Crimsonmaz

Update on what I have/have not received to date:

Have received:

Everyday Minerals: Received order of sample kit placed on June 12 - Pearl Pick Me Up Pink concealer, Waffle Cone blush, Olive - Golden Medium O-Glo foundation, Golden - Medium Tan Semi-matte foundation (for a friend), Warm Tan Semi-matte foundation (for a friend).
Meow Cosmetics: Received samples today - 6 Concealers, 6 Foundations, Primer, a free sample eyeliner and a free sample blush.
Pure Luxe: Received samples today- Calamine Soap, Face Washer Brush, Oil Cleanser.
Garden of Wisdom: Received on Monday, and may I say their shipping and delivery time is super fast - for this order anyhow. I ordered French Green Clay, Glacial Clay and Takrai Lemongrass Cleanser.
Cyber Emporium: Received Lustreglass in Palatial, Naughty Nauticals Lustre lipstick in Party Mate and FAFI Hipness blush today! (I love ordering from Australian sites...sigh)
Buffd: Received first order with samples of 4 foundations, 3 eyeshadows and received free samples of setting powder, a blush and new eyeshadow colour.

Still waiting on:

Everyday Minerals: Orders I placed on May 31(sample kit, flat top brush, concealer brush) and June 11 ($50 12-piece Custom Kit) >:(
Cyber Emporium: Eversun Powder Blush
TheSheSpace: Pigment samples.
Fyrinnae: Pigment samples.
Buffd: Foundation samples for a friend.
MadeBeautiful: L'oreal HIP Cream Shadow Paint, L'oreal HIP Bright Shadow Duo "Flamboyant", MAC Cool Heat Collection eyeshadows in Blue Flame and Climate Blue.

Damn, I bought so much crap. And no, I did not just make a blog entry about it all to show off! I decided to post it up here since I haven't actually kept a list of it anywhere else and I really need to keep up with whether or not I've received everything, considering the amount of money I've spent and the poor state of my finances now. I want everything I paid for! Plus, I'm waiting to be picked up by a friend who wants me to sleep over her house so we can watch dumb comedies and have SATC marathons. She also wants to see my haul. No idea when she'll be here...so bored *yawn*.

Ok, it's not really. Even though I have just completed my last exam, I'm not really the partying type. Instead, I'll just be having a get together with some of my good ol' buddies tomorrow night, where we'll be eating some home-cooked dinner, out-of-the-box dessert then indulging in a game of charades. Lol. Some good old-fashioned fun!

Anyway, my exam didn't go well but neither did it go badly. I think that I did alright, enough to pass anyway. However, only time and my result transcript will tell. I don't really want to think about it right now, so let's move on!

I am, once again, tempted to buy more stuff online. It's like a disease! I'm going to try to hold off until at least next week. I haven't even received a lot of the stuff I've ordered yet, not even the order I placed with Everyday Minerals on May 31! Take forever!

My face is breaking out so bad right now, worse than usual, because of exam stress and general bad habits (i.e. not sleeping properly, not drinking enough water, not eating healthily) and I feel really depressed to go out in public! Lol. It's weird, because I've seen people with even worse skin than me flaunting it on the street and I get freaked out over having one pimple on my chin, albeit a huge ass pimple. I think it's the ugly scarring that really bugs me, actually. I bloody scar so freaking easily! I have to learn not to pick at anything on my face (TMI). I actually really hate wearing foundation makeup; if it weren't for the discolouration of my skin from scarring and sun exposure I probably wouldn't. As it is, I am not one of those lucky, beautiful-skinned girls...sigh. Maybe one day. When I'm 40! I'd go to a dermatologist but the bad skin isn't consistent enough to justify the amount of money I'd have to spend to see one. Plus, they place you on three-month waiting lists. In three months I'll probably be happy with my skin again...sigh. I'm never going to have perfect makeup-less skin, but as long as it's reasonably clear and the breakouts are small, I'm happy. Also, I really do not want to take antibiotics. Really, really don't. I hate taking medication because a) They can have shitty side-effects and b) I am terrible at remembering to take pills or medicine of any sort. I'm glad the Pill I take has a 12 hour lee-way in case you forget!

Ugh. Well, enough of my whining. I am so drop-dead tired from this exam business. Can you believe they scheduled my History of Management Thought exam at 5:45pm?! It's a 3 hour exam and they have to make it at night. The train schedule is also really shitty in the evenings (it comes every 20 minutes instead of 10 or so). And now, I am totally knackered. Tune in next time for more ramblings of a psychotic drama queen.

Only one more exam to go. If only I could bring myself to study for it! Haha. But let's forget exams for the moment; they have enough of a presence in my waking life.

So, I have gone on a huge online shopping frenzy, but so far I've only received about...1/5 of what I've purchased. It's strange. I know I live in freakin' whoop whoop (as compared to the rest of the world) but it's never taken this long to receive a package from the US. Even with International First Class, the longest it's taken is two weeks - but for one of my packages it's going on three now. I'm going to wait patiently and not kick up a fuss to the seller, because that is my docile Asian way, but if I don't see it soon the other side of my nature will come in full force. I'm not one of those people who ever complains, even if I get a less than delightful order at a restaurant, but when someone promises excellent customer service but a) Won't answer my emails (which are overdue by several days) and b) Take several days to answer a simple question and c) Ignore you when you can finally catch them online d) Avoid telling you the status of your order which was made a long time ago and should be in your possession now...well, it makes you mad. I've never had problems shopping online before, but I think I'm about to learn the horrors right about now. Maybe it's punishment for going overboard with the spending.

To make matters worse, my adorable pink Sony Cybershot camera was stolen by a horrible, horrible person. I suspect my housemate (who disappears for several days at a time, must always be reminded to pay rent although there is a definite date every month it must be handed in, must be reminded constantly about bills, doesn't ever clean any part of this house unless threatened with an inspection from the real estate agent and just had to overdraw on their account to pay their rent because of their bad spending habits - I do have a good reason for suspecting them, it's not just my irrationality speaking). There is no one else. The only other people who live in this house are my brother and I; I know my brother would never do something like this to me. I know maybe I'm just paranoid and I might find the camera in the mess called my room, but I've been tearing this house and my room up for days, to no avail. Plus, I am very certain the last place I left it was not my bedroom. I guess it's my fault for trusting people enough to leave my stuff in the general areas of the house. Although, for the most part, it was standing by the printer and there were no issues with it going missing. The part I'm most upset about, apart from the fact that my $300+ camera has mysteriously vanished, is the nature of the pictures that were on the camera at the time it went missing. I have a boyfriend who lives thousands of miles away from me and I haven't seen him in six months - get the idea? Well, needless to say, I am really worried that someone has sabotaged me. If and when I ever find out who that little shit is...very not nice things are going to happen to them and their sidekicks.

Anyway, just to list all the sites I've ordered from and the status of my orders:

Everyday Minerals (ordered on May 31, June 11 & 12): Have not received any, and not very happy with their customer service.
Coastal Scents: Received last week.
Sasa.com: Received today.
theshespace: On it's way as of end of last week.
Meow Cosmetics: On it's way as of end of last week.
Pure Luxe: On it's way as of end of last week.
Fyrinnae: Still no sign of dispatch, but they did tell me to give them two weeks.
Buffd: Two packages on their way from Canada, so I'm not expecting miraculous delivery times there.
Garden of Wisdom: Ordered last night, so not expecting for about two weeks.

I think that's all I've ordered to date. God, just listing them makes me realise how overboard I've gone.

Edit: I should add the Cyber Emporium haul I just ordered not five minutes ago (LOL!), at least that's an Australian website so I won't be waiting weeks. I got three MAC items for $55 - on sale. Just goes to show how bloody expensive it is to get the high-end makeup brands. But I'm glad, some of them were LE and I got them at 40% off! (That's my way of justifying my purchase T.T)

Every new "Today" seems more anxious than ever. Do you find more solace in "Yesterday" or "Tomorrow"? Why?
Submitted by Bee Whisperer.

I look forward to tomorrow because yesterday is gone and all you can do is either try to move on from unhappy times or to keep those cherished memories close to your heart. When the present makes you feel as if there will never be an end to your struggles, clinging too much to yesterday doesn't allow you to move on and push forward. From personal experience, trying to find solace in yesterday, or more likely find blame in yesterday, makes facing tomorrow an even bigger battle than it has to be. Maybe it's because I'm at a place in my life where all I can do is look forward to each day tomorrow brings, and getting ever closer to where I know I will be happy, but I find placing hope in a brighter tomorrow is better than trying to hide in the comfort of yesterday.

So I used to play World of Warcraft (WoW), which is a Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) for those who aren't game/tech savvy. Anyway, I quit that a little more than a year ago. It was fun at the beginning (and I was there right from the beginning back in 2004), then it just got progressively worse. Apart from the in-game bugs and the fact that the class I was playing (which was a Paladin) had constant nerfs (meaning that one or more of their skills had their effectiveness reduced), it didn't get to the point I hated playing until I reached end-game and was suddenly confronted by the issue of epic loot. That's when it got nasty. I did what a lot of people did, I joined an "elite" end-game guild so I could experience the end-game dungeons. After all I did pay my monthly subscriptions to get there someday. But the part that spoils everything is that people get greedy, and if progress isn't going along with their need for epic gear then they say a big "f*ck you" and leave. And that just about sums up the crap end of my experience. My boyfriend and I did try to play as a duo, but I think all that stupidity (which he experienced too, being in an even more elitist guild than mine) palled the entire game for us eventually. So what does this mean?

This means that I am going to try yet another MMORPG! The, apparently, next generation Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR). I've pre-ordered a collector's edition, mostly because...I don't know, I'm a merchandise whore I guess. I also like those concept art books they offer with these limited edition releases. I may be into makeup now, but I'm always a tomboy at heart! Plus, I know there are lots of girl-gamers out there nowadays, so it's not even weird or fascinating anymore I'm sure. Hopefully, that means I will not experience anymore "stalking" episodes like I did with WoW. Why am I blogging about this? Well, I just got my open beta access key today, so I'm pretty excited even though I'm probably a good few months from playing the game yet.

In other news, I received some of the things I ordered from various online stores. I received this pearl cream I ordered from eBay called Ly-Na Medicated Pearl Cream, which apparently fades scars, and something called Soothing Care Chafing Powder-Gel which is meant for other things but is apparently good as a makeup primer; also from eBay. What else? I also got this 15-piece makeup brush set from a site called Coastal Scents, which I found out about from one of the beauty bloggers who's blog I frequent. I also got a tiny sample of a reddish eyeshadow called Amore. A lot of people don't like their brushes because they smell, are rough...etc. However, I tested all the brushes I received and none appear to be scratchy. I have yet to wash them, but they seem okay. I'm only worried that they might shed, but we'll see. I wanted to post pictures of my haul, but I was too lazy. Maybe in the next entry. Maybe by then I'll have received more things I can also conduct show and tell with.

So lately I've been doing everything besides studying for my exams! This is bad, very bad, but at least I still have a week until my first in-house exam. Hopefully I can learn enough to pass that. To be fair, I have had an assignment to complete which has taken up all my attention, and I like to devote my focus to one thing at a time. Admittedly, I could have started it earlier and not procrastinated so much, but what's done is done. At least it's completed now so I can focus on my take-home exam due on Tuesday. I'm a little apprehensive about handing in my assignment though, because I know it's not the best work I've done. I know I always have that fear every time I hand in a piece of assessment, but it's for real now. I don't know, we'll see what my grades are when they're released!

Apart from that, I've been going over to my friend's house house constantly over the past five or six days. I guess it's because she's lonely, although she says it's because she feels sorry for me (she heard my whole family sob story and assumed that I'm scarred from it and need comforting, or whatever. Lol.). Anyway, it's nice to have friends to talk to again. The one go-to friend I always had seems to have abandoned me, the biatch. It seems weird that I'm talking about having friends to talk to AGAIN when it seems like the most natural thing to always have your friends around you; but I'm a solitary creature by nature and choose to have very few friends for a certain reason. But let's not get to in-depth about that. Let's just say, it's better to have a few good friends than many friends who wouldn't stand behind you unless they wanted something in return.

Recently I've acquired a new obsession or phase. I realised that I'm almost twenty-four and have not taken the time to learn how to groom myself properly. So I've decided that there's no time like the present to learn - I'm going to educate myself, with the help of the Internet, to apply make-up properly! (As I'm in the middle of my plans to lose weight, fashion is out of the question until I've lost at least another 5kg!) It's not like I've never worn make-up, or plucked my eyebrows or tried some sort of beauty tip. But there's a difference between trying and mastering. I think that with my skin type (which is oily but flakey, acne-prone and ultra-sensitive) I've been a little too lax with my care. I'm getting better these days, but now I have a lot of unsightly scarring which really depresses me. Therefore, I must turn to make-up to remedy the immediate situation while I undergo some sort of treatment to fade these little suckers. So I've been a busy bee and looked up a heap of beauty-centric blogs for their reviews on products and their tips on make-up application. Then I bought a whole stash of stuff online to get my obsession underway. I guess I"ll be waiting for a while for this stuff, since it's mostly from the US and various other overseas locations. This is not going to turn into another beauty blog, since I don't even have the first clue about skillful make-up application; but I will occasionally post my progress, perhaps. I will post the goodies I bought anyhow. It's fun to be girly! I think I've lived in the shell of a tomboy for too long. However, I fear that this is going to be yet another drain on my bank account!

Today I officially completed one of my subjects! There's no exam for it, so now all my assessments have been handed in and I'm down to having to worry about three subjects instead of four. Pretty cold comfort though; I'm afraid that the other subjects rank at a higher difficulty than this particular one. Anyway, I am grateful for the relatively lesser exam study load I have to do. Considering the lack of consistent work I have put in over the semester this is nothing short of a godsend. Now I must focus on completing my case study in the next four days, so I can focus on my take-home exam which gets released on Tuesday. I cannot wait until the 21st of June when I have finished all my assessments and exams and have only to bite my nails in anticipation of my grades. Hopefully they won't be too bad. I'd like to say I've done pretty well, but I won't put the cart before the horse here. Exams are always the maker or breaker of my final results so I don't want to be over-confident lest I get much lower than I boasted of. I know I've passed everything, or so I think. I have been getting decent marks over the semester, mostly Distinctions and one High Distinction. I hope that somehow helps me push over the 70 mark in my final grade. Ugh, anyway here I go constantly talking about school, homework, exams, assignments and grades; I think I've finally become crazy enough to be obsessed with academia. What's making it worse is this terrible cold. I've been getting sicker by the day. At first I thought it was only going to be a light cold, but it seems to be shaping up to be much worse. Tomorrow I am going to the doctor to see about some antibiotics. It would be horrific indeed to be ill during the exam period; I've sat an exam with the sniffles and it was not a pretty sight, nor a great experience. It may count as one of the worst experiences of my life; which just goes to show how sheltered my life has been. Anyway, enough jibber jabber from me. I think my illness has made me somewhat delirious.  

I've finally found a way out of my crushing debt; crushing because I am, as yet, a poor student. As to how, I must be secretive, but all I can say is that despite my constant doubts I know I'm looked after. It's just under three weeks until my first in-house exam. I don't know how I feel about that. I haven't really started studying for it as I have other things to tackle beforehand. I feel a little scared about it but I will try to stave off my fears until I have attended the last lecture and gain more knowledge about the scope of the exam. In the meantime, I have other things which require more immediate action and therein lies my horror. I do not know what to do; all I can hope for is that my automatic pressure pilot will start kicking in soon, before I drown in a pool of failure. I will admit that I have been slack in the extreme this semester and it will be by the grace of God that I will pass everything, if not with flying colours. I will try to put in what effort I am able to during the next few weeks, but I think a little prayer would not go amiss. Today I feel like I'm in over my head and I'm just waiting for that cold calm to take over my brain; the one that tells me that even if I can't do it to the best of my ability, I can still do it.  

It's strange to me how a person who finds certain behaviours of mine abhorrent can so easily slide into them at a whim. And I say 'a whim' because this almost schizophrenic-like behaviour-swing occurred in a matter of minutes, to my recollection. One minute everything appeared to be fine, the next I somehow found myself trying to pick up pieces of a mightily confusing puzzle off the floor. I spent hours blaming myself, of course, as is the normal code of conduct in matters like these. When I began to ponder on it more it suddenly dawned on me that perhaps it was not my fault this time. Whatever bug they have gotten into their head, it is all of their own doing and so they shall suffer it alone, just as they made me suffer mine. Perhaps they have purposely constructed this elaborate ruse of being "lonely and insane" to drive me away, to make me the initiator of what it is they truly want. I do not know for sure, of course, and am always having to base everything on my personal speculations. At this point in time, I am at a loss as to what my next step should be. Should I play into his hands and give him exactly what he wants? Or should I endure this childish attempt to manipulate a situation, until it makes me the mad creature I try so hard not to be?

This kind of dilemma could not have come at a more inopportune time. And I cannot say, in all certainty, that love will conquer this kind of bullshit. I do not appreciate being condemned time and again, abusively at times, about displaying this kind of behaviour and then being smacked in the face with it knowing I cannot do a damn thing to alleviate the situation. Why? Because when it comes to their own faults, a blind eye and a deaf ear are their best defenses and nothing I, nor anyone else, can say or do will change their mind. So where does that leave me? I think I've asked myself that question about a thousand times in the past few days and I am no closer to a definite answer. They will not allow me to speak to them, under the pretense that they are 'in a funk these days' (it's only been three) whatever the hell that means. Perhaps they should look up the meaning of certain words which, I fear, they have forgotten the definition of. Or if they haven't, perhaps they should have the courage to tell the truth about what they want and not play these stupid games with me. I am so sick and tired of this that I feel like I really could care less if they slashed their wrists until every drop of blood was drained from their body. Morbid, but true.

With the weather growing colder as we head closer and closer to winter, my plans for losing weight are slowly being pushed further and further into the back of my mind. I find that I have so many other things to worry about right now, that liking what I see in the mirror is the last thing I could care about. Exams are around the corner, I have to figure out how to pay off this debt I've amassed on my credit card and I'm concerned about my SO. I don't know exactly what is wrong with him; a kind of depression that I understand all too well, from what I've gathered. And with my understanding of what he's going through, it makes me fear for him. But hopefully it will pass soon, as it usually does for me.

Right now, I am trying to work on a case study for one of my subjects and it's kind of doing my head in. Perhaps I should have been more studious so I could pick out the vital information that I need to use for my report, but I think it's a bit too late to change my nature in that respect. I will, therefore, strive to do my best with the little knowledge I have acquired about this topic through the course of the semester. I honestly wish I had an easier time making friends, because then I would have done so for the purposes of being able to compare notes - if nothing else.

I find being a solitary animal quite liberating actually. It's strange, I've always wanted to feel part of the group or accepted by others, but years of worrying about that have really made me apathetic about that whole line of thinking. Sometimes when I think back about how hard I tried, it makes me cringe. I never liked or was happy with myself, in fact it probably bordered on self-hate at times, and I think that really shattered my ability to have good relationships from a young age. Of course, some pretty traumatic events in my mid-teens did occur to draw me even further into my shell, but I'll not get into that. I think I've told the story so many times, even I'm sick of it. Even now I feel the vague animosity that filled my heart then, and it's been almost a decade. I'm trying my best to let past hatreds go, but it is quite a task.