23. Final Year Thesis: Done and Dusted

Here's a lighter topic than the previous post =) I know I've been away from the blogosphere for the longest time ever - months. I've been busy with an internship and my final year thesis, which is finally and thankfully done with. 10k words later, I am now officially unemployed and a psychology graduate. I'm doing this post to get ya'll up to speed and also, I that free now.

I was interning for 2.5 months at AWARE (the women's organization that NS men dislike haha). The pay was um, well, lets just say it felt like free labour but it was a meaningful internship for I got to learn how a non profit organisation works in the inside. I also got to work on really interesting projects - single parenthood, women rights, rights for single parents in the HDB sphere... etc. It really shows you a side of Singapore you do not get to usually see (single parenthood is after all a really taboo subject, just as homosexuality is).

I ended my internship about half a month earlier because it was getting really stressful to juggle my thesis data collection, meeting up with my supervisor and actually writing the thesis. My supervisor, Patrick is God-sent. He was ever so helpful with anything I needed and would actually reply my cries for help at 9/10pm at night. I hit the jackpot with my supervisor this time! Thesis writing..is so so tiring. I have written so many essays, from as little as 1.5k to 4k words but nothing could have prepared me enough for this daunting task. Some days you look at your work and think, what in the world am have I been writing, this is ALL rubbish. Other days you feel quite good and confident but it is mostly tiring and exhausting. Sometimes you have the motivation to continue but you can't find anymore information that seems relevant. You just end up staring at your document and getting a headache from all the words swimming in your head.

Anywho after about 2.5 months of slugging my guts out, I was finally done. Getting them printed and binded felt numb and surreal. I wanted to be done with the university and its shitty admin staff and poor communications with students but at the same time I wanted to continue studying. HOW DO I ADULT. All a student has to worry about is homework, essays, tests and things like that. In comparison to insurance, bills, marriage and the list goes on. Do you know it takes 1 mill to raise a kid in Singapore? Like, I don't think i can even make a million in a lifetime what more by the time I am ready to have a child?

The weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders and now a different kind of weight has landed on them. I gotta start job searching........stat.

x

12. Holy Grail Products

Hi guys! Today I'll be talking about my holy grail products - needless to say the products I'll always go to and trust to work. These are a mostly skincare and make up :) The pictures are bigger than normal as the smaller size would compromise quality.

Skincare

L-R: The Body Shop Seaweed exfoliator, The Face Shop Black Yeast peel-off mask, TFS mango butter lip care cream, TBS Seaweed Clarifying night treatment and TFS Herb Day make up remover.

Okay I did not plan for this to be a face shop and body shop filled product list but as I am typing this I realize most of my skincare and bodycare products are from them. They're pretty affordable and some of their products work wonders for me. 

The exfoliator ($24.90) helps cleanse my dead skin cells plus all the debris and residue from the outside elements that are trapped in my pores. I absolutely love how a little goes a long way for this product and I can see that it'll definitely last me a while before it empties out. I love feeling my skin all baby-like and supple after using this once a week before I sleep after washing my face and toning. 

I use that together with the night treatment from the same range (every night) ($32.90) and I must say this product surprised me. I have oily skin/combination throughout the day and I decided to try this product to see if the next day it made a difference to the amount of oil produced. Indeed, my face stayed more matte and I found myself reaching less for oil blotting paper. I can't wait to try the day moisturizer and more of the range once my current ones finish (currently using TFS pore minimizer controlling cream as a day moisturizer). This product also does not dry out my skin so props for that. 

The face shop items here are pretty self explanatory. The black yeast peel-off mask ($17.90) is extremely underrated and I do hope they're still selling it! I love how dewy and springy my face looks and feels after this. It does exactly what it says: leaves skin clear. I love this for a less harsh version of an exfoliator. Also, peeling it off gives me great joy (who else loves doing such things?) haha. The consistency is very sticky as you apply it but it takes little to no effort to peel it off once dry. This is done after washing, toning and moisturizing your face (once a week). 

The mango butter lip care cream is basically just a typical lip gloss but for it's price ($4.90) I was thoroughly impressed by its abilities to keep my lips supple, soft and well hydrated. I've used lip glosses from various other brands that surpass the price range of this little miracle and they do not work half as well as this guy. 

The make up remover for sensitive skin ($7.90) is one of the few that works for me. I used to frequent L'oreal or Maybelline's oil based ones but I disliked the oily residue it left on my face. This works so well and does not leave my eyes stinging!!

Yeast peel-off mask - seaweed night treatment - seaweed exfoliator

Make up

Brows are a tricky thing. I used to get my eyebrows done at the Benefit Brow Bar when they were about $28 or $26 but since they've raised their prices to $30-35 I've plucked them myself whenever I saw the hairs growing out of the area the beautician helped to create for me.

These two products also helped in filling them in since my brows can be considered fine/sparse. I start with the Benefit Gimme Brow (which has also increased price from $28 to $35, sigh why!?) to set the hairs in and give them a darker color.

I then fill them in with Etude House's brow pencil (there are various colors all at $5.90) which comes with a spooly at the end. I love it cause it's so affordable and does its job. 

My mom got this Estee Lauder palette from a gift set last year because she wanted everything else but this so I inherited it and found out that their pigmentation is pretty amazing. I've been using this for an everyday look (when I do bother).

08 - Peach Passion as blush (the one on the right was a tad too pigmented for my skin tone)
50 - Sandbar Beige (matte) on the entire lid,
30 - Sugar Cube as a highlight on the brow bone and tear duct so as to give my eyes the pop it needs (this also can be used as a highlighter on the cheek bones pretty well)
18 - Serpia Sand on the crease followed by 65 French Vanilla, a gorgeous shimmery gold on the middle crease.

This was inspired by ilikeweylie on youtube as her tutorials are great for monolids like mine and pretty simple for an everyday look.

Clinique is terribly expensive in Singapore so when my sister went to the states I asked to kindly get me a lipgloss of any sort from their range. She came back with this and I wish she bought more! It's their vitamin C lip smoothie and works on a twisting mechanism to get the product out.

It doesn't have the plastic smell a lot of lip glosses and products have. This is the color guava good and it's amazing as an everyday lip gloss. It goes on super smooth and doesn't have the icky sticky feeling too. I went scouting and found that it costs $31 in Singapore departmental stores and she paid $12.90 USD over there. 

These were mine before knowing about the Vit C lip smoothie. I got them from Singapore Airlines when I was on the way to Tokyo in June and they're travel size, from the range 'full potential lips'. The color payoff is amazing and I love how cute and small they are for handbags, pouches and on-the-go purposes. There are 5 in this pack and that gave me 10 colors to experiment with. Only 5ml on a side but surprisingly they're still lasting! I use these almost everyday too.

Random products

I use this L'oreal Extraordinary Oil Mist ($25.90 if I'm not wrong) before blow drying my hair (you can use it after or even on dry hair too), to protect it from the heat of the blow dryer and also to detangle the messy knots I have.

This claims to give flowing softness and a veil of brilliance to your hair. There are different ones for different types of hair. It does the job and the smell is probably one factor as to why I love this product so much. It also takes forever to finish, and a spritz or two goes a long way. I'm not even halfway through this bottle and I bought it in the first half of the year.

On a recent visit to Tangs, my mom and I came across this brand, 1872 Clipper Tea and we decided to try their candles cause it smelled so good. This was created in collaboration of To Be Calm. Both are home grown brands :)

They're $23 each and sold in a set of 3 (Singapore, London and Paris) at $60. I was back the next day to get the trio. It burns so well (18 hours), doesn't cave in, and way cheaper than Yankee Candle or what have you. Currently they only have a small size, I really hope they bring in bigger ones. All scents are infused with tea thus its calming abilitiy; 10/10. The Singapore Sunrise (my fav) is a soy candle with green tea, mango and passionfruit.

Before Oct ends ya'll should head to Tangs and become a member for free as only in this month do you get 12% rebate ;)

Yup 1 has already finished haha

And that my lovelies, concludes my post on some holy grail products that I would like to share with you this lazy weekend in. If the haze goes well, next week I'm off on an adventure that involves nature....... ;)

x

10. First Trimester As A Honours Student

Today I'll be blogging a short one about my experience as a honours student, well, just the first 3 months of an experience. I'm not going to bore you with the technicalities, every university is different and thus, these are just my personal feelings & thoughts.

It's been a slow whirlwind (I say slow, and you'll soon realize why) in school the past couple of months. I was overjoyed when I got the email in my last term break, notifying me that I got into the Honours program for my Psychology course (there are certain requirements you have to meet - e.g Distinctions for 5 level 3 subjects and statistics modules) I was HYPED. I couldn't wait to start lectures again, learn new things, plan my thesis topic. . . . .

#STUDYSESH

I couldn't be more wrong about the exciting bit.

It was quite a drag. I only had 2 modules, ethics being compulsory. I had a hard time choosing the second module. It was a case of 1. hmm I like that module but the lecturer is a pain, 2. damn if I went for this module it's supposedly easy to score but sounds iffy as hell and 3. i guess this module is cool cause i've got friends. I ended up taking Time Perception - whuuuut - by myself - whuuuuuuut. It was a cool field of study, something that you wouldn't get to learn elsewhere. Also, no exams. Seeing as ethics was a dry and heavy topic, I didn't want to weigh myself down with two exams. I also managed to make a couple new friends which is a plus point :)

Nonetheless, I didn't know having 2 modules instead of the usual 4 could have that much of a toll on me. With the luxury of so much time on my hands, I could do anything !!! Get an internship, part time job, exercise and actually stick to a proper regime, read a dozen or more books, travel..... alas none of that happened (Except only a week of workout and a fraction of a dozen books were read).
I didn't know what to do with all the time I had. It was so confusing, I was begging for work to be given to me.

GIVE ME MORE ASSIGNMENTS!!! 

Even whilst studying for the ethics exam, I was relaxed; I finished my notes and sat around idling through the likes of youtube and tumblr. It was so unproductive for my brain and although everything was done on time, I still felt so very restless and useless..

I was in such a rut. Having multiple assignments due every other week when I had 4 modules and 4 exams to sit for during the previous 6 semesters before embarking on my Honours journey prepared me for a semester even crazier than that. I was wrong... I know I'd regret complaining of being free when the next two semesters come round, when I'll camp in school collecting data and finish off a 15,000 word thesis. But at that time, it was weird being so free and I felt like this everyday:

I had no direction! Its scary that I'm almost graduating and I have no idea what to do with my life yet. That'll be a topic for another blogpost......... my existential crisis *sad laugh*.

Now with the start of the holidays I'm excited as to what the next month has in store for me! I even got a critique and a thesis to work on but hey, a break's a break for a reason. Got a staycation coming up later this week & will be blogging about that too : )

Stay tuned,
x