My Extreme Makeover

April 24th, 2005 by lynnylchan under Uncategorized

After the sexyblogger fad, I received many comments that I am ‘cute’ and pretty. I find these comments as bemusing as they are flattering. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate such comments. It’s just very odd to have all this attention over my looks, when 4 years ago no one would have given me a second look. I was the proverbial ugly duckling, with lots of potential but no way to get it out in the open. I wouldn’t say I’m a swan now, but I understand what it means when people say to young girls, “You’ll blossom.” It seems to me that I’ve blossomed too, but not without a lot of external help, which I’ll document below.

In secondary school, I was a total nerd. I had a very plain haircut (long hair, cut straight across), crooked front teeth and large round glasses. I’m surprised that I had the friends I did, all of whom looked better than me. I suppose my brains made up for it, but looking back, I don’t blame the boys for not looking.

In Form 5 (the last year of secondary school) I got braces. While this served to increase my nerdiness for a while, I couldn’t be happier. It meant that my teeth, which had long been an embarrassment to me, were on the straight and narrow path, finally. It wasn’t easy getting the braces either (and this is where the ‘extreme’ part comes in). X-rays revealed that I had an imbedded tooth in my palate, a canine tooth which had never grown out. It had to be removed before I got braces, otherwise it would erode the roots of the other teeth as they were shifted.

I was terrified at the prospect of dental surgery. I particularly dreaded the injection of the anaesthetic, by far the worst part. I asked for a numbing gel to be applied before the injection, but was told that it would be ineffective. So I suffered through the pain of being injected in the palate. I can tell you, it’s much worse that getting one in the gum, because of the thinness of the palate (so the surgeon told me). I honestly never want to go through that again. The good thing was that once the area was totally numb, I could detach myself from the operation and watch the surgeon at work. It was rather grisly. When he made the incision, a jet of blood shot out and sprayed him across the face, spattering his glasses. I was more embarrassed than horrified, really. When he finally reached the tooth, a tug-of-war ensued as he tried to extract the stubborn tooth. It had a hooked root, which was why my procedure had been trickier than usual.

The black stitches he put in were absolutely gross, I looked like I had really advanced gum disease. I actually swallowed one of the stitches, because it had come loose despite my efforts to tie a knot in it. No matter, the wound healed very nicely without any trace of a scar. It’s easy to forget that I had that surgery, because nothing is left to remind me. Except a tooth with a long, hooked root which I kept as a souvenir.

The following year, I entered junior college with another improvement: contact lenses. For years my friends had been telling me to use my eyes to their full potential and get rid of the specs. When I finally did, I liked my look so much that I pretty much abandoned the specs except to wear at night, after I took my contacts out. The braces came off in September of that year, I got a layered haircut and I guess that was really the turning point of my makeover. All that was needed was some fine-tuning.

In my second year of junior college, I discovered wax strips. They were my main weapon against facial hair. I absolutely could not stand the weeds masquerading as my eyebrows and I beat them into submission, triumphantly declaring victory as I ripped the strip off. I know now that waxing isn’t that good for your face, and I have an alternative in threading. But back then, any method that got rid of hair quickly worked for me.

I never got around to buying makeup until the end of junior college, when I decided to do my own makeup for prom. That particular project turned out quite badly, but it meant that I had taken the big step of wearing makeup. I still don’t wear it regularly, but at least I don’t look like I randomly slapped colours on my face in a dark room. Makeup is now one of my major shopping expenses, because I’m still slowly building up my collection (I decided that I wanted all my brushes to be from the Body Shop) and I’m always looking in magazines and thinking, “I don’t have this colour! I need it to match my bag!” So guys, now you know why your girlfriends and sisters will never have enough makeup. At this age, we will buy anything that promises to make us look good. We’re illogical that way.

When I entered uni, I decided to go the whole hog and revamp my look. I’ve always been a conservative dresser, and I’m not the kind who will wear halter tops and tubes to class. I’m too shy, for one thing, and I just find such clothes too troublesome because they require more preparation than just throwing on a t-shirt and jeans. And my personal philosophy has always been “I’m here to learn”. Nothing wrong with looking good, of course, but I guess I have the Hall fashion disease - we live so near to school that we treat it as an extension of home, and dress way too casually.

Due to the enormous amount of freedom granted not only by living away from home but also by the amount of money I found myself in control of, I could buy whatever I wanted (within limits). No more begging for money from my parents because I was down to my last 200 bucks! No more having to pass up on buying a gorgeous top because I had to save that money for my phone bill! Yes! This is the life! Yahoo! auctions is also partly to blame for my rapid accumulation of clothes. Sometimes I buy clothes online, if I’m really sure it will fit and look good. Most times I just treat the auctions as a giant catalogue and see if there’s anything I like, then go out and find it in the shops. It’s like a little shopping fix when I’m too busy to go downtown.

Looking back, it’s been a long journey to where I am now. 400 km and many improvements later, I’m no longer ashamed to put my picture on the Net for public perusal. But somewhere deep inside, I’m still a bespectacled nerd with major self-esteem problems, and I don’t think I can ever get rid of that part of me. It doesn’t matter though. It’s always good to remember where you came from.

p/s: Hall Guide Part 5 on Roughly Hall will be up on Monday after my Japanese Studies paper, I promise.