For most of you, the beauty reviews, the YouTube videos and the occasional tweets regarding work are all you see of myself and my life. But like most people, there is always so much more beneath the surface.

Today I wanted to take some time to talk about my second occupation. As you may know my primary occupation (full time job) is in IT, which I love and very much enjoy. What you may not know is that for the last five or so years I’ve also been employed by a local channel as an online interviewer; Where I’m given the opportunity to interview for various shows and magazines.

If I were to say that my full time job has taught me a lot about myself as a person, then I would say my job as a chat typist has taught me a lot about humanity and the world as a whole. Many of the stories range from entertaining, frightening, nerve racking and thought provoking. And that is a pretty accurate representation of how I feel as I conduct the interviews.

I have met some of the most interesting, some of the most frightening and some of the most entertaining guests. And many who leave me affected for days later.

Once I interviewed a man who had died under a snow avalanche and was lately brought back to life by his son. I’ve never talked to a person who had died before, and to know that he felt no pain as he went under, strangely left me feeling a sense of calm.

Another time I interviewed a journalist who was first on the scene at a tragic earthquake in China that killed hundreds if not thousands. Listening to him compare the life and privileges we have here in Australia to those who had lost everything, and yet still held on to such positivity in life really impacted me. I don’t have a right to waste my energy being upset over the most petty and trivial of things when another human who has lost everything is just so happy to have their life.

Other times though, I get to interview people whom I’ve admired in the media for many years and I can’t help but get filled with butterflies before I begin an interview. No matter how many years pass, there are just some individuals who literally make my heart flutter.

But I will admit that only one time have I cried during an interview, and that was when I listened to a man tell me the story of how his beloved sister was brutally murdered and that the man who killed her received a mere 3 years. How 25 years on when it was time to bury his own parents, he saw the pain in their eyes as they breathed their last breath knowing how they weren’t able to bring justice for their daughter. It’s one thing to read something like this, it’s another to listen to someone personally affected by it, listen to the tones in their voice, and to their inner strength.

I’m not saying the fact that I almost exclusively blog about beauty is completely irrelevant, or that we should all dedicate our lives to “greater” things. But I think sometimes when life is tough, or seems tough, it’s important to put it all in perspective.

There is so much in the world, and if you are one of the few privileged people in the world who have a roof over your head, who have electricity, who have a computer, who have the internet that allows you to read this blog, then you really do have so much to be grateful for.

Sometimes, it’s nice to take a step away and reflect on life a little differently Don’t worry, we’ll be back to our regular programming tomorrow

Buongiorno!

That, plus Ciao, Arrivederci and Grazie is the extent of my Italian lol. Though fortunately unlike Hong Kong I am never mistaken as a local here

Today is my last full day in Roma, tomorrow we set forth for Florence which I am very excited for Roma has been absolutely amazing, I’ve managed to see all the major sights such as the Colosseum, Pantheon, Vatican City etc not to mention the food. Oh the food! I’m officially addicted to 4 Cheese Pizzas :9

I was also excited to see that the ever popular Farmacies are scattered all throughout Europe, so I’m able to get quite a bit of a head start on most of my skin care shopping, which will hopefully leave me plenty of time in Paris free to browse and potentially discover a few new products on my own

All in all, Roma has been a great experience, it goes without saying that I highly recommend everyone to visit IF you can stomach the 20-23hr flight over here. Despite my constant flying between Melbourne and Sydney, the flight to Europe was still quite a strain X_x; And “playful” children and crying babies just makes me want to sleep in the toilets instead….

I thought I’d share a few tips I’ve managed to pick up, mostly aimed at Australians, but I’m sure others could benefit from them too

• Look left when crossing the street! I know my friends casually mentioned this to me before I left, but omgosh I was almost clipped a few times because I keep looking right instead of left
• Avoid just trying new resturants just because it well located / packed with people, if you have 3G (which btw is affordable here, 10-20 euro will last a week easy) check for reviews on places like Tripadvisor first! Seriously, every place I didn’t check (twice) that I just decided to eat at has been utter disappointment, even got mild food poisoning from one. But every place that has good reviews online or from my friends have been amazing (special thanks to my lovely co-workers and fellow bloggers who have sent me recommendations based on their visits to Europe ! )
• Italians tend to be a little brasher than Australians, don’t take it personally. It’s just the culture.
• If you enjoy wearing sun dresses, make sure to bring a cardigan as some of the religious sites won’t let you in if you are wearing a sleeveless top.
• LOOK LEFT CELINA!

I’ve done my best to film as much as I can in terms of vlogs, but whether they go live or not is a whole other issue. We shall see if any of the footage is really any good to begin with But until then, take care and I’ll check in again when I can <3 <3

Today is officially my last day in Sydney, I’ve been here for a total of 10 weeks and I actually thought I’d be here for a much longer length of time. But consulting, like life, is unpredictable. For the next few weeks I will be going on annual leave to travel Europe But I won’t get into that, I’ve already filmed a short vlog on what will happen so be sure to subscribe to my channel to catch that video soon.

In the meantime, I managed to film a total of two videos whilst in Sydney. This was one of them, the other I will get around to hopefully editting on the plane ride to Europe

This is a pretty basic tag video, Get Ready with me for Work! Good for those who are curious as to what my daily makeup routine is Hope you enjoy and have a great weekend!

So if you’ve been keeping up with me on twitter you’ll know that there has been a bit of a change at work, for the next few months I’ll be flying up between Melbourne and Sydney, literally at the start of the working week I’ll fly up to Sydney and by the end of the week down back to Melbourne, which means I’m living out a suitcase during the week and rushing to catch up with friends and family on weekends.

Essentially it means blogging and videos may end up taking more a backseat. I’m not going to stop creating videos or blogging, it’s a passion of mine I won’t let go, but I wanted you guys to know that I may not be able to release high quality production videos every single week. I may need to do more “talking to the camera” sort of videos as they are much MUCH easier to film. But who knows, the main point of this post / video is to keep you guys up to date with what is happening

Also I created a new vlogging channel that is currently empty (because I realised I have less of a life than I previously thought!), but feel free to check it out and I’ll hopefully have something there soon It’s called Tell Me Your Fable

Hope you guys have a great Easter weekend (YAY LONG WEEKEND!)

Three days and no blog post, ugh what’s wrong with me!! Okay this is wrong with me:

That’s a snippet of my evening schedule this week, apparently I do have a social life! And this has pretty much been the case for the last two weeks! (I know, I’m shocked too) So my sincere apologies! I hope to get back to my regular program by tomorrow and hopefully my time will magically free up by next week as work should be lightening up a bit for a breather

How’s everyone else’s week been? I feel terribly out of touch at the moment I used to be glued on twitter and now I feel disenchanted every time I check it because about 50 billions tweets have past since the last time I checked it X_x Maybe I follow too many people *sad face*

Maybe it’s a strange habit, maybe you think I’m an odd ball. But we all do things to improve our lives somehow, and this is my quirky way of injecting a bit of serenity into my life. Prepare yourself for a more introspective post, a very LJ sort of post.

I live a busy life, that is completely my own choice. Pressure and stress are like an addiction for me, I feel physically ill if I’m not feeling constant pressure. You know that sort of stress you feel on a really busy day at work when everyone is pulling you one way or the other? Well that’s how I feel from the minute I wake up to when I fall asleep. I rarely ever feel “relaxed” anymore, every minute of every day needs to be used somehow. The more I sleep, the more time I take to eat, the less time I have to work. Hence why as you’ve seen in a previous post, I sleep around 5-6hrs a night, sometimes less. Unfortunately it means I’m constantly stressed out and tired.

However, the alternative is far worse for me. To spend time watching TV, taking a walk, going to a movie… I remember the last time I went to a movie, the entire time I was filled with anxiety. My heart was racing and I broke out into a sweat because I had to sit there for 2 hours doing nothing except watching a movie. Just the thought makes my skin crawl, it feels so wasteful of time.

But I guess that’s why I appear to always get so much stuff done, because I just can’t be any other way. I guess… it’s just the way I function best, it’s the happiest I can be at this point in my life.

But I know I can’t do this forever, I get tired of always feeling anxious, stressed and highly strung. And so on the advice of my friends, I’ve started doing simple things that force my mind to calm down. Depotting eye shadows is one of them, and this is another! Transferring my larger products into travel sized containers.

I top up my travel sized containers once every two days, takes me around 15 minutes (because there is my shampoo, conditioner, body wash, brush cleanser, nail polish remover and hair spray). But it’s a blissful 15 minutes where I’m forced to do nothing but refill my bottles. I’m being productive with my blog work, but also giving myself a break. And it’s fun.

With the added benefit of taking up less table space AND making it super easy to pack when I have to travel! I just throw in all my travel sized bottles and I know I have everything I need

Call me weird, but I’m sure we all do something to help calm ourselves down, what do you do?

Okay that sounds lame (and it doesn’t make sense unless you hear me say it), but it’s actually true. Anyone reading this journal with a full time job (which involves a lot of unpaid overtime *sad face*) know fully well how precious and rare time can be. As you can tell, when work sends me overseas / interstate the Book of Fables is the first to suffer. Taking photos of a makeup look is easy, but filming a video and edit it is a whole other story. From start to finish, videos take around 10 hrs each week, not including the daily blog posts I make here on Fables, and the additional work that happens backend

So when a social life calls or when work becomes more demanding, I find it close to impossible to edit videos to the standard that would make me happy. I decided that if I can’t do, don’t force it. Unlike back in my serious cosplay days (when I would force myself to pull all nighters to the point where I’d throw up…. ah youth!) I still want to live a relatively peaceful life I enjoy a challenge, but as I get older I think I’m really beginning to understand my limits. And the earth isn’t going to end if I skip a couple of chapters here and there!

It also gives me a chance to plan in some filming this weekend, I only have two remaining chapters in my pool so I’m keen to try and work my bank up to at least five!

Oh, so about that social life! How about I share a couple of photos from said social life just so you guys know for sure that I do occasionally get out of my cafe XD This week has been a busy one, it’s rare that I’m out of the house every evening of the week, but that’s exactly what happened this week.

Much delicious food was had early in the week :9 Never ate out so much!

In the middle of the week I was invited to Crown’s VIP Shopping night, and safe to say it was pretty amazing. Crown really know how to put on a good show, every store had some sort of entertainment, ballerinas, models etc.

Most of the stores involved were doing door prizes I made sure to enter each one this year (I completely forgot last year ;_; )

One of the “entertainment” pieces, a life size present There is totally a person inside!

All photos by the way, were taken with my new iPhone 4S! I am in -love- with the photo quality from this camera, amazing O_O Bye bye point and shoot!

I did actually end up purchasing a little something something from the event…. and no, it’s not what you think. I wish I got a watch, I actually bought a bottle of cologne for Toby for being so awesome, coming with me to this event, window shopping and generally just being the amazing person he is

Last night we took out a dear friend of mine for his birthday dinner, and tonight I will be attending Annie’s graduation!! Which she has invited me backstage early to take photos of all the models getting ready for their fashion show I will definitely be sharing photos as soon as I get them!

Blogging is indeed an interesting hobby, it so can be so varied, be motivated by many different things, and the outcome can range from just a unknown hobbyist site to something that can feed an entire family.

I started blogging way back at the end of 1998, it was called Liquification. I was still in high school back then and would blog about my every day life. At the time I also ran an anime domain called SuzakuNU, which had shrines to various anime characters I loved! (still around if you’re curious ), so most of my readers back then were anime fans who took an interest in my personal life.

My personal blog took many forms, blogger.com, live journal and finally word press. But it was always an outlet for me to celebrate / whinge about what happened to me on a day to day basis. I think however as you get older, you learn to filter what your share with the world. That’s pretty natural, you become aware as to the sensitivity of the people in your life and how they are portrayed on your blog (not surprisingly very one sided), and you grow aware of how your audience can judge you.

That is why I decided to push forward a more topic specific blog, like Fables. If you don’t know -me-, you can’t judge me.

And with that comes it’s own set of issues, among those who blog in your field, those who don’t blog in your field and those who don’t blog at all. Everyone has their own opinion on how you should run your blog.

And that’s completely human. Back when I wrote personal posts, my high school friends would want me to change my blog posts so they would appear more favourably to my audience, the same types of opinions carry through no matter what you blog about.

I’ve always been the sort of person who wants to make everyone happy. I’m a people pleaser. When my friends, family or random readers criticise me, or tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. I take it to heart, I try to change to make them happy. But often the advice one person gives directly contradicts advice from someone else.

Then I realise, I’m not happy. The thing is you can’t please everyone, and till the day you die, people are always going to love / be in different / hate what you do. It’s called being human.

Blogging is a life choice. I choose to spend close to 40hrs a week working on my videos and blog, in turn I’m lucky enough to have people such as you who come to read and watch what I do, I get to know each of you better and eventually we become friends As my audience grows, PR companies take notice and invite me to events or provide me with products to potentially feature on the blog. And if you’re extra lucky, you even get a chance to appear in print media!

These are all life experiences that enrich and add to the sort of person I am and will be one day. I’m only afforded these experiences because of this blog and you guys, there is no other reason.

I’m nothing special, I’m not better nor worse than anyone, I’m just another human who decided to spend her time away from her day job creating a blog. I want to make sure I provide content you guys want and are happy to read because you are genuinely interested.

But how do I separate advice / criticism from someone who is honestly interested in me and my blog, from those who don’t understand the whole concept of blogging to those who are actually jealous of the opportunities I get? I can’t

So I have to make my own decisions, adjust my own perceptions and hope with my heart that I am making the right choices.

Fables in Fashion is a journal of my adventures as a topic specific blogger, and when I’m well into my 60-70s, it’s going to be a great journey to reflect upon. A wonderful life experience

Sorry to getting so contemplative, not everyone will want to read, nor care what I have to say here. But I hope each of my readers know how precious they are to me.

I think all bloggers and youtubers alike have experts in their fields they look up to. When it came to web design, it is Eric Jordan, music? Darude! For makeup, it was Klaire de Lys for me, an insanely creative and talented makeup artist / musician and all round creative soul whom I watched for months and months on Youtube with admiration.

I admire people from afar, I rarely ever reach out, I mean, why bother, they already have so many screaming fans there wasn’t much point. But then one day I tweeted her, and she actually responded! Instant shock, this never happens! She was kind enough to follow me in return and I won’t lie, it left me on a high that someone I admire so much cared about the dribble I tweet / post about

Then came a time when I hit a downfall online and needed advice. I felt isolate, and didn’t think anyone would be able to understand my issue. Except maybe Klaire, so I bit the bullet and emailed her. Knowing full well she wouldn’t respond.

But you know what? She did, and she gave me the most uplifting advice. And ever since then, Klaire has been a very positive influence on my blogging / youtubing online. She gives the most sincere and best advice, she supports me, she goes out of her way to help me everytime I’m in need. To most other youtubers, I’m just another fan. To Klaire, I was a person.

So now I’d like to do what I can to help her. Klaire is part of the Kings of the Web competition, where the 1st prize money is $5000US. Money Klaire will be using to pay off a 1/3 of her University fees. Everyone with HECS debt knows what this is like.

You can vote 10 times a day, unfortunately you do need to register to vote, but it’s a small price to pay. And honestly, for all the things Klaire has done for me, this is the least I can do for her. So if you can, please do vote! I’d love to see Klaire finish off her studies slightly less in debt

Good luck Klaire! <3

_{All images are copyrighted by Klaire De Lys, I do not own them}

Final set of photos from Hong Kong I’ve had such a blast sharing photos from my life in Hong Kong that I think it’s something I’d like to continue to do from here on in, should I be lame and maybe call them “Tell me a Fable”? a line from one of my favourite songs by Robert Miles – Fables where I share snippets of my life through imagery and storytelling?

Something to consider, and it would help give a more personal twist to my blog, which is something I’ve been keen to do for some time now. As much as I enjoy pumping out product reviews for you all, I think if I can throw in my own twist to beauty and fashion, it’ll make for a more interesting blog! Let me know what you think

On to photos!

If you’re a foodie, you may have heard of the world’s cheapest Michelin rated restaurant in the world, a little Yum Cha shop called Tim Ho Wan located in East Mongkok.

The place opens at 10am, we got there at 9:20am to a decent line of people, and had to wait a further 2-3 hrs before we were seated.

At which point we were starving and proceeded to order everything in sight. Despite there being 6 of us, and probably order enough food for 10+ people, the bill still only came out to around $8-9AU per person, crazy! And the food wasn’t half bad either! (But not worth waiting in the humidity for 3 hrs for, still an experience is an experience)

Before my stay was up, my friends insisted we have breakfast at least once at Café de Coral, it’s like Asian Maccas, fast food Asian food.

All this for a few Australian dollars if even that! I think this trip has officially made me addicted to Turnip cake now… :9

Obligatory bathroom shot, class all the way though, probably the most expensive “public” toilet I’ve ever been in at the W Hotel in Kowloon.

View of Hong Kong Island from W Hotel.

We all decided to have dinner as this “Australian” resturant called Wooloomooloo, the food (despite reviews on Open Rice) was actually really good! And the view was pretty incredible as well~

Best prawn dish ever :9

Steak for everyone! (I was craving it!!… plus I’m a geek, but check out way the buns were lit! :O Glowy!)

Game face ON!! I grabbed a couple of colours from Makeup Forever for a Book of Fables I wanted to film Hopefully I’ll upload soon!

And that’s it everyone~~ My life in Melbourne isn’t half that interesting, but we’ll see what photos and tales I can tell