The Story of Cosmetics

A while back, I posted this video called, The Story of Stuff.

Recently, I went back to the website and saw a shoot-off discussion about cosmetics. That's how I came across The Story of Cosmetics. (Women, click on the link to watch the video)

I started thinking about all the cosmetics and beauty products I use everyday. Let's see what I have:

1. Shampoo

2. Conditioner

3. Body wash

4. Facial Wash, sometimes Facial Scrub

5. Make-up remover, if I had make up that day

6. Mascara remover, it's not the same at no.5 !

7. Moisturizer

8. Sunscreen

Things I use every other day:

9. Hair tonic

10. Hair oil

11. Hair night repair; As you can see, I'm quite the hair person

12. Deodorant

13. Make-up stuff like foundation, eyeliner, mascara, blush, lipstick

For once in a while:

14. Face mask

15. Fragrance

Wow, that's a lot of synthetic stuff full of chemicals I can't pronounce in 5 seconds. It's scary when people claim these stuff in the bottles have been found linked to cancer. My initial reaction was to brush these comments off, but in times when you're just not too sure, better to walk on the precautionary side yeah?

The solution sure isn't to abstain from these products. I can't imagine NOT putting on sunscreen and moisturizer everyday. Nor can I stop using my shampoo which has only recently proved very effective for my oily and sensitive scalp. I need this whole bunch of hair stuff cos I sometimes use the hair straightener to shape my hair, and that thing does it at 180 degrees Celsius. And with the wonders of make up... Ok, I'm getting carried away.

Right now, I don't really have the right frame of mind to really think about these things. I need to concentrate and bring my game for my projects, which usually consist of reports and presentations. That is why I haven't been very successful in being vegetarian and eating healthily. When my brain goes on an overdrive, it seems to need lotsa junk food and craves meat. My brother interprets this as vegetarian being unhealthy for me. HUH? Anyway, when December comes, I'm going to delve more into these issues and think about what I want to do. :D In the meantime, let me keep staring at my reports to see how I can squeeze an A grade out of my professors. :p

About presentations

It was 9.45pm when I got home last night. The mail pouch (a cloth bag with 3 pouches for my father to separate the mail among my siblings) held an envelope for me. My first thought was "Oh, a card from Clarinda!" I'm not sure what gave me that idea but anyway, when I opened it, the front said "Just wondering... ever u dream of 'someone' to walk hand in hand?" So my next thought was, oh, this is a wedding invitation. And when I opened the card, I just smiled cos it's one those no-rhyme-or-reason card that he sends like once in 6 months? Haha. Anyway, I totally did not understand the front page of the card. It totally needs grammar restructuring to become "Just wondering, have you ever dreamt of 'someone' to walk hand in hand with?" I'm not sure why the word someone has inverted commas though.

I put the picture above on Facebook and got 10 "likes". Gestures of love never fail to make people smile. Josh did say he felt violated cos some parts of the text was in the picture. Haha.

Anyway, now's the time for presentations. After 8 semesters in SMU, this is my 9th, I've seen plenty of presentations. To me, in a business setting, the best kind of presentations are one which speakers are well-prepared, do not hold cue cards unless there's a good amount of data, speak spontaneously, good flow of presentaion and SIMPLE slides. I mean, slides that have minimal animation, just key words, clear and good fonts, and clean template. If you're a real slick speaker, you can pull off with white and plain slides, really!

The hardest parts of multi-speakers presentation is that the changing speakers do break the flow of presentation, a good handover from speaker is crucial. Another one is flow of presentation. As presenters, definitely the info and meanings are good in your head, but often the audience needs to be pointed out the important explanations. When you jump from one point to another without fully showing the relationships of your information, your audience is left confused and forced to make sense of your presentation. But the hardest hardest thing is the speaker him/her-self. Let's face it, not everyone is a Steve Jobs or a professional motivational speaker. We like to think we are, but even the most out-spoken and confident amongst us would tend to lose focus in a presentation simply from the lack of practice. I'm not talking about lack of practice of your speech but simply, as students, it's not our job to face people as a presenter daily. Professional speakers do that all the time, and they naturally get better.

As student presenters, we need a different strategy. For example, know your audience well. These classmates have been with you for 10 weeks, use that to your advantage! Speak to them student-to-student, of course armed with a lot more knowledge, but don't pretend you're a professional, just someone who has done his or her homework. Create opportunities for interaction, throw out rhetorical or simple questions just to keep them on their toes. Basically, do not pretend you don't know your classmates, where they're from and assume they will be listening hard to your presentation.

Just give me 2 more minutes, I wanna highlight the importance of first and last speaker. First speaker needs to set the tone and energy of the presentation. You excite your audience about your topic, why's important and usually, you'll be the one giving the background information. You make sure why they should listen and you have to be a bit drama to get them to focus. The last speaker needs to be very attentive to the audience throughout the presentation. He or she needs to watch out for audience reactions as they listen to 2nd and 3rd speaker cos usually these are data information. Sometimes, due to fatigue or simply bad presentation skills, the audience is simply not getting it. The last speaker needs to reconcile that understanding in an impromptu summary, if needed, before diving straight into the conclusion. And that's why the last speaker needs to be extra clear and confident.

Stressful period ahead

I'm stressed. Let me describe my stress: 1 presentation and report due this Saturday. 2 presentations, one report due the week after.

Marketing Research - My major quantitative survey is nowhere near our targeted numbers. Ladies, if you're Singaporean and between the age of 18-38, please click here to participate in the online survey. Please, pretty please.

The stressful thing is not the amount of work but the huge amount of thinking I'm putting into my projects. Sometimes I feel like my brain is malfunctioning and I can't answer questions. Many times I experience what psychologists like to fondly say, 'groupthink'. This happens when everyone just doesn't think critically and in the end, no much is contributed. I'm extremely frustrated cos I have to keep pushing my project mates for meetings and ideas and basically, getting work done. It's quite a bit of mental strain here.

Every student has 3-4 projects on their plates. So during meeting times, productivity is extremely low. But I don't think tiredness and lethargy are good excuses. The best present you can give yourself is to push yourself mentally, contribute to the meeting and be efficient so that we can all go home early.

Ok back to my IEA report...

No carbon footprint? Wow

During Ethics class, my instructor played a video of a man named Colin Beavan and his wife who decided to live a no-impact lifestyle. They undertook a year-long experiment, together with their 2-year-old daughter, to see how they can live a life without harming the environment. That means no taking public transport (ride bicycle), buying from supermarkets (buy from something like our wet markets aka whole foods market), no buying new stuff (no bags, clothes etc), no detergents and shampoo (make your own), no lights (beewax candles) and no toilet paper. Oh wait there's more, no meat & fish, no taking lifts, planes (for people in the US, it means you can't visit your relatives living in another state), no soda or carton milk (you fill up your milk from like a big big bottle with your own flask), bringing out own cloth bags everywhere, can't eat at restaurants and no fridge. And by the way, they live in New York City.

That was 2007 and the experiment is over. I guess they took back some stuff, probably toilet paper? It certainly put me to shame cos I'm finding it a little hard to maintain my twice-a-week vegetarian lifestyle. This week, I've been trying to do it daily, but slipped into temptation over 2 meals. Amanda, my best friend, tried out vegetarian for 2 weeks in May 2010 and she said, "When I did it, it really wasn't hard at all. I did it because it was a challenge. But now, no one challenge me, so point doing it."

So I'm a little inspired now to try to reduce as much waste as I can. I can't compost my waste even if they're biodegradable, cos my family will have a big issue having me keep soil, worms and decaying stuff in a big box. And my biggest guilt? Driving to school each and everyday. And everyday on a weekend to anywhere. Much as I try to reduce my consumption in other things, i do trump over many of my friends just based on my car fuel consumption. (About 40 litres every 2 weeks?) In Amsterdam, Amanda and Shun and I rode our bike everywhere. It made our trip so much fun and it wasn't tough at all. But in Singapore, it'll be many years before we find any shred of political will to transform our road grids to include bicycle lanes.

So some stuff I'm gonna do:

1. Avoid buying things that require packaging. Er, ok that pretty means everything. Probably I have to bring a cloth bag and a tupperware everywhere I go. So if i want to grab some bread, I will have to ask the staff to pack in it my tupperware. Same for take-aways at coffeeshops. Otherwise, I'd have to eat-in.

2. Think like 5 times first before buying anything. That is going to be a big issue cos I like shopping and buying new things. (I don't even want to think how many shoes I've thrown away) I wanted to buy some stickers at Daiso today, but couldn't bring myself to do it cos i know they'll be thrown away after an event.

3. Try to be a full-time vegetarian. This is hard hard hard. Hmmm, the only vegetarian meal I truly love is salads from Salad Stop! A typical salad will include lettuce, grapes, oranges, toufu, brown rice, apples, broccoli, sunflower seeds, potato, cucumber, string peas, corn, chick peas and a dressing called orange mint. Talk about yummy! But it costs $9.50. I think on the basis of health and nutrition, $9.50 is totally worth it. Yet, knowing I'm a student and having the very Asian value of saving, spending $9.50 is simply put, a splurge. OK, the other two options are yong tau fu and economic rice (aka Cai Fan) which is typically one-third the price compared to salad. (but not as shiok)

I do feel quite alone in all these. Even among my close friends, few agree with me. The familiar saying "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" is true. If you've read this far, I'm super grateful and I hope you'll at least give it some though about your impact on the environment.

Videos. How hard can they be?

I've been watching so many KevJumba videos that I've developed a minor crush on this boy one year younger than me. Haha, kidding la, Josh, I only have eyes for you! But this whole vlog culture in the States is amazing. It certainly looks more fun than blogging! Well, you just look at the camera and talk. The best is, people think you're really confident and cool (& good looking) but the truth is, for that one good take, you had to take 10 lousy ones. Oh btw, vlog is video log, the video version of blog. ("OOOH, i get it now!") And another btw, blog came from the word web log. Cool huh?

So I was saying, you look at the camera and talk about your life. Apparently many people dig it, including me. It's the voyeur in everyone that keeps those fingers clicking on these videos, and before you know, you're a fan of this absolute Nobody in the States. Just like that! The best part about these videos is NOT the video itself, it's the comments!! I mean, I could click on like ten pages of comments and not get sick of it. Wow, I sure know how to waste time!!!

Last night, on the phone with Manda, I said, "Man, we have to do videos in Mexico! We might actually get fans." I continued,

"We could do dance moves as intros!"

"Like a signature tune?"

"Yeah, I can compose one!" [What am I thinking?]

"Well, what are we gonna use to record?"

"In-built webcam la! Or digital camera video function?" [We will be so noob if we do start on this vlog thing]

So what do you think? Should I go ahead with this wacko idea???

To get an idea how cool these videos are, check out my favorite Youtube comedian:

Why i can't study without distractions

When I was sec 1 - jc 2, I could typically study 9 hours a day. You're probably going, "wow Anna, you're a nerd!" Haha, maybe! Did I say I was pretty much a straight A student? (ok, B for A level Physics and GP, but still..)

But since then, 2 to 3 years on, with the YouTube and FB boom, I can't study straight for 15 minutes without picking up my mobile to put up a "status", watch a short clip or simply refresh my gmail page. Like right now, I'm at Starbucks supposedly studying BP... Hmmm.. :)

But really, I can't help but smile. Being distracted allows me to put more steam in my studying minutes (not hours!) It makes me dread studying less, I think! But then again, I'm at the university level, in a biz school. My education is more than memorization and hitting the books. It's involves observation, surfing the net and spending time just mulling over biz issues. (or am I just trying to defend myself here? Haha)

In any case, I do not recommend such ill discipline of studying at the jc/sec levels, can't say for poly! Because at the lower levels, its abt really knowing and understanding the fundamentals, so don't get distracted, ok kids? :)

Just watched Food Inc.

I just watched Food Inc, the movie directed by Robert Kenner and one of the commentators was Michael Pollan. I was like, "Ooh, Michael Pollan!" because I've been wondering for ages if I should buy his book "Food rules".

As you probably know of my twice-a-week vegetarian diet already, you're probably not surprised I'm talking about food again. Unlike most Singaporeans who like to blog about good food finds in SG, I prefer to challenge my readers to think about what they eat. Previously I mildly advocated a vegetarian diet due to the immorality and bad economics of eating meat, or rather of the meat industry.

Food Inc is a documentary on more than that, it talks about other food crops such as corn and soy bean. Food is cheaper today than ever because of mass production. But as the movie goes, the cheap price comes as at a cost. They showed this Latin American family who eat burgers and fries all the time because it's cheap and it's mostly all they can afford. When they visit the supermarket, they just can't buy the healthy vegetables and fruits because they're so expensive. Compare $3 for a head of brocoli to 99 cents for a hamburger. And now the father suffers from diabetes and has to decide between paying for his medical bills or buying healthy food. Well, it's just one story but it does provide a lot of insight.

Now I have to formulate an argument for Ethics class using Food Inc as a starting point and finally applying it to Singapore. Any suggestions?