Broke but beautiful

Finally I made it to the skin specialist. Not a dermatologist as you might think (that appointment is still a few months away - damn waiting lists! I booked that in September). This is a place called skin science. The woman who owns it is a doctor herself who specializes in skin (so basically a dermatologist) except its a private practice - more like a clinic offering a service and selling products and with no waiting list!. She works in collaboration with the dermatologist I will eventually get to see. I went there two years ago when she was just starting up and got some counsel on proper makeup and moisturizer but it was damn expensive and not hugely amazing so I didn't go back. Low and behold after two years my skin is still shit and probably worse than ever (starting september because I was lucky to have two months of nice skin this year). Then my sister got me a gift certificate to Skin Science so I had no excuses not to give it another try. Glad I did. This time she was more established and had a computer imaging system to picture my skin - the wrinkles (none! hellz yeah), the texture, the bacteria, the UV damage (below average - yes!), and the inflammation. This was to investigate and pinpoint what might be contributing to my acne. Turns out almost everything! She recommended several products to add to my routine and blue-light treament to get rid of the bacteria (I am now suckered into paying for blue light treaments twice a week for six weeks - this better damn well work!). I have added a special toner and high end moisturizer to my routine as well as an antiimflamtory cream to wear at night. I feel good about this - it seems to be helping already! She also suggested I change my diet a bit to reduce the inflammation in my skin (the picture was actually quite scarey and now I am fully motivated to try and reduce inflamation). Goodbye sugary drinks ... my beloved ice tea.... for I am now on a low glycemic index diet (translation: healthy diet with lots of fiber, no processed foods, white breads, etc. and less sugary foods and drinks). I consider my lifestyle to be pretty healthy anyways so there are only very few things I can think of to change that will help combat this problem. I may also have to cut back on my beautiful chocolate milk - the light of my life... adios mi leche chocolate. I will miss you... but probably still drink you once for awhile as I my mom just recently bought a new jug...

Blog reflections.

I read over my last blog again and I feel I did a pretty good job of getting out my rant... except at the end. I guess I was just caught up in a fleeting emotion and feared I would have to care about what's going on on "the other side" (ie. rumours, etc.). I guess it was a ligitimate concern in the moment but upon further reflection I decided it would be better if I just cared less. I'm actually feeling alot freer now, like I don't have to worry about that stuff, nor should I. Maybe losing friends is some kind of weird fear I have but I may have exagerated a bit by suggesting I would need to monitor it, haha. New plan: ignore any "odd" manipulations of facebook done by friends and continue to use the social network as I normally would. Treat friends with same respect and on real world terms (confront when necessary, otherwise consider realtionship to be untarnished by strange facebook behaviour... within reason). Maybe this is the key I was missing the whole time.

On another note - I've now made my lunch two days in a row! Yay! I'm finally doing what most people started doing in grade eight.... at 22. Oh New Years! How I love resolutions!

I have also attempted to liven up my blog by given it a creative title! yay! This may need work. opinions?

Facebook Wars.... misery loves company

The year 2009 was definitely a time of change and transition for me. Some were bad and some were good. One of the bad ones was the slow death of a friendship... to some extent it seems like it was only staying alive via life support (a combination of my patience, my inability to come out and express my feelings, and my feeling of obligation to "be nice" despite many an angry time). Then the plug was pulled and it died only to ressurect as a brain eating zombie who's medium was/is facebook.
I'd like to believe I tried my best to burry the frienship and move on with my life, taking special consideration of mutual friends and trying not to put them in the middle, but there was this one tie that I didn't break - oh that good old technology facebook. A whole other world is in virtual land and if that's the only place the zombie can get me now, well then I have my own personal zombie land going on. At first I decided not to "delete" this contact, nor did i put her on limited profile, or any of the other usual things people do when they're pissed off at someone. I just let it be. My sister told me once that the thing that annoyed her the most about past friends is when they delete you but keep a bunch of people on their list who they never talk to and you know they aren't friends with...slap in the face! so I decided that in light of this and the fact that a close history with many a good time did once exist , I would avoid "expressing" myself via facebook wars. However, the other side did not have the same mentality...
I was immediately put on limited profile... Whatever. I noticed it. It wasn't that annoying as I rationalized what I believed was her perspective and why she would do that. It was like this for awhile. I knew however that she was watching my facebook because I posted a happy birthday to one of our mutual friends who is closer to her than me (I did not post happy birthday on her wall a month earlier and I heard through the grapevine that she was mad about this. I was just surprised she expected that from me after what happened...) Later that day, I decided to check if I was still on limited profile for some goshdarn reason, only to discover it was even more limited than before. To the point where all this person was to me on facebook was a profile picture - "this person only shares certain information with everyone" was all it said. I realized she was pissed off but she was always pissed off so I didn't feel particularly bad about it. Life continued for awhile longer.
Then I decided to have a new years party that was kind of last minute. Since her attending events still showed up in my news feed for some reason, I was already aware in november that her and a few other friends were going out for new years. Anyways, just before christmas I invited a bunch of people to my news years party, including two guys that came a few years ago for new years... within minutes one of my good friends accepted and on the news feed it said "{name} is attending last minute news years party". About twenty minutes later it showed a post from former friend to both those two guys I invited "you should come out with us for new years!!" (inviting them with her...). It was too conincidential, especially since we both know those two guys don't like clubbing, so I came to the conclusion that she must be monitoring what was going on and then trying to make people choose.... or at least those two guys... Once again, I felt a bit frustrated and annoyed but tried to let it go and brush it off as my own paranoia... New years came and went.
I wanted to see pictures of my friends who didn't spend new years at my house... is there anything so wrong with that? Only to find that at least two of them had put me on limited profile to their pictures... why? I know this is specific to me because mutual friends can see these pictures. What is going to happen from me seeing their fun? absolutely nothing besides me wasting time ... what did I do to them that made them have to hide their life from me? (other than being addicted to facebook...). I was a bit annoyed at this too...
In light of a new year, a time to past the past in the past and move forward, combined with this frustration, I decided that I would cut off the zombie from my life and hope that it would all fizzle out. I deleted former friend. I thought it would be over.
A couple days later I noticed that a few of our mutual friends had deleted me from their facebook... but not aquaintances that I had introduced them to? I guess my fears have been realized. The one thing that kept annoying me this whole time was my own fear that somehow zombie w0uld consume other people too... I kept telling myself - have faith that these people are mature and that they see you as what you are and not what someone tells them you are. That they rely on their own personal interaction with you to determine your character and not on someone elses... that they will realize that you haven't done anything wrong to them and that what goes on between you and one of their friends is only between you and that person... I kept holding on to this faith and the knowledge that if someone does decide otherwise that they are not a true friend anyways... The most annoying part of it is knowing that these people made their choice without ever asking me about my feelings or my side... without truly knowing me... which I guess is also an influence on why they did it.
I'm not devasted by the loss, as it shows me who are my true friends, I'm just annoyed that zombie is still trying to get me. Especially since, for some reason.... there are incongruencies... like my sister is on limited profile to one of my friend's page (probably so I can't see pictures through her) but I am only on partially limited. I speculate that this friend was asked to put me (and possibly my sister too) on limited but didn't want me to be mad so only limited certain things from me, but all from my sister (assuming she probably wouldn't notice anyway). Then close friends who were deleted by former friend at the same time as I was blocked (haha, I'm blocked... btw), and who are also on limited profile to same people who deleted me are not deleted by them even though they NEVER talk and are only aquaintances (mostly via fairmont vacation). It doesn't make sense.

You may be wondering how I noticed all this stuff. The answer is simple: Farmville. It's a very addictive game that allows me to spend more than an hour on facebook all in one sitting... you can also get stuff to level up from people posting things on their wall (it shows up in news feed) so reading news feed takes up part of that time. The problem now is that I need to reduce my overall time on facebook because of school. Usually its not that hard for me. Now I have a new concern though... and that is checking to make sure my friends don't start dropping like flies... then I will know that something is going on.... like a rumour has been made - probably as a result of the zombie. I just wish I could show and tell everyone that I have been doing nothing related to former friend to have any new rumours emerging. I've been keeping to myself, having lunches with my friends, and enjoying my life outside facebook (not including farmville).

2010 --> New Year, New Blogs...

On New Years day my family had a nice dinner at Sorrintino's, a fancy italian restaurant. The topic of the movie Julie & Julia came up and my uncle mentioned he was interested in starting a blog, which is a pretty cool thought because he would actually have something to blog about. I remember watching that movie and feeling inspired to blog too but then I realized I don't have time to be a regular blogger so I'll just have to postpone the motivation until I'm out of school. When my sister and cousin saw the movie they were inspired to cook! We once had a thought that we would make a food blog together... that brings me to...
New years resolutions?

--> getting in shape - always a resolution... not really specific to january start. Last year had the same resolution and of course followed through, haha, but its easy for me because its already part of my lifestyle... therefore its less of a resolution now and more of a maintainance schedule...
--> eating healthy? Also seems to be an ongoing resolution. This year I have two main goals: no fast food - even at school - which means I'll have to attempt to make my own lunch everyday. The other goal is to do Lent. In February (whenever Lent starts) I'm goint to give up pop! NO POP! Not even when its the only drink in the house. Hello tap water :-P

--> Saving money - last year I made a resolution not to use my VISA card as much but I actually ended up using it more! New Years Resolution FAIL. This year I will not make that resoltion because I have too many things planned that involve the need to use my credit card (ie. trips, workout classes) So instead, this year I hope that NYR2 (no fast food) will help me save money... So far I'm off to a good start. Haven't had a single fast food in 4 days! The only fast food I am willing to buy if i have to (not counting tea from coffee places) is Lentil soup from Pita on the Run at school. On another note, I think I need to purchase more soup thermoses...

--> Journaling - or blogging, in whatever form journaling decides to take... I'm going to record my thoughts more. If there's one thing I've learned from doing so in the past, it's that it help you track and view your own development - mentally, spiritually, and sometimes even physically. And it helps reveal patterns that occur in your life and that may lead to future resolutions. Speaking of...
Wow! I just reviewed my posts from last january and man it must have sucked. So maybe I'll update a bit about "those" feelings. Sometime I still feel a bit of "miss" (maybe a fraction of a percent of what those blogs were describing), but I've moved on now and the reality is that NOW is much better than then. I still feel like on some level I've lost a kindrid spirit - like an energy connection. Maybe we'll meet again in some other life, when our physical realities better match our inside worlds (this probably sounds crazy). Now I've found another kindrid spirit and there is much more balance between inside and out. Neither area is perfect but if I was an engineer and I quantified the amount on either side, the sum of the parts would make a bigger whole than before. I guess the only thing to do is pray that all friends and lovers past will find happiness in their own lives.

Anyways, an exciting few days are coming up! Reiki tomorrow, massage wednesday, and fairmont thursday!