As promised

As promised, here is an exfoliant recipe:


1/3 cup of Sweet Almond Oil
1/4 cup of dark brown sugar
2 drops of Lavender (for calming) or Lemongrass Essential oil
A drop of Vanilla extract (optional).

Remember to mix it thoroughly....and voila! You can always substitute the sugar and essential oils for finely diced and chopped ginger. Just becareful around the eye area.

Guess where I found this recipe? The Metro Newspaper! I found it by chance as I never read this paper.

If you want to substitute any of the essential oils make sure that the one you want to substitute for is safe for the face/skin. If you look up aromatherapy on google I'm sure you will be able to find it in no time.

Remember, exfoliating is nice, but the nice result you get after every treatment can easily diminish if you do it everyday. So limit your exfoliating to once a week. Your skin will thank you.

You can always go all out by having a bath with bath salts or an essential oil blend following or prior to the exfoliation. So now go relax and enjoy.

It's hard to post pictures when you're at work.

Hello everyone, I am trying to get over the last half an hour of my day. I'm really antsy because I left my house at 6:00am to go running at the AC. Anyhow I've become restless and decided I post something. But I don't have anything on make-up, yet. Hopefully later on tonight.

But I do have something else on my mind. Books. Postcolonial novels. After having a conversation with my cousins about how they hated taking English courses I was thinking about some of the postcolonial novels I read in class. Then I was thinking about some of the best books I read in 2009. Here is a preliminary list (no particular order):

1. Black Skin White Masks - Frantz Fanon

2. Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee

3. Life and Times of Michael K. - J.M. Coetzee.

Okay I know two of the three are written by the same writer, but they were damn good. I keep going back and forth choosing which one I like better, but I can't! I was reading Michael K on the streetcar on my way to work, and as this nice gentleman was getting off (I'm sure he was my age when he read it) he said, "You have good taste in books." Let me tell you that made my whole week! I don't even know if anyone has ever told me that I had good taste in books! And you know what, Michael K was good and so was Disgrace. What I love about Coetzee is that his narrative is so simple and so subtle, but his subtlety is what makes his narrative/story so powerful. I think that is one of his talents. He's also just so fascinating and mysterious, let alone being considerably handsome at 70 years old! Hahaha!

When I feel like it, I might talk about either books more. I would go into Fanon, but seriously you are going to wish I never started. I'm kind of snobby about Fanon because I'd rather talk about him with people who really appreciate him over tea :D

Here are some other books that I enjoyed and that I really recommend:

1. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

2. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

3. Amsterdam - Ian McEwan

I would be open to recommendations, but don't get offended if I don't read it right away. I am currently trying to read 4 books (all 400pg plus, of course) all at once. Talk to me in a month. Hopefully I will have more time.

I did it!!!

Good morning, I can't sleep although it is still so early, on a SATURDAY! But I have good news to report: I ran the whole 5k without stopping in less than 40 minutes. It felt really nice. The good thing about the track at the athletic centre is that there is air conditioning so I felt some resistance while running. If not, I think everyone would just suffocate from each other's BO hahahaha.

I think I can attribute my success to two things:

1. Goal setting. Before I went to the gym I wrote down what I wanted to accomplish in the gym and stuck by it. It really made things coherent and when I jotted it down, I committed to it. In addition to the run I did some lunges and worked on toning my triceps as they have been long forgotten. I also ended it with some yoga when I got home to stretch everything out.

2. Breathing through my nose. I used to have a bad habit of breathing through my mouth. I am not sure if why exactly it is not as beneficial as breathing through your nose but it made a HUGE difference.

Anyway until next time :D

Trying to keep fit

After such a lazy week, I have decided to end it off by going for a run. I just got my membership at the Athletic Centre and since I had to pay for it (for a discounted price) I have promised myself that I will not let it go to waste. It works out perfectly too because the membership expires the day we are moving in to the condo! Although I have been working on other cardio, I haven't ran in 4 months, I hope I don't embarass myself, but maybe that will just motivate me to keep at it and get stronger. Ahhh wish me luck!