D.I.Y. Spa Evening~

Hellooo!!

I've always wanted to try to create my own spa experience at home, and with winter showing no sign of being vanquished, what better time to do so than now? After all, everyone has such busy schedules these days that we hardly ever have any time to ourselves - something we don't even think about doing all too often. But as my yoga teacher keeps on emphasizing, putting aside time to focus on yourself is so important for your mental well-being!

This is such a fun idea you can do for a girl's night in, or for something you can do with your significant other, all on a student budget~

So you've decided you want to have your own spa experience now?

The first thing to think about is where to hold the session. A lot of professional spa treatments involve lying down in a comfortable place, so a living room or a bedroom are good options. We chose a bedroom, and immediately set about cleaning it as there is definitely something to be said for the ancient art of feng shui, and given that some people believe that a person's room is a reflection of the state of their internal self, I do believe that an uncluttered space will make you feel more relaxed.

Next, you need to decide on what you are going to do:

Manicures/pedicures
Face masks
Massages
Steam treatments
Aromatherapy

And what you will need! We went to Chinatown and picked up some incense sticks for £1.50, and in MUJI we picked up a scented candle and a bottle of essential oil for ~£7 which turned out to be our only expenses for this night - not bad, given that I already had some massage oil lying around and a lavender scented comforter that was oh so soothing when it had been heated and was wrapped around my neck.

Recreating a luxury experience in your own home is all about the details - we wanted to feel like we were being treated so fluffy white towels and bathrobes were a must!

Other details included some preparation before we began - switching on the heating to warm up our space, and lighting an incense stick to infuse the room with a calm and relaxing scent. We also had a supply of green tea on tap, as well as a soothing soundtrack that was oh so kindly supplied to us by Youtube.

I wanted to try a face mask and prepared one by mashing a banana, some honey and a few drops of lemon juice, but never got round to trying it out that evening. In the morning, it ended up becoming a sticky black goo, something I will spare you from seeing!

As it was quite late in the night (half ten...eleven?) when we started, we only got round to massages and steam - for the steam, we had a bowl of hot water infused with a few drops of lemon essential oil that we used to unclog our pores. But next time, there will be more! :3

All in all, something a little out of the ordinary, and well worth the preparation!

Yishi xxx

My Thoughts on Dakota Rose a.k.a Kotakoti

Hey guys,

Hope you're well and enjoying this Friday evening! (✿◠‿◠)

Song of the day: Labyrinth of Dreams by Nox Arcana (I love atmospheric music like this!)

Today I want to talk to you about Dakota Rose, a.k.a Kotakoti, a girl who has recently become famous on the Internet for looking like a doll. I've been following the rise of Dakota Rose for a few weeks now, ever since I came across a post about her from Cindy Tang's blog. In the post, people were arguing about whether or not she Photoshopped her images, and I found myself morbidly fascinated by the hype/love/hate around this Internet sensation, so I decided to research her a bit.

You can read more about her here:

Her gorgeous photos

The case of Dakota Rose

Dakota's Encyclopedia Dramatica

Kiki Kanniball, her sister

When I first started reading about her and her family, I was completely shocked at the amount of drama that she and her family have gone through. I saw some of their old Youtube videos where they were making fun of others, saw how they acted on camera and what they thought was acceptable to post on the Internet. After comparing it to how Dakota wants to be portrayed now: a cute, sweet, innocent girl, I found my jaw dropping in disbelief at just how blatant this girl is with her unashamed intentions of capitalising on the Asian market... ๏_๏

She found a niche where she could play her looks and styling to her advantage and decided to not so subtly capitalise on it. Her tags on Youtube videos are all in Japanese, Korean or Chinese, and she lists her keywords as: barbie doll, blow up doll etc. How much more obvious can you get?

If she was a genuinely sweet person then I wouldn't have felt so meh about it, but at the time, I found it pretty offensive that she was trying to take advantage of half a continent of girls where the cultural ideals of beauty are already beyond anything achievable without a certain level of high maintenance: hair dye, curls, circle lens, nails etc. i.e. styling beyond recognition.

On a side note, personally, I think the gyaru style is pretty cute, but prefer the ulzzang one as it's far more natural and achievable by an everyday Asian girl. Maybe I'm coming at this from a Western angle, having never actually lived in Asia, but as I've been infused with a healthy dose of British cynicism, I just find it depressing that so many girls feel like they have to go through all of this to look acceptable, and that there are entire shows all about makeovers, with it being completely acceptable to make fun of the girls before they have their makeover!

Anyway, going back to Dakota. What made me raise an eyebrow and then some was the fact that she denies Photoshopping any of her images, claiming that every image is her natural self. She denies using Aftereffects to edit her videos, thus to everyone who believes her, she has created a perfect image and a new 'level' of beauty that people are either worshipping or turning anorexic for.

On tumblr, there are whole blogs dedicated to outing her, even a forum: Pretty Ugly Little Liars.

I think the images she has created for her new online persona are beautiful, and her outfits are beautiful too, but by lying to thousands of people, by pretending to be sixteen and half Japanese to land a contract with Bravo Models, she is only setting herself up for a fall.

There are people who have done bad things in their past, (hey, I'm definitely no angel myself!), but by acknowledging the past and their mistakes, they can grow and heal. But all the lies that Dakota has created only serve as a cage, trapping the ugliness on the inside. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, since by becoming an Internet celebrity, there will be so many people watching her every move, both fans and haters alike.

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

And this is a photo of the ducks at my college:

Peace out!

Yishi x

Why I Love Music (◕‿◕✿)

Hello there lovelies! :)

Following on from my other small posts of randomness, today I want to talk to you about a small snippet of my life: my experiences with music.

Song of the day: L'Orage by Burgmuller (this is me playing it badly ahahahahaha :|)

I don't know about you guys, but in my community, back in the day, Asian parents tended to copy each other. A lot. You send your kid to this school, I'll send mine there too. Etc. So when mine heard that a close family friend's six year old son was taking up the violin, they asked me if I wanted to learn too. I remember saying that I wanted to learn the flute, but somehow I ended up with a violin in my hands in a violin class.

It was incredibly frustrating at first. I was never amazingly talented like my younger brother was, but I worked hard (shed many tears along the way) and reaped the benefits. Later on, I started the piano, and then the gu zheng:

Source

I tried to learn the guitar at uni but I could never stretch the bar chords so gave up... :(

Now I wish I'd kept up with these instruments because music is such a wonderful way to be creative. Music meant a lot to me when I was growing up ~ it was a way of expressing myself and a way to take a break from studying. But since I started uni, I began to let it slide, and I realised that I'm forgetting things, skills that I worked so hard for as a kid.

In fact, I became so wrapped up in other things that I was only reminded about all of this when a friend who is learning musical theory told me the other day that he wished he had the advantage of having a musical background. When you're pretty much bottom of your academic year group, it's quite hard to remember that there are things that you are or once were good at. In fact, it's been so long that someone was envious of me that this was a kind of a wake up call for me! :|

So tonight, I turned up to an orchestra rehearsal for a concert on Saturday, took my violin out, and played for two and a half hours. At first, it felt a bit strange but I found that I still had some remnants of muscle memory, and then it all came flooding back, as if I'd rediscovered a long lost friend!

The point I wanted to make is that tonight, I learned that you shouldn't neglect the things you are good at, or things that were once very important to you as your talents are part of who you are, so neglecting them means neglecting a part of yourself~ (✿◠‿◠)

Ah, life lessons. Don't we just love them?

Out of interest, do you sing or play any instruments? :D

Yishi x

If I could have a superpower...

...then mine would be the ability to fly.

Without a doubt.

To me, there is just something inherently fascinating and appealing about having a pair of wings or being able to defy gravity, which often translated itself into dreams I had when growing up. They don't come as often as they used to now, but when they do, it's such a mind rush!

Song of the day: Wings of a Butterfly by HIM (oh this song brings me back many many years!)

Maybe subconsciously, I just want to be an angel.
(image source unknown :S)

I know it sounds a bit weird to describe a feeling for something that I have never experienced, since how can you do such a thing if you have never felt it before? We covered this philosophical concept during my second year when I studied History and Philosophy of Science, and in the end, I guess it must just be a conglomeration of other feelings all smooshed together ~ theme park rides, hurtling downhill on a bike or a sled, jumping high high high on a trampoline.

All of these experiences give me the same thrill and adrenaline rush that I get in those dreams when I'm 'flying' out of the playground yelling "so long suckers", when I'm on a secret mission to save the world or when I'm flying away from people who are chasing me...probably because they do not wish for me to fulfill my world saving duties. HMMM. Does anyone else have dreams like these? O_O

This would avoid the hole in outfit problem.
(source)

Imagine the kind of scenery that you'd be able to witness from way up there? How awesome it would be if you could skip traffic queues, the money that you could save on transport?

Maybe the reality would be completely different to how I perceive it to be in my dreams. Maybe it would be really cold up in the sky, maybe I'd get airsick. And maybe it would just get plain annoying having to cut holes into the back of every outfit you wear to fit your wings through them. I'm not sure I could ruin so many clothes!

But since I'll never be able to find out, I can still dream, right? ^^

If you could have any superpower in the world, what would yours be?

Yishi xxx

P.S. On an unrelated note, I have done a Seven Deadly Beauty Sins meme on my style blog, so please check it out! :D

Today I won an iPad 2

And I don't even like Apples.

This afternoon, I experienced the awkward silence when a piece of cotton wool falls into your lab experiment and soaks up the measly single gram of product that you have painstakingly spent the last few months making. Luckily, we managed to recover most of it. As if the day wasn't exciting enough, at 6pm, we had a fire alarm and what I presume to be a real fire at the chemistry department! So I didn't get home until hall was about to close. After cycling home, I bumped into my gym buddy F at the main entrance to my college just as a taxi pulled up.

Using the high pressure tactics that only a seasoned salesman could employ, he managed to convince me to get into a taxi with him and go to a company presentation at the Cambridge Business Park. What sold it to me?

The free pizza.

So we turned up, and I ate a whole pizza's worth of Dominoes. Since I hold no interest in software, I didn't really pay too much attention to the presentations.

Neither did the other guys from Selwyn.

However, from what I gather, the Redgate employees have so much fun that I don't know how they find the time to do any work.

Anyway, there was a raffle, and being the strategic sharks that we are, a group of eight of us decided to pool our tickets together in increase our chances of winning the iPad 2 that was on offer. I had a feeling that 197 was going to be a lucky number but I decided to pool anyway...but sadly, logic failed me for once!

I went for the risk averse route, since the expected return is the same ~ a £400 prize with 8 times less chance of winning, as opposed to £50 with 8 times more chance of winning.

My number was drawn, and I looked onwards in horror as I realised the £400 that could've been mine had now dwindled to a £50 share...

One of the guys, F in fact, actually bailed out of the pool at the last second, but he told me that he'd rather be him than me, since he came and left with nothing, whereas I could've had much more... >__<

We made F take the obligatory photo.

I'm still in shock.

Like, I just don't win things. It's not in my genes.

But since I came here purely on a fluke with no intentions or interest whatsoever, I guess it's just a case of you win some and you lose some, right? So it's funny how quickly things change when the stakes become high. Guess this is why I should never get into gambling.

Guess it's just ironic that the girl who despises all things Apple ends up with the iPad 2.

If you are interested in buying it, do let me know ~ it's white, wireless and has 16GB worth of love...! Plus it comes in a pretty Redgate company bag.

Have you ever won anything of high stakes value before?

Yishi xxx

Tag, you're it!

Hey there, happy 29th February! Did you know that traditionally, girls can propose to guys on this day? ^^

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I got tagged by the lovely Harley, and since I'm such a slow coach, I've only just caught up with the game!

Song of the day: Rival by Mintjam (I do believe this is the first Japanese song I've posted on here!)

So, here's how you play:

♥ Put the rules of this Tag on your blog.
♥ Everyone tagged should tell 4 things about themselves, answer the 4 questions asked by the person who tagged you, tag 4 other people and ask them 4 different questions.
♥ Let the people whom you tagged know you've done so.
♥ Don't tag anyone who's been tagged before.
♥ Really do tag 4 others, and don't go all "if you want to, take this tag".

.:♡*♥*♡:.

OK, here we go! Firstly, four pieces of information about myself...

1.) I like to knit things. I learned this ancient craft for kicks back when I was a kid, forgot about it for over fifteen years and picked it up again last October. Let me tell you now that if you come out of the closet to me as a knitter, then I will forever consider you cool.

See the little belt on Snowy? That's the first thing I ever knitted!
But it was supposed to be a scarf.
Oh well.

A Christmas present I made for a friend! ^^

A work in progress...

2.) The state of my dorm room is a measure of my sanity. When people are in my room, I will automatically start to tidy it.

Right now this room suggests an intermediate state of mind, in which I am clawing my way back to a state of normality i.e. nothing is going wrong with my lab project right now fingers-crossed-don't-jinx-this!

3.) A recent medical test has concluded that I am allergic to cinnamic alcohol.

This is a chemical that is found in perfumes and perfumed cosmetic products. If you have any product that smells of cinnamon, daffodil, hyacinth or jasmine, then chances are, it will contain cinnamic alcohol and I will break out into a rash if I stand next to you after a very very long period of time.

Yum yum.

4.) I can spin pens:



But not like that though.

I only know the basic tricks ~ thumbaround, reverse thumbaround, sonic, and the charge...all of which I learned last year instead of studying.

Being able to spin pens makes you look like you know what you are doing when you are sitting in the exam hall.

.:♡*♥*♡:.

Now for Harley's questions:

What would you like your last meal to be? You can have as many courses as you like.

Uhm, this is a bit of a toughie. I'm pretty terrified of death, and live in the delusion that one day my consciousness will be able to be downloaded into a badass clone of myself. And then I could eat and eat and eat and download my consciousness into another clone to eat more, and do other things in between, so this meal would in fact be never-ending. Yeah.

If you could travel back in time, what time would you visit?

I'd travel to the future and nab myself a piece of machinery that would enable me to fly. Although if I could only go back in time, then I think I'd like to visit Ancient Egypt and convince them to make a statue of me that is bigger and better than the Sphinx. Or to when I'm a child and warn my younger self about my mistakes. Of course that'd probably result in some kind of paradox wherein I destroy my present self by changing the past, but who knows? Maybe the new me will have succeeded in world domination and then it would be all worth it? But then it wouldn't be cool if the me me wasn't around to see it...

If you could make one book/movie character real, and bring them into your life, who would it be?

Artemis Fowl. Because the world needs more teenage criminal masterminds. Because he is Irish and because he believes in fairies.

What keeps you awake at night?

The fear that if I fall asleep, I may dream of disproportionately large fish.

Like the ones you can see here, only bigger, and not as colourful:

.:♡*♥*♡:.

OK, I'm done! Now, who to tag...*squints*...eeny meeny miny mo...I choose you, Pikachu! Only kidding, I tag: Kimmy, Junjun, TGTBATB and Michy!

Questions I have for you aaaaaaaaaaaare:

1.) What would your dream house look like?
2.) If you could have any magical power in the world, what would it be?
3.) What makes you embarrassed?
4.) If you were given a coconut right now, how would you open it?

Go forth, spread the tag, and everyone else, I'd love to see your answers in the comments! :D

Yishi xxx

[Links] Asian magazines and other fun things!

Hey guys, hope you are enjoying the weekend! I've decided that I will include a few links every now and then to things I've seen online that may or may not be of interest to you.

Song of the day: Mr Writer by Stereophonics (gotta love this classic!)

First up, two magazines on Asian culture that are available digitally and in English:

Click on the images above to be taken to the respective magazines. Aeris is a magazine geared towards Chinese youth, and I first came across them because their PR agents had contacted my brother and posted him some issues to distribute around Cambridge (how random!? O_o), whilst Just Seoul is all about Korean pop culture - I came across this via a Soompi thread. I'm pretty excited to be honest, because it is so difficult to get hold of Asian magazines in print here in the UK, so I do hope that more people jump on board and start to deliver content digitally (and in English xDD). If you know of any good Japanese ones, please let me know since I have not been able to find any yet!

Secondly, I want to show you a tutorial I found on yesstyle to make a hooded vest which just looks so damn awesome:





The creative forces in me keep on demanding for me to try this, but right now there are so many other things that I need to do...for instance, study, write the dissertation, look for a job... work out if it's possible for me and the ex to ever be friends again because it's been ten days now since we fell out and stopped speaking to each other... >_< 

On a final note:




Lot's of love, and have a great weekend! :)

Yishi xxx

White Rabbit

Hey everyone! Hope you're well! It's been a busy week, so sorry for not posting as frequently as before... :)

Song of the day: Crazy by Teen Top ♡ (siiigh, the lyrics to this song makes me a little sad when I listen to it but it is so addictive... :/)

Since it's the beginning of the month, I'll let you in on a superstition that I learnt at the playground back in primary school and have kept going ever since:

At the beginning of the month, if the first thing you say is, "white rabbit, white rabbit" then you will have good luck for the rest of the month! ^^

Fifteen years later, with the advent of google, I've now come to learn that this superstition has its roots in British folklore, dating back in print to 1922 although some believe it goes as early as the 1800s! I've also heard of the lucky rabbit's foot too ~ I guess the rabbit is just a lucky animal altogether!

Not quite a white rabbit but Shaguar will do! Urgh, my eyes need so much tender loving sleep right now...!! @_@

I used to have a pet rabbit called Snuffles, and my brother had one called Muffy. Like my brother and I, Snuffles and Muffy were siblings too, and they were given to us by my primary school friend D♡ back when I was around twelve years old. Snuffles was a white rabbit with black spots, and she had a very good natured temperament, although she grew to be very lazy and had a characteristic way of sitting down as if she was a roosting chicken. Muffy was brown with a white spot, and he always had a curious look about him. He was very energetic, and when it came to sunset, he would go a bit crazy and race around the rabbit run, often leaping into the air in a wild dance.

I have one or two photos around somewhere ~ will post them up as soon as I locate them! I really enjoyed taking care of our rabbits, and kept them for around four years but sadly, one night in summer, we forgot to put them away and they got eaten by a fox. This was a really sad time for me as I had my GCSE exams coming up, and it was the first time that I had experienced death on a personal level. Unfortunately, we haven't had any pets since then... :'(

On a lighter note, someone linked me to a really cute video:



White rabbit also reminds me of a type of Chinese sweet which I really really liked as a kid:

Mmmmm, tastes like childhood!

It's milky and creamy, coated in rice paper and lasts ages in your mouth! ^^

Going back to things that are going on in my life, my friends and I have started a weekly Dominoes pizza and movie night: last week, we watched Taken (bleh) and this week we watched Three Kings (^_^). Since it was the guys who chose the movies each time, it's always been action-based but hopefully, the girls will get the chance to pick something next week hehe~

By the way, I have done my first product review at My Styled Chopsticks so if you have a spare few seconds, it'd be great if you could check out that post!! :)

On a final note, do you have any superstitions and have you ever had any pets?

Yishi xxx

One nil to me...

SUCCESS!! After a month and a half long battle against Costco, I have finally won my claim! That's one to me, nil to you, corporate conglomeration! :D

Song of the day: Snoop Dogg Millionaire by Wild Animals and Chase & Status

The story starts towards the end of November. Picture this, a stressed Masters student running around labs all day, struggling with a synthesis project that just refused to co-operate, with the only thing to look forward to being a relaxing evening in front of the screen, surfing the net or Skyping with the now ex. So...it was pretty much a soul destroying moment when my dear laptop decided to give up the ghost. After an initial panic, I took it to the PC doctor, my college techie, hoping with all my heart that he could fix it. He told me that unfortunately the graphics chip was faulty as there was a problem with the connectivity and soldering, but he managed to get it temporarily working by sealing up the vents and wrapping the laptop up in bubble wrap before overheating the poor thing! This supposedly melted the solder and reconnected the chip to the motherboard, and whilst it worked, I could not help but wonder what this treatment was doing to the rest of my lappy!

After doing some research, I found out that this graphics chip issue was known in the geek world as the NVIDIA Defect. It was a widespread manufacturing fault, affecting millions of laptops and had been a problem since 2007/2008. In fact, there had even been lawsuits against NVIDIA for this defect.

I came across a wonderful forum called Nvidia Defect that was dedicated to the issue and gave step by step idiot-proof instructions on how to get a satisfactory resolution, since I quickly learned that as the defect was inherent upon purchase, by the Sale of Goods Act (1979) I was entitled to make a claim against the retailer even if my warranty had expired.

And so began a long and arduous process of formal letter sending and emails to Costco's Head Office. At first, I could not believe how sneaky they were - they kept on trying to deny responsibility and to redirect me to the manufacturer. But according to the Sales of Goods Act, it is legally up to the retailer to resolve the issue. I knew that I was right, so I persisted, adopting my most formal and professional mannerisms to ensure that I was taken 100% seriously.

One month of persistence, Engineer's reports, and polite but snappy emails later in which I cited the Act several times, Costco finally admitted responsibility. They collected my laptop and took it away for inspection a few days before the new year, since they didn't seem to trust the independent Engineer's report I obtained as proof of an inherent defect. This bit dragged out for ages, since on a professional level, I guess the New Year isn't really the best time for people to be productive, but finally, I got a result!

I have authorised a refund on your notebook.

I have asked for our Repair team to return your Notebook so that you can
gather a refund from your local Warehouse.

I now consider this matter closed.

I guess this is the first time in my life that I've really stood up for something that I believed in. I've always tried to avoid disputes and confrontations, choosing to fade into the background and let things go rather than taking them up as issues - in the playground, in the sports changing rooms, in the face of people who have nothing nice to say. Looking back, I guess I would've become a much stronger and opinionated person if only I'd challenged issues more, if I hadn't tried to blend in so much. I now realise that at the end of the day, after a while, no one is going to care if you make an issue out of something you're not happy with. In a matter of days or weeks or months, everyone apart from you will forget about it. People have their own lives to worry about, so no one is going to care about yours forever. Of course some will hold grudges, some will hate for the sake of hating, and some will go out of their way to continue to make your life hell, but I now know that as long as you are in the right, then you can hold your head high and just get on with your life as best as you can.

Wow, that went off-topic.

Anyway, the point is that throughout this whole ordeal, I was constantly ridiculed by my parents who thought that I was wasting my time. Well, suck on that, parental units, I got me a full ass refund, kekeke.

Time to pop out the bubbly! :)

Yishi xxx

Charger!

Introducing...*dundundun*...Charger, or Chargy the cat!

He used to be a stray but got taken in by SJ's landlord, so now lives here! He's quite independent and generally doesn't show you any affection unless he's hungry or wants to be let out of the house, in which case he'll purr like crazy, rub up against you, and give you the stare. You know what I'm talking about:



Anyway, today I decided not to go home and to stay for a little while longer to rebuild a few bridges with SJ. I ended up tidying up the kitchen since it was bugging me lots, and came across the cat looking a bit peeved at the amount of washing up in the sink:

Yes, there is most definitely snow in the background - our first winter snow, in fact! He tried to get to the ground, but didn't like that the sink was wet, so after tentatively testing out a route, he kind of slid to the ground hehe.

Isn't he so adorable?

Hope these photos cheer you up like they did with me! :)

Yishi xxx