in- retrospect

in-              retrospect
you apologise

an afterthought

a careless hurt
atoned by
a toolatesorry.

make my heart go
pitterpatter
thudthud

butterflies
in my stomach
turn into

the monsters

that haunt my dreams

in-             retrospect
you are all you
ever should be

my brain's a blur
with a thousand thoughts of
meandyou

you try so hard
to get into my good books

and then

run away

in-             retrospect....

i still
don't know
what to think.

Operation Get Fit: Depression screws with everything.

Before I was serious about losing weight I never cared about what I ate, or how much I ate. I always had a tummy, but I had wafer thin arms and legs and got away with it. When I was really little I hardly ate, anyway - food simply wasn't interesting.

Then when I got to about eleven I began eating ravenously, and shot up from about 4'8" to 5'2" - the leads from my pacemaker snapped (this doesn't even happen during pregnancy, usually), I lost my little-boy figure and got some lovely stretch marks here and there. After various stints of gymnastics, acrobatics, ballet, jazz - none of which I was particularly good at - I began playing basketball quite seriously; in that it was my biggest sporting commitment to date.  I was eating more than my dad, but I was relatively fit for a timee; but eleven was also when depression set in.

It's impossible to describe how mental health and physical health are so deeply interconnected. When I was little I was a dapper little kid, a little fighter; I bore the brunt of my heart condition very well, and I was as healthy as I could be given my medical problems. At about eleven something just went wrong, and I was very depressed for a good three years. Depression in itself is purely a mental thing, but what it makes you do to yourself is quite alarming - you know you should be taking better care of yourself, but you're beyond caring. You just don't have the energy to care.

High school started, I moved away from the basketball stadium and my basketball team, and I sort of lost it. It took me eight years in primary school to form tangible friendships, but I went to a high school quite far away from where I grew up, with only a couple of familiar faces; but I didn't really get along with those familiar faces. I skipped a grade, losing any kind of social status in the process, and starting drooling over anyone remotely Y-chromosone. But I still ate as if I was still growing like a weed (I wasn't - between twelve and sixteen I've grown about an inch) and not really caring what I shovelled down. This was also the height of my ramen addiction - ramen being a rather noxious combination of refined wheat, sodium and a cocktail of chemicals and preservatives.

But this was when food became an obsession - I had become so unhappy and frustrated that I tried to replace everything I wanted with food. I became a coffee fiend, a ramen fanatic, and a faithful worshipper of anything calorie-laden and fattening. I was already unfit, but as I stopped exercising even walking the dogs became such a monumental effort I would go for weeks without properly exercising. Every day I would drag myself up staircases and wind myself if I ever tried to run more than a few metres.  

Now, I don't drink coffee. I work out every day, and I watch what I eat; within reason. I don't deny myself the joys of birthday cake, pour exemple - life is too short to not enjoy your sweet sixteen, and when you're permamently the baby of the grade, it's nice to feel grown up. But most of all, I'm happy - I'm happy beyond words. Last year I really felt like I've shaken off my depression, and although my life is far from perfect it's much more fulfilling, and I'm much, much, happier than I was before.

So, if you're gaining weight, don't look at it as a problem in a vacuum. For me, the real root of the problem was my depression - depression, not laziness or genes or puppy fat or anything else - that had caused my weight problem. I had to face my depression and conquer it before I could even think about shedding pounds. If you're happy, you're halfway to being healthy.

Operation Get Fit: I hate my scales, and my dog hates my workout

I've spent much of Operation Get Fit obsessed with numbers. I know my BMI at the moment is 21.3 but used to be 22.7, which is shockingly close to overweight (which is 23 for Asians, not 24.9 like it is for Caucasians). I know that I am definitely overweight once I'm over 57kg and I'm okay at about 55-56kg, but I only really start feeling good once I'm under 55kg. I know my BWH measurements, and all other sorts of random crap.

But now, that's all out the window.

When I wasn't working out and just Sundowning, I was losing all the surplus weight I gained whilst eating my way through Asia, and that was quick and easy - three kilos in two weeks. But then, it stopped, and it didn't matter whether I ate or starved, I was still 55kg. It was pretty frustrating.

When I first started working out, it went down to 54kg! But then it climbed up, and down, and up, and down, and frankly, I'm sick of it. I quit maths to escape the indoctrination of numbers.

Scales are indiscriminate. They don't care whether you're light or heavy because of the presence or absence of fat, muscle, guts, brain, air...it's all one and the same. But it doesn't work like that. I'm not a walking ball of fat. I'm working out, and I'm feeling good, and I'm looking better. I am not gaining weight, not as fat, anyway, and if my scales don't agree with me then that's the end of our very tempestuous relationship.

My scales are so ancient they should be in a museum - they're one of those tired, world-weary, older-than-thou specimens from your mother's trousseau. It literally throws every number in the book - if you step on it too hard, you'll suddenly gain ten kilos, but I have been known to miraculously become like 30kg if I don't step on it 'right'. 

So that is that. I don't care what I weigh anymore. As long as I feel good, and look good, I'm happy; no matter what number the scales throw at me.

My workout at the moment is a half an hour affair, and it's fun. I can't emphasise how much fun it is to just throw yourself into some hardcore stuff for half an hour, and forget about the dramas of school, and study, and exams, and homework, and ball, and boys. I work out with my iPod which has lots of 'workout' playlists that I've made on iTunes: something understated to warm up to, two tracks of weights, two tracks of cardio and two tracks of dancing, and then another quiet track to cool down to. That's eight tracks, which, in this day and age, is about half an hour. It doesn't have to be very accurate.

But my dog hates it. I race up and down the stairs, I run, walk, jog, skip around the house, and she always thinks I'm rushing around to go out (because I normally fly up and down the stairs collecting random things for my school bag/purse when I go out). I dance to music that she can't hear. She spends my entire workout attacking me (when I'm stretching on the floor) or chasing me up and down the stairs on the off chance I'll walk out the door and take me with her.

Dancing is amazingly fun. Our school did a brief stint of Zumba, which is corny but ridiculously fun, but then they made the oh-so-wise decision to start it again halfway during exams, so it was scrapped. Zumba was fun, but also extremely harcore and quite long - two hours - and I was seriously concerned that my heart condition could not put up with it. I'm not a trained dancer - I mean, I did ballet and jazz a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away - but any girl can swing her hips to the beat. Bellydancing is soooo much fun, and it makes you feel super good - it unleashes this hidden, don't screw with me Amazon in you, and I love it. It gets my endorphins humming.

Operation Get Fit: Keep your pants on...

Update: Down to 54kg, and I have lost TWO INCHES off my waist! At the moment I'm roughly 35-28-37. It would be nice to be, oh, I don't know...37-26-37...;P

I have a leetle weetle problem.

I bought most of my pants that I have now in my wardrobe when I was 58kg and my waist was nearly 30 inches. All my other pants were like, girl sizes, for about a 25 inch waist, so they're all gone, baby, gone.

But now, I'm stuck with all these really nice pants that...don't really stay on. Insert inappropriate joke here.

So now I gotta find all my belts ;)

I'm still Sundowning, which is sometimes a challenge (I mean, during CNY that all went out the window ;P) and going back to school and all the running around and stress has been...slimming, to say the least. But, more importantly I've been, rather uncharacteristically...working out. 

It's really important in year twelve to stay fit and healthy and, being the nerd that I am (I love all my subjects and can't bear to do badly in any of them) I know how easy it is to get bogged down in study and forget about exercising or eating properly. Every morning I do fifty reverse crunches and five five-second planks, which hurt like hell but wake me up, which is hard to do after a good two months of holidays. Then, every day, I do half an hour of stretching, cardio and weights - on weekends I do an hour. When it's not too hot outside I walk the dog. And, in less than a week of doing this, I've lost half a kilo and an inch off my waist. Not bad, huh?

Stalin Smiles

I walk the streets,
Barely a person,
Let alone a woman.

It is as if ink has
Become my mask;
And note paper my veil,
My identity.

It is as if the sweat on my brow,
Is from a man's labour,
Not a woman's dance.
It is as if the swirl of my gown
Is a smithy's apron,

When I walk,
I march a soldier's march.

Somewhere in hell,
Stalin smiles.
I have become one of the

genderless proletariat.

I am glad I was your hone.

But
Shouldn't I get some kind of commission?

I've always found it quite tragic
That when we are mortal

We have nothing to say.

Immortality makes us drunk
And pour out our hearts

But in the real world
You put your armour on

Not afraid of I the alien
But they the comrades.

It is not enough to say sorry
And then continue on as before

But it's okay.

I forget you at the dance of my pen,
And the sway of my hips,

To                and                   fro.

he who was never mine

he who was never mine
wanders lost
and then comes into my open arms
weeping with relief
lulled to sleep by my cracked bleeding lullaby

he who was never mine
hunts the doe in my forest
but only for the chase
abandoning
she that lies scarlet on the forest floor

he who was never mine
sings my praises carelessly
as if he does not see
that i know they mean nothing to him
and everything to me

he who was never mine
has boundless energy
regaling me with the stories
already etched in my soul
tales of a time gone...going...gone.
soon i will walk on

but he will follow

unable to leave
not knowing that he should stay here

in my heart

he who was never mine
would be safe with me

get your bitch on.

So it's the summer before year twelve and, naturally, I'm doing what all year twelve girls do just before the final year of school starts - freak out over ball ;).

Actually, I haven't had a lot to freak out about. Everything is set. The way I like it.

But seriously, ball is just a hormonal signal to the female brain that says GET YOUR BITCH ON.

They've gone crazy.

There's a page of facebook now dedicated entirely to posting a picture of your dress for the whole grade to see to 'prevent doubles'. I'm sorry, but isn't that kind of meant to be a surprise? The only person who knows exactly what I'm going to be wearing is belephant, and she hasn't even seen me all dressed up. It's my little secret that I've literally kept in the closet for years.

Luckily, I haven't had to bow to peer pressure and spoil the surprise because absolutely nobody will have my dress. It's that ugly. No, I had a beautiful gown custom made in Shanghai - and yes, that was back in year nine. And seeing as it is my own personal design, and I have been branded a freak of nature by just about everyone in the grade, it is pretty impossible somebody will show up looking exactly the same as me. Actually, it's probably never occurred to them that the grade skipper might actually show up looking half-decent.

At any rate, even if they did, would they look exactly the same? Would they be Asian, 5'3", 54.5kg with the exact same date, makeup, hair, shoes, etc? No. I like to think that individuality transcends apparel, but apparently nobody agrees with me on that. They're all like 'if anybody gets anything similar I'll kill you' followed half heartedly by 'rofl lol luv ya'. I mean, how do you think the boys feel? All suits look the same! It's just mean to be so self obsessed for something like this. Is it copying if you find something that looks breathtaking on you and somebody else thought it was lovely, too? So what if someone looks similar to you? As long as you yourself look good, it doesn't matter. I will look exactly the same in my ball dress even if everyone else looked the same as me.Because I'm me, and it takes more than a dress to become the kind of person I am. Individuality is not stopping people from doing what you do, but doing things nobody else would dare dream of.   

I just would have thought that friendship and keeping the peace is more important than making sure you look like the odd one out.

On a side note, there are absolutely rubbish resources for people trying to organize a ball. My friend and I had to sort through what felt like the entire world wide web to find the best deal on the limo, etc. After the ball I'll post what I did, and tips, etc.

Operation Get Fit: how the hell do you lose the last five kilos?

So I found it really easy to drop from 58kg to 55kg. It was three kilos, but I lost it in two weeks.

But now I'm stuck in a rut. I've been 55kg for what seems like ages now, and it doesn't matter what I do, it doesn't go up (good) or down (bad).  I feel good, and I look good, but...I know I can do better. I used to be 50kg. It wasn't that long ago. It was before boys and ramen screwed with my head, and stomach. It's like getting 95 in an English essay when you're pushing for 100. You get there eventually, but those last five marks are the hardest to get.

How do you lose the last five kilos? Any tips?

after a month of coldplaY and paramOre it's pUre irony that my life is now playing like a taylor swift song.

it's the week BeforE schooL starts. nOrmally, this is wheN i start panickinG and Willing tIme To go slower. but tHis year, of all years, i'M not. bring it on. bring on ball, and Exams, and graduation.