realised 'hey its been a while since you stepped out if your next comfort zone no?' well it sure has. so i decided to bite into the sour apple and challenge myself to eat whatever my friends will bless me with. i only got the information what they will be making Peruvian food since one of my friend's has a Peruvian boyfriend who taught her how to cook the local cuisine. i shall be excited of what's to come. i mean i just thought to myself its like going to a restaurant where someone cooks for you. only does this restaurant not have a menu. which usually is the joker card for anorexia to stay in the game. well sorry my old-friend. not this time. this time there is no way in for you.

so that was my 180 degree change. i must admit that i haven't eaten anything prepared by someone else other than my mum or in a restaurant where i chose the dish in a very very and i mean very long time. but hey its never too early to start again right? its all about taking steps ahead and moving forward in recovery. i dont want to be stationary in one place. i want to climb that ladder that will lead me to where i want to be.

yesterday i saw my nutritionist and guess what?????? my blackberry can be purchased anytime from now. yes i did it. i full filled my job and even though someone in my head is bugging me for it the thought of holding that beautiful new thing in my hand feels so so so much better. life is too short to obsess about some number on a battery supported device. i'd rather have a small pretty little battery supported device with which i can send and receive all the future love messages from my boyfriend/husband/lovers/romances/rendez-vous to... you get the idea?

tomorrow is the open day of my university and i will be attending some lectures and will get to know some professors. as well as find out more about the specific branches in chemistry, biochemistry and chemical engineering i can go into. i am very excited to hear about all of this and most importantly i am looking forward to the career perspectives that each of the majors have to offer.

a lot of change has been floating through my life in the last few days. its all for the good but at times like this i find it is hardest to hold on to what i need to do. it is just again the same old feeling of loosiong control, giving myself and my life space to unravel. i feel like i really need to peel of thousands of layers from my skin that anorexia has created over the years to really be able to listen to neela and what SHE really wants. but the more i listen to that inner voice of neela i find happiness and a big smile on my face.

i hope you all can smile today too

life without the ED

2009-05-19T16:54:00.003+08:00

let your mind be free. imagine what could be if you weren't disturbing me everyday... i would do this

go to the airport and choose my destination

hop on a plane (talk about comfort)

settle into my hotel (nothing too fancy ;) )

enjoy the sand and the ocean

relax

and never comeback....

what would you do?

yesterday

2009-05-17T16:00:00.002+08:00

...all my troubles seemed so far away. yes it is true. i am having quite a hard day. i had such a great time the past few days. which is why i have been rubbish at commenting and posting. but i was just living my life and just needed a little bit of space from my blog. i thought i would come back stronger and with a much more cleared head but now it seems my head feels trapped.

last night was my best friends birthday. it was wonderful. we went to this really amazing bar after called helipad. its actually a bar that is located on a helicopter landing place with an amazing view and a great atmosphere. i had such a great time. my best friend looked so beautiful in her sparkly dress and i was so glad that she was enjoying her night like she should. but today this voice inside my head is trying to punish me for having all this joy. its following me every step that i make today and makes me sadder and more depressed. i dont know why i always get these really low points after having a real high. i guess its all part of my depression. i really tried to lift my spirits this morning when i decided to finally treat myself to a really good massage, however i had to cancel my plans as the spa was fully booked for the day. what a bummer!!

maybe another reason why i am feeling like these today is this build up of anxiety that is arising in me. i am so anxious of my time at this new uni, i am so anxious about the summer holiday and i am so anxious about the changes that are happening to my body. of course i want them to happen and i know they need to happen because i need to get a healthy body to get my periods back. why would i deny my body to be healthy? what am i saving for in the future? i am ruining my own health for the sake of.......Nothing!?! this illness makes no sense yet i still find myself listening and playing along to its rules.

i know that today anorexia is trying to keep me in my comfort zone. no extra pampering time for you neela, no new foods, all should be in the comfort zone.

i am sick of this. i am sick of being how i am. i will not stay in this place where i am now. whatever it will be i will find one fear of mine today and fight it. i would waste another day to anorexia is i didn't do so. i will challenge myself even if i have had a hard time today. no matter how many unplanned things i have been the past days this does not make it okay to not fight today. i am fighting....

enough of sodium, suger and spice talk

2009-05-13T16:22:00.003+08:00

alrighty my ladies i have some honest words to speak here. i hope you are having a great Wednesday. i certainly did. i went to get a haircut today followed by an aaaaaamazing hair treatment. it was so good. my hair feels beautiful and it was just what i needed. to pamper myself. i literally sat in the chair thinking all the time 'i dont deserve this, i dont deserve this.' why not? why not me? i deserve this just as much as everyone else. my hair deserves to be nourished inside and outside and look at it now. its silky and shining like it hasn't in a long long time. i am so glad that i decided to do this today and feel really proud of myself.

so lets move on to the post title. i have a confession to make. ever since i started reading blogs i have become a little bid obsessed with reading all the hype about sodium, sugar, water retention etc. i have caught myself in so many moments where i religiously read labels for their god damn sugar contents and eliminated foods that i had been eating the day before just cause today anorexia was telling me 'oh no neela this stuff is no good!'. i am sick of it. i am sick of watching my sugar and sodium levels to the slightest detail. i am sick of watching how many saturated fats i eat everyday. i am so so sick of it. it takes up so much of my time that i could be spending doing things that are useful to me and make me progress in my recovery. well today i did. i ate a bloody super salty miso soup when out for sushi and i ate a normal cereal bar that was not from some super healthy brand. it contained normal refined sugar and i ate it. who cares???? i dont want to live my life being a slave to all these rules that the ED has set for me. i want to enjoy what i eat and not worry about its content all the god damn time. i love eating out and sampling new exotic foods, i know that i have always loved to do this. so why should i let this ED steal all this away from me? bland food is boring just as boring as a life with an ED is. its full of rituals, routines, rules to follow and an awful lot of loneliness anger and depression.

i am 21, this is my time to shine, this is my time to be beautiful, this is my time to party and to live the way i want to.

no matter how long you keep nagging at me anorexia for breaking out of this vicious cycle i will stay in the same position that i acclaimed this morning. i am not changing back to how i was. i am a fighter, and i will continue fighting until this battle is won for me. i am not giving up or backing down. no matter how much you challenge me i have many people behind me to support me. my army is greater than yours anorexia. and do you know why? because my army of friends, family and relatives have feelings, emotions and are happy. you on the other hand only have numbers, the scale, rituals and obsessions. that's it. i will win....

puh... well i had to get this out of my system. breath in sodium, sugar and spice..... breath out silly obsessions.....

ahh.. much better. i hope i am not triggering anyone with saying this i actually just want to highlight how PATHETIC IT IS TO OBSESS ABOUT SODIUM, SUGAR, WATER RETENTION ETC ALL DAY!!!!!! i hope i can speak for everyone and hope that we as a blogging community can fight this spread of obsessions amongst the blog world. i would be highly encouraged to help.

oh and before i forget.. i found a new obsessions in my life. its called kashi dark chocolate coconut bar.. hmm. try it! its worth the sugar, sodium and the enormous amounts of water you will retain. NOOOOOOOOOOTTTT!!! i am being sarcastic. of course nothing happens, its just food. and that's what your body needs, everyday day, every hour, every min, every second. so feed it.

mum's the world

2009-05-10T12:59:00.004+08:00

happy mother's day everyone,

my day has been absolutely beautiful even though the sunshine has disappeared today. i enjoyed a long and relaxing breakfast together with my mum and i will off to town to shop and lounge at a nice cafe to enjoy this day. my mum absolutely loved her flowers and her gift which i was very pleased about. even though the flowers didn't turn out quite as i wanted them too she was happy.

i still haven't found an outfit for the Saturday's birthday party but i'm confident that today i will find something nice.

i really want to use mother's day as a day to spend a little less time with battling my ED and dedicating more time and attention to the needs of my mum. i think and i have said this before that when we are dealing with our eating disorders we often forget everyone around us and can become quite selfish. i know it also important to be a little bit selfish but i never realised just how much i was hurting my mum by doing all this to myself. which is perfectly understandable, which mum wouldn't be terrified to see their daughters go through something like this. so today is for you mum and all the time and moments we have shared together. i think none of our lives would be the same if our mum's weren't there to support us. in my case my mum has been probably the closest person throughout my recovery. i can always reach out to her and ask her for support and help. why is that you might ask? i have always hesitated to post this here but after asking my mum if it was okay for me to say this i decided to talk about this.

my mum developed anorexia at the same age as me, at 14. she also had a long and hard battle our of the eating disorder and sadly spend too many years obsessing about such unimportant things. i am very happy to say that nowadays my mum is completely recovered. i am actually trying to convince her to do a guest post on my blog to talk about her life after the eating disorder and how she managed to overcome all her fears and struggles. keep an eye out for that.

i hope you can use my mum as an inspiration that full recovery is possible. i know so many people say oh you never actually fully recover but i can tell you one thing. My mum is the living example that complete recovery does exist if you really WANT IT! that's right! YOU need to RECOVER for YOURSELF. not the dietitian who told you to add 200 calories, not your doctor who said your bloods are a mess, not the scale that shows you're underweight and not your family that seems so overwhelmed by going through this. No it has to be for YOU. you have to believe in you and your body. and my mum always says that once she tried to trust her body again and treated it the way it was suppose to be treated everything fell into places and the world become as beautiful as it had been before the Ed had touched her life.

have a wonderful mother's day everyone

i also want to say that on this special day i know two very special people Jemima and Megan's mum's are going through a difficult time, you and your mum are alway in my thoughts and prayers.

relaxing wednesdays

2009-05-06T15:37:00.004+08:00

after a very busy Tuesday with therapy and nutritionist appointment as well as working and shopping i am happy to have a day off. today i just bumped around in the morning. laid by the pool with my mum over lunch and then later went out to pre-order a bucket of flowers for my mum for mother's day. i really wanted to have a big one with loads of lilies in the colours white, rose, pale yellow and beige. i hope that i wont be disappointed when i pick them up on saturday. but i have been a very regular customer of this flower shop and they have a really great taste when it comes to putting together the bucket. tomorrow i am meeting my best friend in preparation for her upcoming birthday next week saturday. we decided to host it at a bar called hacienda. i must admit that this place is so beautiful. its outside, open air with white curtains and the whole concept and layout is kept in white. it looks very chic. we will discuss what drinks and food will be served and the theme of the party. i am so excited for that as i love planning fancy parties. later on we will be heading to town to shop for outfits. DUH! of course what else would a girl do for her birthday? i am sure you can all agree...

to spice my blog up a bit i got my grips together and actually managed to take some shots of my yummy eats for today.

breakfast was dorset organic fruit nuts and seeds muesli with yogurt, soymilk, strawberries, one banana and all topped with kashi crunch. yummo! (by the way i have never had COOKED oatmeal in my life, i just eat it raw, as in i add it to yogurt or milk.) feel free to leave some awesome recipes that i can try where i cook my oats.

am snack lunabar apple cinnamon

lunch avocado ww bagel with cut veggies on the side (cant upload the shot for the other meals... arrrggg)

snack fage with dried apricot and some honey and crushed flaxseed

dinner: flax wholemeal spirals pasta sauteed with mushrooms, zucchini and asparagus

night snack will be fage with oats, apple, soymilk and walnuts picture to come

fish oil capsules from my nutritionist. super high in EPA. its suppose to help fight off depression. hmm... we will see.

okay so after waiting hours to upload my photos for the twenties time i am giving up. this stupid blogger wont upload my pics. so they will be there as soon as this gets fixed i hope. arrrggg

edit: so i decided to steal my mum's laptop and somehow blogger seems to allow me to upload a few shots here. thank god... so my post is almost complete then

lost and found

2009-05-04T12:48:00.003+08:00

what a weekend! i was just happy to have a bit of time off this weekend and relax. however someone out there must have had a very different plan for me this weekend. after i came home on Sunday morning after going out i realised that i had left behind my phone in the taxi that i came how with. DUHH!!! i was so angry. things like this never ever happen to me. i am so careful with all my things and actually have never lost something valuable. well there is always a first. of course i called the taxi company and asked for them to inform the drivers of their taxi fleet and to look out for my 'baby' aka phone. sadly i received a call about 2 hours later saying that the taxi driver who had driven me home had called back but by the time the message about the lost phone was sent out he had already picked up another passenger who might have taken the phone. he said he could not find a phone on the back seat at the time he received the massage. hmm... what a cruel and evil world. i mean i know its so tempting to find a mobile phone that i lying around and to just take it but COME ON PEOPLE! don't you have some feelings? so whoever took my precious most beloved phone: If you had a heart you would give it back. sadly this how our world work nowadays. i was so up sad and even cried. yeah i know its just a phone but its got all my numbers, photos etc in it so its special!!!!

on the bright side my parents actually came up with a quite inspirational idea, they told me that if i gained 2 kg from now on they would buy me any phone that i want. i was really impressed how my parents connected the dots and tried to motivate me to gain weight and reward me in a nice way for it. so i must say my parents have made some good progress here :) so i am basically 2 kg away from my Blackberry! wow looks like a really good outlook.

so that would be the part that explains my lost part of the post and now onto the found part. yes i really believe i was found this weekend. i big letter arrived in the post addresses to none other than me! well guess where it was from? i seem to have been blesses by the same saint as my lovely Step, i got into the National University of Singapore!!! YEAHHHH! i was so happy. so now i have 3 universities i can choose to go to in 3 different countries. it all depends on how strong and secure i am in my recovery. so i will have a really good think about what i am going to do. if i decide to study in Singapore i have an amazing opportunity to study abroad in my 2nd year. i can choose between over 300 universities worldwide including a bunch in America, UK and Germany. so watch out ladies! i might be near to you sooner than you might know! haha...

so that made my weekend! i am so glad to finally know what the next couple of month would look like. plus it makes me really focused on my health because in order to start this course i want to be mentally and physically fit. i know universities can be very competitive and being a perfectionist i need to accept that there will always be people who are better than me. and i need to stop constantly comparing myself to others. aw yes i love doing that all day long. and no matter what i am always the one that is the loser. do you do that too? do you find yourself comparing yourself to others very much? how do you deal with this? feedback very much appreciated. all right.. i am off to lunch (sandwich with avocado, veggies and some kashi crackers, dessert LARABAR) and then i am off to give tuition for the poor IB students who are having exams now.

enjoy your day lovelies

may blues

2009-05-02T13:16:00.004+08:00

uh i finally found myself some time to post again. i cant really say what i have been doing all these past days but i think it was good to have some no-internet time for a while. maybe its also due to the fact that i have a new book that i can not get my hands off. its kazuo ishiguro's new novel. i really love this artist writing. he has an amazing way of writing a storey but at the same time hiding the meaning of the novel. most of his protagonist live a world of self- denial and only throughout the book the real storey of the characters gets told. my favorite book of his would be 'a pale view of hills'. i was very inspired by this book. i love how book can make you fall into these worlds of fantasy. everyone experiences these world differently. that's why i NEVER see a movie that is based on a novel before i even read the novel. i always feel that so much of the real story and emotions get lost in the movies whereas when reading a book your mind creates so many images to the story that just making reading such a pleasure.

so i have been tagged for this 25 things about me, and i must admit this is not as easy as it sounds. i wanted to come up with 25 things that make me who i am so here we go.....

1. i have only visited 3 European countries but have been to almost all countries in asia even though i am European

2. my name is from India. its hindi and neela is the colour of the ocean. this amazing turquoise colour that you find on shores.

3. i speak singlish like my mother tongue (dont know if that's good or bad)

4. i was born in a city called seligenstadt. which translated into English means 'holy town'!!! haha yeah :)

5. i am really good at imitating voices, especially smigel from 'the lord of the rings'

6.i love guinea pigs. they mean the world to me. i think i could adopt everyone of them on this planet

7. i am a TCK, meaning i grew up in a culture other than my mum or my dad

8. i have a passion for running

9. i won 5 awards with my basketball team. YEAH!!!

10. i love tina turner :) and have almost all of the backstreet boys songs on my ipod

11. i'm 21 and i still dont know how to drive cause i am soooooooooo scared of driving

12. i haven't kissed a guy in 6 YEARS!!!! yeah i know its unbelievable. i have no idea how that's possible. but let me tell you how ready i am to do it again!!!

13. i have never cried in a movie, dont know why they just dont move me as things in real live do. i also dont mind watching really scary movies, dont affect me or my sleep either.

14. my mum used to make me sleep in her bed so that by the time she went to sleep her bed was nice and warm. i used to give off so much heat when i was young

15. i sucked my thumb till i was 12. oopss...

16. i am responsible for my brother 2 scars on this forehead. ahm i was a rebel

17. i love being around funny people. i am very funny myself and love laughing until i literally need to stop because i am getting stomach cramps

18. i am a LEAP YEAR kid. damn right! i was born on the 29th February 1988

19. i graduated from high school with my IB Diploma even though anorexia promised me i would never have done so because i was heavier again. HAHA!!! sorry my NOT friend i graduated at a healthy weight!

20. due to the fact that i attended an international school i have friends from almost every country in the world. i really mean that!

21. i want to live till i'm 100

22. i want to find a cure for cancer and diabetes. hence the wish to become a doctor

23. i have Italian ancestors. 'ciao Bella!'

24. i have never been to the American continent!!!!!!!!!!!!!

25. if i were to live my life all over again i wouldn't change a thing. because thanks to how it has turned out i AM who I am.

and of course anyone who reads this should feel free to do this on your blog or in your journal. i really enjoyed this.

i have also purchased some amazing food goodies this week. including yummy almond butter, tahini, muesli, soymilk, cereal, veggie burgers and most importantly GERMAN WHITE ASPARAGUS. yeah this is the caviar of vegetables. its only in season from may till June. and its absolutely fantastic. its takes so much work to grow white asparagus because when the asparagus is taken out of the ground it must be dark. when light comes in contact during this process the asparagus will turn purple. weird ha? well and that's why this special veggie has got a hefty prize tag to it. but so what. once a year is good enough for me.

its usually eaten in Germany steamed with a side of potatoes, butter or sauce hollandaise and either some salmon or some meat. hmmm. i cant wait to have the first serve tonight.

that's all for now. enjoy the weekend

life just passes by

2009-04-28T16:46:00.003+08:00

wow today has been an extremely exhausting and challenging day. i saw my nutritionist and my psychologist today and it really took out all the energy that i have in me right now. i feel its been really hard for me to stay focused on track and my recovery. as much as i am looking forward to the summer and travelling as well as going back to university again (if i get accepted) i am absolutely terrified. i am terrified of how my life will be in the next month to come. where it all lead me to? will i be happy? do i really want to live this way? i dont know how to explain this but maybe someone can relate. i always get this feeling that i need to be somewhere else than where i am now. but even when i feel i need to be in Europe, once i get there i wish i was back in Singapore again. i never feel right where i am. i am sure it also has a lot to do with how i feel about myself and that once i am rested inside myself it wont matter where i am. cause in the end most importantly will be that i am happy where i am. but right now i feel i am missing something if i am not everywhere.

recovery is a long road and i have walked down this road many times already but somehow i always managed to go and take some small side lane that would lead me to go back to the start. why do i chose to go down these side lanes instead of just sticking with the main road. the main road is smooth and so much more comfortable to walk along. however the side lanes always tempt me. the side lanes hide my appearance, they are covered with dark leafy trees that dont leave the rest of the world a lot to see from me. maybe that i why i chose to go down those side ways. i am letting life go by without actually taking part.

life will go on. no matter if i choose to take part in it or not. this world will live, it will celebrate every years Christmas, it will turn around the sun once every year and many people will die, as well as many new people come into this world. it is my choice to join this movement. this community. i need to make that step and go back to the world that i had once known and seems to frightening and unsafe to me. i am missing the most fantastic time of my life. i am young, my mind is young, my body is young. there is so much i have yet not seen but if i choose to stay with anorexia i will never ever be able to see all this. there is no life with the ED. there is just misery and ultimately there is death. and even when you die this death is not painful for me but for the once that i leave behind. the once that might never recover from the pain that i have caused.

i dont want to leave such a negative message on here today. i just want to remind myself of what is really happening when recovery is not happening. there is not a question of what might be with anorexia around. it has to leave me once and for all because you can not compromise with anorexia. and that means accepting a healthy weight, accepting that i am not the best at everything and accepting that i do make mistakes. everyday i will meet people who are still living with their anorexia who might trigger me and the ED screams 'aw look at you, you are so weak and gained back all this weight'. well at least i can then say back 'NO ED you're wrong. I am stronger than they are. i had the courage and strength to gain back my health and take care of myself because the world that anorexia lives in is not a world. its a sick fantasy in which your brain is not functioning and destroying your own body. i no longer need to be at this point'.

yes this is what i would like to say to you anorexia when you come back once again and try to punish me for accepting a healthy weight. i deserve to be where i am, i deserve to eat. only you dont deserve to stay with me.

heart health

2009-04-27T16:28:00.003+08:00

happy Monday everyone and i am hoping that you all welcomed the new week with a lot of love for your heart. as I mentioned in my previous post this is the organ that i will be celebrating this week.

i woke up to sunshine once again and decided to have some oatmeal with walnuts, banana, Cinnamon and some kashi cereal to go along. divine and just the right way to start this heart friendly day.

i then went and did a few yoga poses that are suppose to strengthen the heart muscle and help circulation in the body. feel free to practise any one of them today just to say a little thank you to your heart for beating everyday of your life.

Here are some points on how Yoga can be beneficial in regulating a healthy circulation of blood and nutrients in the body:

-Standing Poses - In these poses, the lateral wall of the heart is completely stretched and toned up so that there would be a healthy blood flow on the walls.
-Inverted Poses - Since the body is used to standing erect all the time, the lymphatic system of the legs and muscles that help in pumping the blood upward can get rest in this position. These exercises will also avoid tissue degeneration because it allows proper circulation of blood in the brain.
-Horizontal Poses - The blood pressure can be reduced in performing horizontal poses since the heart and lungs are rested, rejuvenated, and well-ventilated.
-Bending Poses - When these poses are done without strain, they can improve blood supply to the myocardium and will surely tone up the cardiac muscle.

taken from abc of yoga

i think personally the last exercise, the breathing at the end of your practise is the most important and healing one. try to focus only on your breathing. erase all the other thoughts that are floating around in your head and enjoy this feeling of self- awakening.

namaste

life is a wonderful gift

2009-04-26T16:10:00.005+08:00

i hope everyone is having a beautiful Sunday. well its not as beautiful as i expected it to be here in Singapore cause some major thunderstorms have passed by this little tropical island today. however i am feeling rather just like some rain and clouds outside and not just sunshine all the time.

i was so shocked about what i found on one of my favorite blogs last night. i'm sure a lot of you know about Jenna from the lovely blog Eat, Live, Run. i was so upset after i heard about the tragedy that happened to her family and of course all my prayers are with her and her family at this moment. but it was also a real wake up call for me. i am only 2 years older than her brother used to be and i realised how precious our lives really are and how much time i am wasting with this ED.

this life was given to us by god. it was the most amazing thing that he ever created and he decided that each one of us as a soul would be given the chance to come to earth and experience this world for themselves. this is such a huge honour that we are given and we should appreciate it. we should celebrate our live and enjoy it to the fullest. if we really want to live we will find that everyday there is more and more things to explore and discover. the knowledge we can acquire throughout our lives is never ending and that's where i think the real beauty of life begins. how dare I say that my life is so horrible and that i hate it. how could i possibly think that way? i have so much ahead of me, so much to unfold and so many places to go. how could i not want to see all these wonderful things? sometimes i may find that i get stuck or that i feel overwhelmed by all the responsibilities that i seem to carry. but it is important that i take one step at a time. and those small and careful steps will always take me where i want to be. i want to free myself from negativity and self-destruction and honour my inner love and care of myself. i want my mind and body to become whole again. i want to love myself so others can love me. everyday is a new day where only I can decide how i will feel about myself at the end of it. no longer do i want to be torn apart at the end, i want to be whole again.

in order to fully recover from all the abuse and neglect that i have done to my body in my life i have decided that i am going to dedicate each organ of my body one week in the calender. during that week i will be nourishing, caring and focusing on this particular organ to heal it not only from the inside but also from the outside. i want to love all my organs for all the wonderful things that they have done for me so that i am still alive today. i was thinking of starting with the heart
tomorrow morning. please feel free to join me in this challenge to honour your body once more.

my dearest heart, here is to you.

to start the week of right i will have an omega-3-6-9 rich diet this week, practise yoga posses that focus on the heart and listen to my heart when it beats too fast or too slow.

so of course my post fuel had to be a cocoa mole larabar with WALNUTS! (omega 3) check!

the hardest part

2009-04-24T16:29:00.003+08:00

i feel a lot better today after deciding yesterday that i am just going to go out and try! i think there will never be an answer to all the questions that are there in my life for me. but i also know that i not happy how i am now. i challenged myself to eat more than my meal plan asked me to because I WANTED TO! no one told me to do it but i was craving something and i decided to give into it. why would i want to spend my life depriving myself of what i really want? i dont. i enjoyed a beautiful morning of yoga classes at a friend's house and just lounged away the afternoon watching grey's anatomy with my best friend. this is what I wanted to do today. of course i have the ED screaming at me but honestly, it should just go ahead and try to catch my attention. i have overcome the hardest part, which was to bite into the sour apple and try. cause i know that if i never try i'll never know. i trust my body and i want to trust myself. recovery is not about staying and moving from comfort zone to comfort zone. NO! its about getting out of those comfort zones and today i have truly achieved that.

oh and before i forget i just want to bring to your attention the miss world contestant of Australia who was eliminated because she was at a BMI of 15.5!!!! YES this is not acceptable and pretty. i am happy that the world sometimes seems to pay attention to what's healthy and what's not. thank you Australia for that.

the answer is blown in the wind

2009-04-23T20:24:00.003+08:00

after another super hot sunny day here in singapore i am so happy to be lying in my bed and just relaxing. its so exhausting when the sun is so strong and you can just see the heat standing on the streets. i always feel so drained after such days. not to mention that the past 5 days have been like this over here. sorry, i know some of you have horrible weather and you just wished for a bit of sunshine.

however my sunshine today was meeting my good friend misha today with whom i had graduated last year in may. it was so good to see her again after she left to study in Vancouver, Canada. she is so full of life and her whole face just seemed to scream the words 'i love this life'. and then there it was. this feeling of jealousy. as she told me about all the crazy things that she had been through the past half year and all the fun she had at university i just got sadder and sadder. 'So fat ass what have you achieved?' was the first thing that popped into my head. 'you didn't even last your first semester in uni you fool. look at her she's got it all. she's happy, got a boyfriend, lost weight and just looks amazing. why aren't you like her you loser?' end of the story.

yeah i could have enjoyed my day and laughed with my friend but i just didn't know how. i just have so much hate for myself inside me. i dont allow myself to join my mum when she goes for a massage, i dont allow myself to go to the hair dresser for a hair treatment and i dont allow myself to take care of me. WHY? why do i do all these things to myself? i dont know. today i really dont know. i know that i should eat more because i am hungry, maybe that means eating more than what my meal plan says but god damit i'm HUNGRY! i want to eat. so why cant i just do it. what am i so afraid of? i feel so empty and lost today and i dont know where to start to make peace with myself today. there are so many thing floating around in my head that i dont know how to arrange them. i am angry at myself for ruining my metabolism with anorexia. i am so scared it will never recover. why isn't there an answer to all these questions and why does my life have to be this way. i dont want it to be this way. i'll keep searching.... for the answer.

dr prager is my mate

2009-04-22T15:39:00.002+08:00

you heard me. after i tasted the amazing California veggie burgers i was hocked! so thank you dr. prager for making my dinner a tad tastier. even though they tasted a whole lot different than what most meat-sub burgers taste like. They were definitely a very nice alternative to the usual boca burger.

my day has been quite relaxed so far apart from the sper annoying student that i had to teach today. i woke up this morning to beautiful sunshine (DUH! like always) AND the best text message that i have received in a long time. this is what i read out to myself this morning.

'good morning neelamouse (my nickname in the family). i hope you had a good night of sleep. i know that morning are always really hard for you and the negative voice inside you is at its strongest. but not today. today the 22nd april will mark a change for you. tell the ED to get lost and enjoy your day cause you deserve it. i love you with all my heart so please take good care of yourself. your brother jann'

awww... so sweet no? i am just always so amazed about how much energy my brothers puts into keeping me on track. Even though he is thousands of miles away he still cares so much about how i feel. this leads me to the intention of my post today.

we often tend to overlook all the wonderful people that are in our lives to support us. our family, our friends and maybe just your neighbour who has done something for you today. i always forget that these people aren't just nice to me because they are nice, NO these people care about me. they care if i'm happy and they want to see me be happy. i really want to take this day to think about all the wonderful people that have supported me in this progress and thank them inside my heart for reaching out to me and being there.

i know we all have someone that has done something for us today. even if its just your mum who picked you up from classes or your dad who made coffee this morning. we should appreciate these gestures just like any other present we receive. these people are so thankful to have us. but most of all be thankful to yourself. be thankful for who you are and that this life was given to you. i have many moment where in my life where i think i didn't deserve to have this life because i waste it so much. But today i know that i am grateful to be alive.

just on the health note. my blood test were all normal and no need for concern. i'm sure that's mainly due to the fact of all the lovely people out there who had there fingers crossed for me. thank you

i came, i saw and i BOUGHT!!! and i'll travel

2009-04-21T17:15:00.006+08:00

wow what a busy day. i had to run around the hospital today from doctor to doctor getting all the blood test and bone mass scans done for my nutritionist. and now i am finally home and so exhausted even though i just spend the whole day sitting in waiting rooms. Well I read about 147 magazines, browsed through various newspapers and watched some Chinese opera on TV to kill the never ending waiting time. oh well don't we all love doctor's appointments? since i only started seeing my nutritionist recently she wanted to get a full picture of what was happening in my body. if i was lacking any nutrients and where my ever concerning iron levels were bumping around at. i shall receive the result some time tomorrow. i was really scared for getting the bone density scan done cause as i mentioned before i only had one about 5 year back and yeah its been quite a while. much can change. but i try to keep my mind positive on these things.

At the moment one of my best friend's mum is here to visit us. she is actually on transit here and leaving back to Taiwan where she lives with her family at the moment. my best friend is studying in Australia and her mum had just payed her a visit. i was very delighted to find out that i am more than welcome to either visit them in Taipei or visit my best friend in Melbourne. hmmm... both sounds interesting to me. but i must say that i will probably go and see my best friend down under since the last time i went to Australia is already 7 years back. wow time flies.

so i really have a couple of lovely trips coming up for me. end of may i will be flying to Bali with my parents to celebrate my mum's birthday. Bali is paradise. let me tell you: shopping, beach, yummy fresh food, massages, pedicures, manicures and lots and lots of sun.

after that end of June i am going to Geneva and Germany as said for around 3 weeks. then end of August i hope to go to Australia to see my friends.

and OF COURSE my little world cruise would not be complete without finally exploring the beautiful American continent!!!!!

damn right, my brother is going to San Francisco in may with his girlfriend. which will make me the only member of the family who hasn't been there. THAT'S NOT FAIR!!! so thanks to the best brother in the world he promised to take me to America if i will continue to take care and look after myself. WOW!!! what would you do? stay with your ED or travel to America??? hmmm... that's easy! AMERICA HERE I COME!!! oh and my mum agreed to finance my whole foods cuisine. ah this could not get any better.

can you see why i am happy today? sorry ED no chance you can ruin this can you?

i also have an amazing food announcement to make. after seeing these amazing dr. praegers burger i finally found them in my favorite organic store 'eat organic' and YES! CAME,SAW, BOUGHT.... and still to come tonight EAT!!!!! yummo!

i shall give a full review of m lovely finds and examine how they taste after being flown alllllll da way from America to Singapore. these are some lucky burgers. travel around the world.

alright senoritas....
ole!!!

sorry for the kinds spastia outburst on my post but damn today feels so good! and NO i did not come out of the hospital looking like that pumpkin head up there. haha...

here's a toast

2009-04-20T16:46:00.003+08:00

here is a toast to all those who are willing to leave it all behind. forget what was in the past and move on to the future and the beauty it will bring.

enough of lying to myself, enough of disrespecting myself, i am ready to give it all up. i want to care, nourish and respect myself the way that i deserve. let's make this work so the future belongs to us. we can determine where our lives will go and we can proud to be who we are. i am ready to take this step, i am ready to be that little bird jumping out of its parents nest. just to me....

would you like to join me?

okay so if you dont fancy chanmpage i'll have a glass of wine with you, sounds good to me too

spring in the tropics

2009-04-19T16:00:00.005+08:00

my words seem to be very limited at the moment for my blog, while i am working on that i still want to share what i have been seeing lately.... my kind of spring

retail therapy

2009-04-18T16:24:00.005+08:00

woke up this morning and i knew what i wanted to do.....

indulge....

paired with this....

divine

avoiding what's not avoidable

2009-04-17T16:06:00.004+08:00

its Friday! so hopefully all those of you who have had a rough week of working or studying behind you, its the weekend, relax! i woke up this morning once again to an empty house with both my workaholic parents out and about. so i just had my breakfast and went up to the british club. in singapore there are many different clubs and its quite nice to join one cause most of them offer great facilities such as swimming pools, tennis courts, squash courts etc. you can also do loads of classes from scuba diving to yoga. in addition they have several restaurants in the club that offer various cuisines.

i usually go to the british club to go to the gym or relax/tan by the pool. i went to the gym today and the gym is build in such a way that you can watch over the tennis courts and watch people who play there. which is a really nice distraction when there is nothing interesting on the tv or you're one of those people who perceive time to stand still when you are on the treadmill. in the morning from 10-12 there are always the 'tennis ladies' ,as i like to call them, playing on the courts. i have noticed already a while back one lady who plays tennis who is in her 50s i guess getting skinnier and skinnier by the day. well since the tennis ladies didn't play over Easter and they only resumed this week i was quite shocked to see how fragile and scary looking she had become. there was no more doubt in me that this lady was servery anorexic. never the less she seemed to 'enjoy' playing in the burning sun (its about 35-45 degree Celsius out there) while sipping away on her black coffee. JESUS! what do you do?

i just tried to ignore her as much as i could. i just find it amazing that none of the other ladies might be concerned that she collapses right then and there on the court being that underweight. i dont want to be triggering or anything its just that lately i have been seeing so many anorexics around. its crazy! i guess nowadays you're more unique when you DONT have an eating problem in any way.

i'm sure that in a country like america where obesity is such a major health risk and you are bombarded by weight loss advertisment and products it is even harder to keep your head sane. i can just say that i find it really shocking how affected Singapore has become by the whole western culture and the obsession to be thin. the perfect Singaporean women is very very slim, skinny bone build with long skinny fingers and hands, fair as snowhite and carries the latest designer bag on her arm. so many women here get fooled into believing that the 'slimming centres' programs which all cost between 2000-4000$ will help people loose weight without even needing to do exercise. well many women fall for these advertisement and find themselves trapped in the cycles of weight-loss which leads to obsession. the funniest thing is that in most advertisement ladies with a healthy BMI are featured as too fat and then after having received the treatment they are at an underweight BMI. does anyone care? NO at least she lost weight! never mind that she is underweight now. she looks like one of those models in the ad.

i actually googled the website of one of the slimming centres and found some very intersting FAQ

Q: How do I know if I’m over-weight?

A: Lightly squeeze your tummy, arms or hips and if you can pull out more than two inches fat, then you’re likely over-weight. Usually we only concern if these parts look fat but in fact, fat is accumulated all over the body. So now take action to eliminate the excess fat before it becomes a serious issue.

Q: Can I choose specific parts of my body to lose weight from? A: Yes. The beauty of the Marie France Bodyline program is that it can be applied to specific areas of your body where unwanted fat troubles you most. Such as your lower tummy, thighs or legs. It's really no exaggeration when we say you can literally 'sculpt' yourself the perfect figure you've always dreamed about.

Q: Does every new mother need to take slimming treatment in post-maternal period?A: Basically every mother should take slimming treatment because during pregnancy, your fats and skin tissues are greatly stretched. If no slimming treatment is taken in post-maternal period, your muscles will become flabby and the clumsy body figure will be remained.

aha! I guess i learned something new today from these GREAT slimming experts! maybe then i do need to consider taking up a slimming program since i can squeeze out some fat on my tummy and thighs. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS WORLD????

one of the harshest things i have heard of was when i found out about the 'trim-and-fit' program that many schools here practise. this program requires slightly larger, not necessarily overweight students to come in before class and take part in a though fitness program designed to make them loose weight. yes this is happening in schools. there has been much debate whether these programs bring any benefit to the students and whether they encourage ED. but not much action has been taken. mostly because mental disorders like ED are still not accepted in society here.

i didn't intend on posting such a negative and horrible image of Singapore. i love Singapore and this of course does not reflect the opinions of everyone here and i also must admit that Singapore has taken big steps in becoming more aware of ED. they have introduced its first ED Unit in the Singapore General Hospital and are doing a lot more research on ED themselves. However i strongly believe that a lot more needs so be done to change the way our societies work. We have to otherwise we will never be at peace with our body.

this has been my intention for today after i left the British club. i can see this women every week if i want to and let her affect me. i can not tell her to eat, i can not tell her to stay away from playing tennis. but what i can do is pray for her and say to myself 'this lady needs to walk her own path. if she chooses to go down that road, then she will but i cant save her.'

so i will avoid what's unavoidable and see what i want to see!