A couple of days back, I received a very strange and unexpected email. The title read "A letter from May 17th, 2013‏." I opened it thinking it's just another junk mail; never did I expect that it would actually bring me to a trip down memory lane.


Apparently, it was a letter I wrote to myself exactly a year ago. I cannot even remember how did I stumble upon this website that allows users to send their future selves emails. I vaguely remember being skeptical about this website because a year's pretty long when it comes to digital media so I wasn't even sure if it really works. I probably decided to give it a shot because I've nothing to lose anyway.

I honestly can't remember what happened that day because it doesn't matter to me anymore. I'm really quite surprised because I'm quite a hoarder and I remember the most insignificant memories, but I don't even have one bit of memory left about that day.

This email lingered in my mind for a day before I finally went to my archives and tried to figure out what was I upset about. It was then that I was linked to this post I wrote a year back. Memories became flooding back - I remembering being a mess; I knew things wouldn't last between my ex-boyfriend and me but I wasn't willing to give up yet.

Things eventually ended between us which was obviously for the better. Back then, I thought I would never be able to forget him and I was vengeful because I hated him for the lies he told me. Somehow, along the journey, I stopped hating him and the things he did. I came to terms with the fact that we weren't meant to be. I learned to find peace within myself and forgave him.

Today, I still don't think I will ever forget him but I learned that there's a difference between forgetting and moving on. I won't forget him the same way I won't forget the friends I used to be so close to, but he no longer holds a special place in my heart. Instead of looking back to the past all the time, I've learned to let go and look forward.

I'm so glad I'm a much happier person than I was at that time, but this email made me think a lot. It made me reflect. My ex-boyfriend changed my life in ways more than one but one of the things he said that left the biggest impact on me was,


I don't know why did it leave just a big impact on me, but it did. Maybe because deep down, I knew it's true. That I grew up, met new people and my expectations changed. That I stopped trying to be a good girlfriend, stopped being faithful. That I started lying and even I no longer knew who I was. That I opened my eyes and stopped living in a fairytale.

Yet it's funny how easily I put that episode at the back of my mind, and how satisfied I am right now with my life. A year ago, I wouldn't thought I could be this contented, this idyllic. I guess it just goes to show that things may not be as bad as we think they are. Maybe the things I see as significant now wouldn't even mean a thing to me one year on. Maybe I should spend me time wisely on the things that really count.

And maybe, just maybe I should write another email to my future self to remind myself of how lucky I am to be with my boyfriend whom I thought was perfect for me from the start and that I should never take such a amazing guy for granted. :-)

Note: Except for cropping, all photos in this blog post are unfiltered and unedited.

A little after I first got together with my boyfriend, I let myself go. I started wearing only t-shirt and shorts and no longer cared much about my image. My thinking back then was "why bother dressing up and looking good when we're just going to stay at home anyway?"

However, it dawned on me that I was being self-centered. While I became lazier and lazier, my boyfriend never let himself go. He dresses himself well even if he was just sending me home. So I decided I should put in more effort to look good - which in turn makes my boyfriend looks good as well.

I tried dressing up but I didn't know what to wear because I looked horrible in everything anyway.


I felt fat in most of the clothes I wore and nothing could give me the confidence to wear nicer clothes. I hated taking photos and even contemplated on photoshopping all my photos, only to realise that it was too much work. T~T

My friends couldn't understand what was I whining about because camera angles made me look much skinnier than I actually am. It also helped that my arms and legs are relatively skinny but what I was actually self-conscious about was my tummy.


I had no waistline to speak of and my tummy was bulging. I hated the sight of it when I bathe and I pinch my fats constantly at night, hoping they would go away. As many of you know, I've always been really really really self-conscious about my weight (seen from my previous post in November).

In November, weighing at 46kg, I was the fattest I've ever been. My confidence hit rock bottom and I felt so horrible daily. Then one day, I decided to just do something about it and stop being fat and lazy. Complaining wasn't going to help me lose weight.

I was never overweight - always within the healthy weight range, or underweight so it came as a surprise to many when I started exercising to lose weight. But losing weight it makes me feel good, I'll give it a shot. So I started by downloading workout apps on my phone but not just any workout apps - I downloaded apps with workouts requiring less than 10 minutes, specifically targeted at the abdomen.

It wasn't much but bit by bit, I saw improvements weeks after my first workout and that motivated me to continue even more! I started going for evening jogs too because why not!


I started seeing more progress yay!
(Yes I pretty much repeat my sleeping clothes every week.)
(And I do wash my shorts - it's just like I like working out with this pair of shorts because it's loose.)


Yay I can see my thigh gap again! Yeah, I know people are going to say that thigh gap isn't good, thigh gap means blablablabla. I'm not bothered by whatever people say because the most important thing is that I'm happy ^~^

I also bought a bikini to motivate myself to work out and slim down even more. While I'm still far from my ideal body, I'm just glad I took the first step and made progress. :-)

Sadly, I've stopped working out so much since school started. Year 2 has been so busy for me that I haven't even found time to go running since this semester started T-T The good news is that I've learned to stop being so hard on myself. Hopefully, I'll be able to go back to my routine when my hell submission weeks are over.

Looking back at these photos make me feel the motivation to continue my journey even though school has been really hectic for me.

My weight loss isn't drastic but it surely made me a happier person with more confidence! :-)

I wished that moment would last forever, I wish it didn't have to end.
I closed my eyes, and did everything I could to have that moment etched in my memory.
The way your eyes curve when you smile, the way your face scrunches up when you laugh.
The way your chin rested on my head, the way you smelt, the way you look.
We were silent; we didn't speak and we didn't have to - it just felt right.
Yet tears welled up in my eyes and I had to fought to keep them from rolling out.
Deep in my heart, I knew we only have a few seconds left.
The earth continued spinning, the world continued moving.
Nothing I could do could make it stop. Eventually, I gave up and gave in.
Time wasn't on my side. Time is never on my side when it comes to you.
Much as I hate to see you go, I know saying goodbye is inevitable.

At least this isn't permanent.

Absence. Void. Emptiness.
An unoccupied space. The lack of feelings.
The vacancy in your heart that allows your mind to wander endlessly.

The voices taunted you countless times.
The thoughts haunt you everyday.
You feel yourself falling, you feel the walls you put up crumble.

Do you actually let go of someone, or do you just release the feelings you had?
Do you actually ever stop feeling the pain, or do you just get numbed by it?
Do you actually forget someone, or does the void just eats that unoccupied space up?
I don't have the answers. Can anyone give you any satisfactory answer?

Yet, one day the heartbreak will go away.
You'll wake up and realise that you don't really need him after all.
You feel the pain less with each passing day.
You won't care anymore but you don't notice it.
You realise that you have better things to worry about.

You thought you would die without him, but you lived.
You're still breathing, and you're happy with what you have now.
Yes, even if it means you don't have him anymore.

You've been set free.
You will be free.

I didn't blog much in March because I've been busy planning my boyfriend's 21st birthday! Part 1 of his birthday was the gift that I got him and this was the second part of his 21st birthday :B

Finally the day came - we celebrated my boyfriend's 21st birthday on 12 April 2014 and I'm glad he had fun ^~^ I've been preparing for his birthday since late November and it was great to see everything coming together!

I initially didn't want to blog about this because I'm kinda lazy :x But while I was researching for my boyfriend's 21st birthday, lots of blog posts helped me so I guess I should also blog about it in case some people need help too hahaha.

There was a lot of hiccups along the way though. The first being the venue. My boyfriend had a long list of friends he was going to invite and most hotels are too small! Chalets weren't a choice either because of the many obstacles (NSRCC and Treehouse Villa fully booked, Coasta Sands too small, etc).

Fortunately, the photobooth company I hired managed to source out Amara Sanctuary Resorts for me! I booked the one bedroom villa after much research and at +/- $950 a night, it was slightly pricey but at least able to fit all the guests, food and photobooth.

I loved how spacious and beautiful it was but I was greatly disappointed by the fact that even though the check in timing was at 3pm and we reached at 4:30pm, we were still unable to check in. Many guests faced that problem that day so if you're planning to celebrate your birthday there, you should take this into consideration.

Secondly, it was hard to find a company that delivers balloons to Sentosa at a reasonable pricing. After intense searching on Google, I managed to find one. However, I wouldn't mention the company as I feel that their customer service is quite horrible :/

There was a lot more problems I faced when planning for the event but I won't elaborate on them since they aren't the main point. The main point is that my boy enjoyed himself. I guess I'll just let the pictures do the talking! I didn't manage to take a lot of photos though because I was really busy that day :-(

Most of the photos were taken by my friends who came down early to help us out! Very very thankful for them because if not for them, we wouldn't have managed to transform the place and set things up so quickly :-)

Also, some of my boyfriend's friends/family members are very private people so I'm wont be posting too much of their photos to respect their privacy!

I hate it when people introduce me as a blogger. I feel that the term is too loosely used in Singapore - anyone who owns a blogspot/wordpress/tumblr can call themselves a blogger. And let's face it, a lot people have shit views about bloggers. Whenever a blogger receives sponsorship, people think it's just free stuff and they don't think about the efforts put in doing up advertorials and what not. So I never ever introduce myself as a blogger.

Embarrassingly, my boyfriend does it often. "This is Regine, and she's a blogger." Ugh, I just think people who introduce themselves as bloggers (and have like only 300 unique views daily lol wtf) are very pretentious!!! While I own a blog and do advertising every now and then on my Twitter, my main motivation is not wanting to make it big and get "free things." Yes, it'll be great if my blog gets popular but I want to be known for my writing and not anything else.

However, there are some bloggers on the "market" who wants to be known so that they can get sponsorships. I mean, it's totally fine if you provide your client what they deserve and what you both agreed upon (e.g. a sponsored outfit for an Instagram shoutout). What isn't fine is LYING ABOUT YOUR STATS.

As all of you should know, I ventured into a little business recently and I started an Instagram account officially yesterday. Then, I received an email from this girl.


First things first - calling me dear when we don't even know which other is already very unprofessional. But I can let that go especially since she's probably no older than 16. But please, just don't go around calling people your dear.

Anyway, I instinctively went to her blog and stalked her a little to find out more about her. 4100+ Instagram followers and 300-400 likes per photo - pretty impressive I must say. But with only have 500 readers daily? The numbers don't match up.

I got a little suspicious because I was aware that you can buy Instagram followers and likes. I went on to her Twitter. Barely 400 followers. Now the numbers really don't match up. How can someone have 4100 Instagram followers but only 400 Twitter followers? Seem like somebody forgot to buy Twitter followers as well, huh? ;-)

Because I was already suspicious, I went to dig deeper into the girl's Instagram account and this was what I found:

If this isn't proof that she buys her followers and likes, then I don't know what is.

And guess what?

Her Twitter has lots of fake followers as well (but the amount is not as exaggerated as her Instagram followers).

What about her blog then? She has an Imotiv account, which is basically Twitter for blogs, and she publicizes that with a badge on her blog. I clicked on that. One follower - herself. At this point, I more or less knew that her stats were fake but I still replied her.


I'll be honest - I already had little to no intentions of working with her but I decided to give her a benefit of doubt and further clarified.

She replied with this image:


If you look at the image carefully, you can clearly see that the resolution of the words on the left is different from the resolution of the numbers on the right. While I can't confirm if this screenshot has been tampered with, I can confirm that the numbers are DEFINITELY fake. Without a doubt AT ALL. 

With 500-600 views daily, your monthly viewership should at least be 15k instead of 5k. This screenshot proves nothing because Blogger's default stats shows your views, not unique views. Showing only your views means that every time you refresh your page, you get a new blog view and it also means that it is very easy for lots of "bloggers" who only want sponsorships to lie about their stats.

Basically, your views is the number of page views and your unique views refer to the number of visitors you get. You can get 20 unique views and 500 views per day and it only means that someone is constantly refreshing your page. You see, depending on which one you mention, you get very different results.

I sent this girl another email to ask about her unique views.

Some people asked me what did I get for my boyfriend's 21st birthday so I decided to just blog about it! Okay, maybe if nobody asked, I would have blogged about it all the same because I'm excited to be able to finally share it with everyone!!!

I actually spent an exorbitant amount of money on his birthday party already so I decided to just make something for him. I had so many ideas but I just couldn't settle for one because they all seem great!

Then I remembered that my boyfriend lovesssssss receiving letters from me. When he's having a tough week in army whatsoever, I will always encourage him by telling him there's a letter for him when he books out and it always makes his days a little better.

That's when the idea of writing him 21 letters formed. There were many ideas on the internet but I decided to make it more personal so I made up quite a few of my own.



Each of them consist of a letter and some of them have little surprises in them. I can't say what they are or what I wrote because my boyfriend hasn't open the letters yet but if you really wish to know, ask me in private :p

I have never done so much for anyone before and the idea sounded too huge and a little crazy at first but I'm glad I did it because my boyfriend loved it :) I wasn't sure how long it would take so I started this immediately after confirming the idea (a little after Valentine's Day) and barely managed to complete them a few days before his birthday on 12 April so it took me around 2 months.

Even though it was a lot of hard work and my hands felt like breaking at times, I really enjoyed the process of hunting for little presents and putting myself in the situation. It's a bit tricky writing about the future but it was fun! ^^

The trickiest part is getting him a present that can be more awesome than this in the future wtf. Good luck, me.