LOTD: Intimate Adventures of a Call Girl

When a lovely girl by the name of Magenta gave me 'The Secret Diary of a Call Girl' series, I went out and bought the book to see which I preferred - book or television series. This is a usual habit of mine. I am still reading the book (surprisingly; I usually finish books within a day but have little time for books these days sadly) and so far I feel perhaps the television adaptation is more fun whereas the novel (by Belle de Jour) is more "snippty-snip" and has too many shortened forms as characters that it is hard to follow. Perhaps that conveys the life of a call girl come to think about it but at the same time I have little patience for books that fail to captivate me. And this is about sex too, how shocking that it is dull! But enough about that, I will do a more detailed review later perhaps...

Ironically enough I happened to do a look that I later thought looked quite like 'The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl' book cover. Anyway I quite love this color combination but unfortunately I did this look using a Lancôme travel palette which makes me unhappy.

Lancôme used to be my favorite brand of all time but when I discovered they test on animals it killed all love I had for them. This turned out to be a conflict though as I have quite a few of their products - some I have given away to people who are not troubled by this sinister side of Lancôme and fair enough, if they can stomach it then I have no issues with them using Lancôme products. However in terms of other more used products I either threw them out (some people would kill me if they knew I threw out full Juicy Tubes) or left them to collect dust. However, with this travel palette I could not bring myself to do either as my father had bought it as a special present and so I brought it to Adelaide with me and have kept it in my make up collection fondly without throwing it aside.

I am a softie when it comes to my father, terrible I know.

Anyway I figured if I used this palette in a "I-could-not-care-less" attitude as I would with daily products then maybe it would be just in a way? Treating a high end brand as though it is merely a junk bin brand seems good enough punishment, no? Still, it disgusts me using Lancôme products now. Sigh. What a messy break up.

 

What I did for a day look was use a dark purple and a lighter gray-ish purple shade...

...and then for my night look - I was to go to the pub with some friends - I darkened the inner corners and left everything else the same.

I tossed on one of my favorite bracelets of all time: a friendship bracelet my best friend Kiwa and I made together. We bought the same bracelet and then bought numerous other bracelets, charms, etc. to add onto the bracelet making it a charm bracelet, just not really! You cannot see it in this photo but I have a lot of pendants on it too like one with a dolphin, etc.

Normally I go to the pub with Scott but seeing as he was not around I refused to wear my usual attire of a short dress and heels and went instead with a jean and tight top look. Plus heels, I can never not do heels for nights out, I say pfui to flats. If you are to go out at night then let the heels reign. That said, I am notorious for wearing heels during the day as well. Just not in Adelaide, you get into too much trouble for doing so.

And I finish with some gorgeous apricots the lovely girl by the name of Magenta gave me. So yummy and straight from her garden!

Friday Feature: Mayhem, madness, 'mazing macaroons

It's time to fight Friday blues

I miss my Friday Features, in fact I miss my structured blog entries but I refrained from doing them (all the time) as they seemed to constrict my writing. That said, I'm enjoying the fact that it's Friday and while browsing a blog I felt the need to blog about it and realized I could. Under my Friday Features!

Macaroons...macarons, however you want to spell them, I prefer the former as there's something more appealing about the way it looks and fits the actual devilish delight. Would you believe, I actually have yet to have a proper macaroon! And yet I am so in love with them.

It all began with that episode of Masterchef Australia when Adriano Zumbo unveiled his macaroon tower for the elimination round to kill them all...

It was official: I was in love. The macaroon recipe was what did me in. I had conquered the apparently "difficult" red velvet cake and did it all by hand too (although I highly recommend investing on an electric mixer, doing it by hand is primitive and painful. I only did it because it was for Scott's birthday!) and needed a new challenge. So what better challenge than to try out macaroons? Pfui, I'll conquer them too!

Unfortunately it will be a long time until I can make my own deletable delights (alas, living in a residential college curbs your cooking inspiration, I await the day I move out eagerly!) but until then I waste no time in perusing anyone and everyone's accounts of macaroon madness!

From Masterchef Australia runner-up (and University of Adelaide student, yay for pride!) Callum Hann's recipe for Violet Macaroons with raspberries and butter cream which looks phenomenally hard to a more simple version of Violet's (haha, the irony...) Chocolate Macaroons (I highly suggest reading Violet's blog by the way, she's a cutie!) there is an abundance of recipes out there all with horror stories too.

Has anyone tried making these sugary treats? If so, any suggestions?

L.A Girl Products and Update

Whew! My life has been hectic and it is only the second day of 2011. I am due to leave Sri Lanka tomorrow and head back to Adelaide and I have never been more stressed or - surprisingly - reluctant to leave home. Family time has been amazing and I am really sad I will not be able to return back home for another year and even then I am unsure of whether or not I will be able to visit at the end of the year. Enough dwelling on that though, come what may I say!


So what have I been doing these past couple of days?

I got a hair cut - FINALLY - on the 28th of December as I had a photo shoot on the 29th. I really wanted to cut my hair short (please don't kill me for this Dominique!) but unfortunately as I have a few photo shoots lined up this year and concepts have already been finalized to work with long hair I cannot change them all last minute and also long hair in the industry is typically more practical.

Not to be discouraged, I still got rid of a good four inches! The reason why I waited until now to post up photos of my new hair was because my hair is straightened in these photos so you cannot see the true difference until I got shots of my natural hair. Before I washed out the straightness though I enjoyed a bit of camera whoring with Prince!

Also, my look of the day had my usual hair dresser (but not the one who did my hair this time) fluttering (literally, he flutters) about how I resembled a butterfly.

This shot made me realize how askew my bangs are though...not very happy with them but it has been a while since I have had properly cut bangs although this makes me even more convinced that home-cut bangs are best!

So what does a model eat the day before a photo shoot? In my case, curry udon! How could I resist my dads cooking? Plus, my Uncle from Japan sent me these noodles. At any rate, a healthy model makes for a better model! Or maybe I am just in denial...

Unfortunately I still do not have the official photos from the shoot and dare not post up the few photos I got sent so until then, above is where the shoot took place - Beruwela beach!

And what does a model eat after a photo shoot? Well, she is hungry and cranky so she indulges in rice and deviled fish.

To be good though, I have been eating fruit. And coffee.

Although, good food like hoppers is hard to resist.

So I had to indulge, after all I will not be able to get these things in Australia.

Enough about food though. these days have been full of running around with Mummy getting errands and such done. It has been frustrating and very tiring overall but it was still nice to get time with Mummy instead of having to share her with the rest of the family! I am selfish like that, but hey, I can be!

We also tracked down a new poster of mine that recently went up in a store I modeled for a few years ago. I am a little irked I do not have this photo and the photographer has decided to use photos he obviously has stored up but I suppose that is their right? Still, it is a little unfair that I had to make do with a phone snap...

Anyway, today has been busy as I finish up the last of my packing but I still managed to pick up some new items which will surely make my luggage over the weight limit for sure! I know the quality of this brand - L.A Girl - is really not that great but I got the following - a 3 in 1 color stick and two polishes - for when I need a quick color fix and it isn't to impress.

Diamond powder and white tea extract you say? Does not tickle my fancy at all because really I do not notice any of it in the formula but whatever tickles your fancy, L.A Girls...

I like the black polish with purple sparkles. Although this took three coats before it became opaque enough I quite like how fast it dried and how it has yet to chip despite me running around packing! What better way to test out a polish I say.

The purple is more sheer and I was kind of disappointed with the color result but it is still a nice enough color for two coats worth. It is a purple and purples work for me no matter what!

The color looks amazingly dark right? Well when you wear it, it is more of a pearly neutral color. I was pretty disappointed with the colors they had to offer - for a "three in one" stick that you can wear as eyeshadow, lipstick and blush the only colors they had were a variety of browns and a purple. Not exactly blush worthy colors. Eye shadow and lipstick wise, maybe. Mummy tried her one (she got a light brown) as a lipstick and said it tasted awful so needless to say I wasn't quick to try mine out as a lipstick.

I tested it out in the inner corner of my look for today but unfortunately it blends in completely with Fyrinnae's Darling Misfit and Herbivore! How unfortunate but oh well. The little I have on is now creasing and melting a little because of the heat and sweat so it's not the greatest product out there but for a bit of color when you have no time? Why ever not.

Would I invest on them again? The nail polishes, definitely, I love that they dry up so quickly! But other products? Most likely not.

Also, here is a random shot of sparklers at Christmas - I sat on my doorstep and watched Mummy light them up and refused to hold one but still got burned by a wild spark! Definitely deepened my dislike for sparklers!

When I next blog it will be when I am back in Adelaide so talk to you then dear readers!

In Between: Tales of Food

Just a little filler, just whiling away my days

 

(Dear Blogger, be cranky and don't upload some pictures the right way around. It's cool. Love, Me)

I think this will be my "food post" where all I'll do is post photos of meals I find particularly interesting to share. Or, well, not even interesting but just food that makes me sigh (which is generally most meals).

Prawn laksa - my favorite whenever we get Singaporean takeout!

Hot and spicy seafood pizza - this didn't exactly win me over.

 

A "bath packet", "bath" means rice in Sinhalese. Green Cabin food is the best food ever.

Strawberry jelly made by yours truly...it needed more water though

My usual breakfast: Special K with chocolate bits and a coffee

Vegetable kottu! SOOO good! Spicy and way too yummy with tiny springrolls too

What other McDonalds in the world lack: veggie burgers

Kraft mac and cheese, best comfort food ever

Local brand Elephant House has come out with new ice creams - lime with mango on the inside, mmm

Another bath packet from our usual local caterer. This is a typical Lankan lunch:

A type of banana, dhal, beetroot, fish curry and a green leaf and coconut type salad

I don't much like thambili (king coconut) juice (coconut juice) but I love the fleshy inside

Blogger cracks me up: this got rotated when it wasn't rotated to begin with!
Omelettes are usually the way to go in the Suzuki household. Chilis, onions, home grown tomatoes, lots of pepper and a touch of ketchup.

My grandmother from Japan is visiting so it's Japanese food every so often for us!

Soba from my Uncle Soji, yum!

Roti prathas with chicken curry, so YUM! A childhood favorite from Singapore.

Egg salad on good bread equals carb happiness!

In Between: Back Home For The Rest Of The Year

Just a little filler, just whiling away my days

 

Being back home in Sri Lanka is great thus far but I have to admit I'm glad I'm only here for a little over a month - there honestly isn't much to do over here! So far all I've been doing is eating, talking with Mummy and sleeping. Not exactly the greatest way to stimulate my braincells that I need so desperately to keep me from flunking university nor is it great for my waistline...

Anyway, one nice thing about being home is being back with not only my parents but my three cats - Pebbles, Sydney and Prince as well. I've missed having pets in my daily life back in Adelaide (before Scott and I got Jackson and Trent) and there is nothing like cuddling a furry creature.

Got to love how Blogger refuses to upload photos the way they are. Anyway, another critter back home is our tortoise who is seemingly afraid of water. As it has been nothing but rainy since I've returned, it's amusing to see our tortoise scurry around the garden trying to get out of puddles.

Another great part about being home is proper food! Australian food is literally junk food to me and I miss the rice in my diet. Also the fruits, there is nothing like proper bananas and pineapples of a tropical country. I think I'm just going to stuff myself sick with fruit before I have to return back to the fruit of Adelaide!

Unfortunately during the 10 hours and extra hours of in between traveling, my Fyrinnae eye shadows leaked out and I have a feeling it's the way I packed them up - loosely and without padding to keep them secure. The jar lids unscrewed and I spent quite a while cleaning up the mess. It was tragic but I'm glad I didn't lose too much product otherwise I would've been crying! Especially since one of the main casualties was 'Herbivore' and 'Meerkat' which are my favorites at the moment.

 

 (I have no idea why Blogger uploaded this upside down...)

Just a warning then readers, don't pack your eye shadows as I have done (in my iPhone box). Be smart and pack them up tightly or risk a big mess!