Tuesday, June 2, 2009
102 days, 15 hours, 15 minutes, 55 seconds
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
La perla lingerie ad.
A witch in swan lake make up ran conducted the torturious routine we had established during the past five hours. I swallowed my shame as she called out in sinaporean slang “body forward, stick your ass up” and forgot my dignity as she passed comments on my rather curvatious stomach. Ok, so I wouldn’t have picked me for a lingerie shoot either, but I had blindly accepted the challenge two days earlier and was only now realising that a great picture could not be achived through determination or intelligent posing. You simply had to have a great body when you were a clothes horse for frightening and elaborate designs using material thinner than their tissue paper wrappings.
My worst fears about my body were confirmed and confirmed again as I repeated poses in one set after another. Full length, midlength, close up bra, back of bra, close up bra detail, leg and pant shot, mid lenth pant shot, close up panties, reverse panties. In that order it went on and on. The photographer now limited each pose to one shot only and we exchanged long suffering glances as she pushed us to fit in as many as possible before 6pm, although she obviously didn’t care that we got a ten minute break for a lunch of cereal bar and that my feet were sticky and scabbed from unstable and ill fitting vintage gold heels belonging to my mother which I had brought along to wear.
Tips for posing. For the legs, the old tried and tested poses work. Think maralyn Monroe with her legs crossed at the ankle. In undies you don’t want to send out the wrong message. Potential woman customers are going to see them and they don’t want to feel seduced by you; they want to think they will look the same way or better in their new La Perla set.
Which brings me to the designers of the underwear. Why, honestly, bring out so many variations of the same thing? It was a lot of hard work for me and I’m sure these people aren’t going to bother looking at some stranger and go “oh yes, the extra line of stitching on the bra really makes it stand out… I’ll buy that one!”
Seriously though. i’m not even sure if they will bother using my pictures. My body is so unconventional- totally pear shaped. Though they did seem to be on a rather miserly budget. They were trying to shoot their entire collection in a single day, and to top it, all of their mismatched bits of random sized lingerie (I am an A cup and I had to try to show off a C cup more than a few times.) still had their price tags on. Although they had enough money to hire a spotty teenage assistant solely to cut off the tags and then re attatch them after with plastic thread. I wonder if anyone else had worn them before me. I hope I don’t catch any diseases. I would just like to reassure everyone now that I personally don’t have anything like that.
My pure motivation for doing this is not self belief or a pressing vanity that my body and face needs to be seen, it is just for the money. $200 of it today, which will last about one day in the UK, or buy me one set of sailing clothes. It is worth it for this small piece of independence, my wages feeding or clothing me for a few days anyway. My mobile bad been buzzing all day collecting messages, and I got home exhausted and starving to find that the graduation showcase was tomorrow. I am not sure what it was either, but I had visited a university and had to try on 20 students outfits, where I then squeezed out of them after they had pinned and tucked me in. and so after missing the alarm and wasting five dollars on a taxi, I arrived sweaty and dirty with yesterdays make up. The only way it was bearable staying till 5pm that day was another model, Lyze. She was from tennassee and has an outrageous personality, her impressions of people she had met were unaffected and endearing, and we laughed uncontrollably most of the time.
Another model was very beautiful, but also explained in slurred monotone speech that she was deaf from birth. I was absolutely amazed that she could lip read almost every word I said. When she didn’t understand, she told me, because everybody speaks differently, she asked me to draw the letters on her hand. That way I showed her my name and told her I worked I n a Jazz bar as a waitress. she loved that. I am quite sure she comes from a very distinguished family because of her good looks and her education which includes hip hop dance and I feel like we’re all in this together. The last model, called Niki, is from Russia. She wanted to study art in Singapore but they said her English is not good enough yet so she has to wait another year. She was very reserved, telling the bare minimum with me initiating all the conversations. Usually I am the one who plays that role but I suddenly became the chatterbox.
At 5.10 me and Niki left to visit the agency and another casting. I hadn’t seen her eat anything all day except two Coke zeros, and don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t scary thin, about the same weight as me though her waist was much slimmer, but she told me she was on a new diet ever since joining Imodels a month ago. We collected com cards and I showed her my apartment through the massive agency windows that overlooked central Singapore
My new found role of being the more experienced one, and the more talkative one allowed me to float through the motions dreamily we arrived at the Levi Ladies shop milling with customers and spiked with people who were here to judge the girls who came for the casting. My new confidence allowed me to demonstrate my runway walk without so much as a tremble although it caught up with me in the changing rooms as I changed out of the Levi’s jeans I had been modelling. I had been bouncy, pushed my chest out and generally been what I thought a runway model should be although my equally bouncy thighs are not the best for showing off jeans on.
Niki did the walk I did when I was less experienced. Slow and careful, nervous about the poses she held when she got to the end of the shop where people had gathered to stare at what we were doing in this very public place. My first time was for all the main designers of Burberry on Oxford Street to look at my nervous walk. Niki was lucky in that respect. I was caught out looking at her face when they were taking pictures for reference. She looked- well- really fierce. I suppose there was something about her harshly blond short hair and little lightning tattoos behind her ears but there was something fantastic about her. A few hours later it was confirmed that their nodding and approving lookes at both of us had been translated correctly, me and Niki had the job. I have to go to a fitting today at 1pm. I am not nervous any more, I don’t have enough time to be nervous.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
What Will it be Like on a Yacht for Months? Motivation to achieve your dreams.
On the boat everything is squashed and condensed down to a fraction of what it was originally, food is dried, sleep is squashed into four-hour slots, and soon you end up with a ridiculous amount of time in the day. Think of how much time is spent doing your daily chores out of necessity, what happens when you don’t have to bother with that? When someone else is taking charge of the cleaning and cooking and engine and water and every other role on the boat but yours? When every second of your time is spent towards reaching a common goal. That is when you really achieve something.
I have spent the last year doing the very opposite with time, indulging hours in whatever pastime captures my fancy that particular day. Is this lifestyle any less fulfilling? I don’t think so, but a few months down the line you will notice that you are no further towards the big idea that is always on your mind, like the book you must write, or the subject you want to become an expert in, or the job you want to have. It takes a strong person to be able to cope in this environment, but an even stronger one to use the environment against our natural inclinations to relax and have fun. E.g., if YOU had a choice between spending the next day reading about the origins of lemons and playing golf or going to the beach, which would you rather do? A clever person would bring the book on lemons to the beach with them, but I am not so good at planning and unfortunately that means that I am caught between the two, achieving neither a goal or deriving enjoyment from it, the day has become a paltry concoction of the two, the worst bits of both brought out.
I think that achieving any goal from beginning to end takes the work of two people – I’m not saying that you need another person, but that you need to become two people.
If your goal is to write a book or essay, first give yourself the task of having the ideas, scribbling random notes down, without thinking about the construction or editing of the subject matter, and the creative flow will become easier. Then once you have ripped apart the subject for ideas and have a couple that you would really like to pursue, then you give yourself the task of filling in the gaps between the ideas, explaining, connecting and making it easy for an outsider to read. If needs be, you can hand the finished piece back to the first person where they can give you their creative opinion on which bits to cut and which word would be better there.
Sound like I have multiple personalities? Well, perhaps we all do. You know how being around different people and having to do different jobs requires different sides of you be more prominent? E.g., in school I did physics, maths and art all together. Everyone thought it was a strange mix but I thought it was perfect, because it included and developed all sides of my personality, the rational, the methodical and the creative.
It is strange that we have to end up doing only one job, getting the training for it in university and having a specialized role in a large organization. But then some people are attracted to a life of work that included many roles, but finding that a life of school and an education that has narrowed down their range of talents and vision so that starting your own business or being an artist or sailing round the world by yourself is much harder than you would have thought as the thinking of all possible aspects and outcomes is incredibly overwhelming.
What do you do and do you find it hard doing many jobs at once? Write a comment and let me know.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Guide to Homemade Videos YouTube for the Technologically Retarded
the Zulu Agenda
What is the Zulu Principle?
This describes your ability to become an expert in any tiny niche in
a very short time. A few years a woman dazzled guests at a dinner
party with her knowledge about Zulus it turned out that she had simply
read an article in the Readers Digest the night before.
Rather than mock this somebody who was listening realised that
in today’s fast moving world it was an asset and a virtue to be able
to become an instant expert. He was Jim Slater and he went on to
apply this to choosing investments by specialising in particular types
of shares and situations. In essence it is about finding a niche and
then attempting to dominate it.
Many people have become wealthy on the Internet by searching
out a lucrative niche and then specializing in it, often in areas they
knew nothing about previously a health cure, pet care, a sport, a
hobby, a skill, entertainment, a political blog. Today people are
looking for micro niches, niches within niches. Although you might
start off knowing little the Internet is such a marvellous learning
tool you can quickly change that. More over with effort and
passion you actually become a genuine expert in your chosen
field.
http://www.zuluprinciple.com/
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Interviewed
I, Laura Sarson, am going to be in a magazine coming out in March. YES! there will be an article on me and the clipper race. it is 'Expat' in Singapore and has an audiance of 60,000!!
the interview was odd, although the person doing it, Sunita (dep. editor) was very nice.
in conversations with strangers i usually let them do all the talking. i am not a very social person and i learn more by simply observing, but having what i say written down and even the lamest of jokes being taken seriously was an odd experiance.
i have a feeling i came accross as an enviromental nut, i kept going on about my 'love of nature' and everything. i am a vegetarian, and i have talked to a tree in the past, but perhaps i came accross too strong?
my choice of clothing was a slightly gothic black high necked dress, that i LOVE but conflicted awfully with my cheerful demeanor. it probably would have been better if i had acted mysterious and aloof.
tips for getting interviewed by a journalist...
- know what the aim of the article is. the focus of the article was my involvement in the clipper race, but MY aim was to make people interested in me personally so they would be tempted to visit my website.
- come up with some good lines before the interview. these are going to be splashed accross the page so they must be good- an obvious question might be 'why did you want to do the race' and an interesting but focused answer would be ' the challange, the open ocean, and the wild parties!'
- you cannot pretend to be someone else when you are asked questions. it is like being interrogated, you must get your story straight or you come accross as fake. that is the mistake i made with the dress. i should have worn my normal shorts and shirt.
Party Hearty!
in September i am joining the crew of the 'clipper round the world yacht race' so i got invited to another 'clipper party' last week. 'Parties' to the mind of an 18 year old involves glitter eyeshadow, a bottle of vodka and a lot of talk about other peoples sex lives between bouts of raucous laughter.
i travelled to the party on foot, to the eastern themed bar 'Kazbar' where i eventually located a lonely looking group of people in the gloom. people eyed me sipping their beers, wondering what i was doing there probably. only one fairly sceptical guy has had the nerve to say 'you doin't look like a sailor' probably because i was wearing a mini dress at the time. everyone was excited about the impending race. i immediatly got stuck into a conversation with a woman doing leg 6 (California, through the panama canal, to her old home NYC) and she told me a great story about achiving your goals:
Achieve your goals in only 13 years!
I was 17 years old (she said) and in Sunday school that week our teacher made us write down everything we wanted to achieve by the time we were 30. so i wrote my dreams down and the envolope was sealed and i never saw it again. i left home to go to university, got a degree then a job, and visited my parents at the age of 29.
my mother rushed to me and told me 'your sunday school teacher is looking for you' of course i had forgotten about the envolope and i was interested to find out what my 17 year old self had written.
to my surprise i had acomplished nearly everything- to get a degree with honours and so on. only two things i hadn't done... to make a certain amount of money per year and to go swimming with dolphins. i was rising quickly in my company so i found that i got a pay rise a few months later, and as a surprise my boyfriend took me on a trip to swim with dolphins.
now, this lady had the help of a rather odd though passionate sunday school teacher (who keeps a letter from their students for 13 years???) but you can DIY. that is the power of writing down your dreams.
later on she started a list of what she wanted. she went on to complete a half marathon after only 3 months of training.
i am starting a list.
- to raise money to circumnavigate the world in any way possible.
- to do something crazy every day to write about in my blog.
- to write a book, but not just any book. THE book- the one you are always looking for in bookshops and libraries but can never seem to find.
- to run a marathon. nuf said.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Slogging for Sailing
i run along the singapore riverside about three times a week doing about four/five miles in 50 minutes (which i know from my excellent 'Polar' heart rate monitor i got for Christmas.). it is the strength training that is a problem, i have been reduced to using baked bean tins for weights as i cannot possibly afford gym membership.
for those doing a bit of home training themselves, here is a few tips;
firstly, running/jogging - if you are already running a few times weekly you will burn roughly 100 calories per mile you run. it is extremely motivating to imagine that donut you had at lunch... simply disappearing, as if you never even ate it. from my experience, i can say that the important thing is to keep going rather than keeping a quick pace. twenty minutes in, if you are going to collapse you need to slow down, to walking pace if necessary, just keep jogging. i promise in two minutes you will be able to go faster again. it is recommended to take about one breath for every three steps you take, but i take four steps. anything is fine as long as you have a rhythm so you don't have to think about it. weight loss experts say that running when you are hungry will burn off more fat, which makes sense. yesterday i went for a run about 9pm and i hadn't eaten anything since 2pm - the first ten minutes i was encumbered with a crippling pain in my stomach but by the time i had finished my usual circuit it had gone, and i did a second one easily. exercise is an incredible appetite sup present which is odd because the two are opposites. if anyone knows how this happens i would love to know!
i used to do swimming, and breast stroke is great for working the arms. honestly, i was too embarrassed to do front crawl as mine is more like a snails crawl. My mum came along with me to the Volvo Race and also partook in the grinding challange and she was excellent. so what does she do all day? Housework actually. yes, all that lugging around of furniture and scrubbing of stains actually puts our flabby arms to shame with their strength.
lastly, some ideas for unconventional training. i love spending ten minutes working on juggling, i can do it for over 30 seconds now and it develops your hand - eye coordination so that you have good reflexes. my dad frequently annoys me by throwing things at me with the phrase muttered a millisecond later 'THINK FAST!' but the head injuries have decreased since learning to juggle. i also have a drum kit. we live in a tiny apartment so i don't get to play it very often, but when i do it works those arms like crazy, just an added bonus to making a hell of a lot of noise for no reason. i should really get muffling pads but I've had no complaints yet (from neighbors).
so there are some things to mull over if you are thinking of starting sailing or perhaps just want to tone your triceps in time for bikini season. (guys... ism looking at you).
toodaloo,
Laura.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
ohhhhh!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Quest for sponsorship
- they have to have a marketing budget big enough. a lot of big companies have a budget for sponsorship as well but this is usually for community or charitable activities so no luck there.
- they have to have offices and customers based worldwide so they will benefit from my promoting them in the many countries we visit.
- they have to want to reach an audience interested in yachting and travel. the industries i have been contacting so far have been;
- wind energy companies based primarily in the UK
- sun cream companies, which would be absolutely perfect as they have worldwide distribution
- yacht charter companies and websites that sell yachts. people on the race will have a keen interest in things like this because the 400 people taking part on the race as well as the people viewing the race will have further contact with yachts
- package delivery companies. the idea here is a media stunt with the yacht delivering parcels round the world, a demonstration of the distance it has to travel and an excuse to give people a gift or award in the various ports.
- marine electronics, actually only one company so far has been contacted but they are hard to find when you have a specific idea in mind, but a few other wi-fi companies who install them in yachts for Internet in port.
Monday, November 24, 2008
please please please click!!!
my family. (see, they are not odd at all)
desaru, malaysia, squashed in the back seat. 5.31pm and 14 seconds
“Why don’t we do something spontaneous?” my mums voice breaks the silence with her predictable refrain.
These things always start this way. My parents decide its time for a holiday, devise a crazy plan travelling there for less money than you would pay for a sandwich and end up in an overpriced golf resort because there was nowhere else to go. Thankfully, the chaotic nature of these adventures also means that most of them don’t happen.
It was my dad’s birthday so he decided we should go to Desaru Malaysia because that was where all his work buddies go. So, after hiring a car and putting the birthday cake in the freezer, we were on the road out of Singapore. Or at least we thought so until we realised we were heading in the opposite direction.
Finally we saw the start of the queue ahead and breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately queues, like icebergs, have nine tenths hidden round the corner. One hour later we were still there. Another hour later, we had opened the snacks, the CD in the car was on repeat and I could tell by the suffocating quality of the air that dad was really enjoying his birthday. I tried to convince everyone that this was ‘quality family time’ but was met with nothing but silence, and rhythmic munching next to me.
Much later, we were on the open road. I passed the time identifying road kill and explaining to my brother that trees didn’t usually grow in straight lines, the vast plains of palm trees were harvested for oil. The younger trees looked like the tops of pineapples poking out of the ground and the sky behind them was like a smudgy cirrus reflection of the grassland around us.
We didn’t pass many villages. The area was strangely desolate, buildings abandoned and left to bleach in the sun.
I suggested that we start making phone calls to some hotels to see if they had any vacancies, surprised that someone hadn’t mentioned it before me. We used my dads phone to Internet search hotels in Desaru. The only thing we found out was that internet on phones is not a very clever idea and every time we clicked onto a new page it was necessary to scroll down through endless ‘trackbacks’ and ad’s before you got to anything useful. But times were desperate and nowhere had vacancies. Then we hit lucky, and found a place with all the room we could want. Despite mild speculation as to why exactly they had so much room, we were glad to know we weren’t sleeping in the car tonight and so we told them we would be there in twenty minutes.
We rounded a corner and the thick jungle gave way to the unexpected sight of a sprawling castle-themed complex, plastic flags frozen as if flying in the wind. Over the red tiled turrets we caught our first glimpse of the sea. “What is that place” We exclaimed, partially out of horror at finding a tourist hotspot of commercial perfection after driving for hours through rocky tracks and dusty plantations, and partially because we weren’t staying there.
Another mile down the road we started to spot little huts like beach houses through the trees. “Here we go”, my dad smiled. My mum’s eyes widened. “Oh no. Oh no, you can’t be serious”. We came in through the muddy gateway and beheld the sight in silence for a few seconds. Little salt stained huts scattered along the weedy rock littered dirt. They cowered in the shadow of what I think was a recreation hall. That or the meeting place of a religious sect surviving hard times. The roof stretched into a huge peak that pointed towards the sky, along one edge was a hole as if something large had taken a bite out of it.
The person looking after the place watched us, beady eyed as we continued down the track, turned around and headed back out as fast as we could. “Oh, can’t we stay there?” I muttered. It wasn’t pretty but it was bound to be more interesting to stay there than some crumbly B&B . I mean, interesting in the way you wonder if you are going to find a dead rat in your bed or not.
We continued up the road. We finally came across a large hotel, and drove into the car park, which was inhabited by a tractor dressed as a malevolent train, giving a ride to a small girl and her father. They puttered round the parking spaces and we pulled in next to a bullet hole riddled black car. My mother narrowed her eyes at dad as if he did it on purpose. We climbed out and headed into the reception hall where my sister and I emitted loud ohhs and ahhs and after a few minutes wondering around realised everything was identical to a different hotel we visited in Bintan, from the sun beds down to the bathroom signs. My dad went to reception hoping to be harder to turn down in person than on the phone, but came back with a grim expression; looks like all the rooms are taken. I looked around, but the place seemed totally deserted apart from a few people dressed in matching blue t-shirts.
Dinner was quiet; we were all alone in the restaurant. We watched the group of blue t-shirted people grow larger and start on a sumptuous buffet through glass windows. Plates of steaming food were carried past us through to them, I could only sigh and start on my salad.
The beach, though, made it all worth it. The sand dropped steeply away to a warm green ocean, the huge waves made satisfying smashing sounds. We could only go knee deep the currents were so strong but we walked away dripping all over from a particularly large wave. Meanwhile, phone calls were made and every receptionist within a thirty-mile radius interrogated. We finally found a place and drove away, only after promises to my little brother that we will come back tomorrow for a marathon session of table tennis. Wearily we climbed back into the car and because dad was annoyingly ignoring our questions about the hotel, we were once again revived by the sounds of the radio and all started dancing when speed bumps coincided with lines like ‘my lovely lady lumps’. My brother unfortunately, caught the concept of the song quickly.
The new place was right on the edge of a man made lake, where forty boats or more were moored along a long wooden pier, from big iron cruisers to little fibre-glass catamarans. Walking alongside them, the sun nearly blinding me from the glare off the water, owners proudly washing their decks and polishing their instruments, willing me with their eyes to ask them a question about their boat.
We learnt that you could get a passenger ferry straight from the hotel to Singapore. I felt a huge laugh that summed up my exasperation surge inside of me, but I was slightly scared of what would happen if I let it out. My dad’s eye twitched.
The apartment had not been lived in for a while, a musty curtain smell pervaded the rooms and bugs littered the floor as if giving up hope of getting out. The place had a kitchen, though without any cutlery or plates and amid a pile of broken ply board and rusty nails we discovered a flight of stairs leading to an unused empty room.
We huddled round the TV and watched ‘lord of the rings’ after smothering ourselves in mosquito repellent. We eventually dragged ourselves off to bed, gingerly stepping around in bare feet and trying to subdue the worries of our mum of someone coming through a secret panel in the room upstairs.
Breakfast was lovely, and for once we weren’t the last people to get a table. Breakfast buffets are the best, especially in Asia. Where else could you get noodles, prata and an omelette all at the same time? We trundled back over to the other hotel and enjoyed a few hours of skin scorching fun. Soon I had had enough and went exploring for something to do. I found a few editions of ‘golf life’ and ‘the business times’ that were being used to prop up a table in the hotel shop, and I took them away and read them cover-to-cover, waiting impatiently for the others to get squeaky with sunburn.
Lunch, a number of similar sandwiches, was interrupted by my sister hurrying to our couch clutching her mouth in distress. She had fallen over in the pool onto her teeth and one tip had broken off. Flecks of swimming pool blue stuck to her tooth and I was reminded of the time I had broken a tooth upon helping to carry a demonic sofa bed. I told her it wasn’t as bad as she thought.
My mum insisted we should rush back to Singapore right now, whereas my dad and I told her after she had recovered she would be fine, and adding five hours of car-sickness into the mix wouldn’t help. Thrusting Hailey’s tearful face towards us eventually convinced dad, but while driving away we both looked back at the skidoo sign at reception in longing as we squelched and settled into the car seats, clothes wet from swimming gear underneath.
Back at the border in the queue, the entire thing had been forgotten and my mum and dad had convinced themselves it had been an excellent ‘getaway’ and they should do it again next week. My sister once again gnawed on a candy bar, broken tooth forgotten, and I prayed this was the last time we would listen to the CD.
We drove off into the city smog sunset. Them, singing happily the praises of hire-car travel. Me, watching in trepidation for the next destination to spring up in the chatter as we unwillingly speed towards ordinary life again. Next time, I will bring an i-pod.
my life in the limelight
This is a true story. My experience in the fashion world is not one everyone has been through. It was what feels like many years ago, although it can only have been a year and I no longer recognize myself from the pictures in the magazines. I still can’t decide if it was a good or bad experience, because once you get a taste of something that cuts as deep into this strange fantasy world, where your survival depends on your waist measurement, its hard being normal again. People at school are still glancing at me as if I’m something special. I think I feel both good and bad intensely.
I’ve been in a few magazines, my first was teen vogue. My god, did it really happen? They sent me and my mum on a plane to New York for a shoot, that’s what they do you see, give you a taste of something that sweet, then once you’ve fallen for the bait you can’t back out because everyone in your class knows and they keep asking you what your doing next. I miss school and music lessons but I don’t really care because all I want is that little thrill again. I never liked the popularity it earned me. A girl in my year, pregnant at fifteen, came up to me and
started an uncomfortable conversation. I’m sure she’s a very nice person, but I know we’ll never be friends if that’s the reason she is talking to me.
I’m not a very talkative person especially with people I’ve just met. That’s probably why I never made it big time. Everybody else was so skinny and chatty and pretty and I didn’t look like them, I didn’t feel like them.
The head of the modeling agency spotted me. She was doing a BBC documentary on her agency, and she said I was the best she’d seen all day. We were at the Birmingham fashion show and I was pretty ill that day and had sat down on the floor, piled with my friends’ coats while they went to the bathroom. When I got up with a groan and shook off the coats covering me she looked up sharply and asked me what size I was. I said I was a UK 8/10 which isn’t big, but it isn’t model size I know. She said later on at the agency while measuring my waist that I could be a big thing, and that she was sending me to the guy who casts Prada.
I looked up at the big posters with skeletal sex on legs staring at me and just wondered.
I can’t walk in high heels. I can pretend, but I never wear them at home or shopping because I’m too tall. One time they made me dress up in a see-through shift and a pair of heels, and with three onlookers watching me stomp around the room criticizing me in French, I think one of them said something like she iz too clumzy, and fat as well’ but then again I did get a C in French GCSE. (by the way I am not a dumb blond and I have very good GCSE grades, although I am a blond)Also, that had to be the day where a giant zit had appeared on my chin.
I got gym membership by saying I was 16, which worked because I look way older. I was determined to lose weight and become a catwalk model, which I practiced on the treadmills when no one was looking, with sucked in cheeks and everything. Another time, I met with
Mario Testino (very famous photographer), who is very nice, and has lots of yummy Italian assistants. I can act chatty and smiley if I want to, I was told he only picked lively models, so I stuck on a grin, and wore my loud Issa dress, and that month I was included in vogue, wearing a very uncomfortable combinati
on of leotard and army trench coat.
The theme was young London’ and people doing the shoot weren’t wearing very much, never the less they braved some really cold weather on top of a tall building and I’m just glad I got the coat! Well I didn’t really tell anyone about this one as I learned from previous experience, but my omnipotent textiles teacher knew, and she seemed to hold me at arms length in class, whether from pride that I got spotted on her trip and hope that she would be one of my privileged friends(joke), or fear that one of her students, at only fifteen had dug deeper into the fashion world than she was ever going to.
Everyone I know thinks that modeling means Kate moss and being rich and famous and glamorous, but all the models I have spoken to at the agency and on shoots are bone broke, encouraged only by that elusive prize of supermodel status.
One day me and the rest of the newbies had to make a video to show potential clients, so we went of to the park and were told we were going to dance for the camera. Oh yay! Lets make a fool of myself in front of everyone by saying she can’t dance with no music, of course you can! When you’re a model, they ask and you do it without question. That’s the way it’s always worked.
I did have fun, when I wasn’t trekking round London with my mum in tow, or queuing in an ally way with fifty other girls, waiting to see three dragons in a basement, their mothers waiting outside wearing smug expressions. My mum was very supportive through that time. She was highly critical of everyone we met and finally my eyes were free of that glossy gauze I saw it all through. That was the last time I ever want to a casting, and I’m glad of it, although I can’t truly say that I don’t regret quitting. Who could?
Fame and riches. But then the agency phoned up and said we owed them three hundred pounds.
the clipper round the world race 07/08
So when my father excitedly told me about a race of ten yachts manned by taxi drivers and accountants I gave it one look and dismissed it as one of those mythically elusive events. Irrelevant to my own life as the latest celebrity legal battle or the invention of soy underwear.
Meanwhile my life was filled with a flurry of revision and stress while becoming accustomed to our new home in Singapore, having moved out here into the cultural and ethnically varied urban jungle half a year before.
In January 08 the ten clipper yachts arrived in Singapore. Ten gleaming boats, each named after and sponsored by a city, packed together swarming with their weather-weary crews, cleaning, packing and sunbathing. I took in the scene and compared it to another future, one lived in gloomy university halls and cheap student accommodation.
Finally I saw this as an opportunity that I could not turn down.
My excitement grew as I received the contract and read the insurance details. I pretended to fume at the measly sum of $54,000 compensation in case of death while my mum paled at the list of possible injuries. Accidental bodily injury which results in loss of limbs/ eyes. Permanent total disablement. Hijack.
The ocean seemed a more dangerous place back in the days before GPS and weather radar systems. Back before thriller blockbusters filled with impossible danger but somehow the heroine always makes it back home safely, perchance with a handsome deckhand in tow.
I wasn’t worried despite the talk given to me and the rest of an anxious audience, while on a tour of the clipper yachts that described the speedy death of anyone swept overboard into a cold sea in a matter of minutes. Such an accident occurred on the 07/08 race, though I am relived to say they survived with injuries that could be slept off on board their yacht ‘Scotland with style’. The crewmember got off at the next port stop and willingly rejoined the race later on, even finding love with a crew member from another boat.
On the same oceanic journey, the ‘Uniquely Singapore’ yacht carried Hizam Haiyon, the only Singaporean to circumnavigate on the race. He was lucky enough to be sponsored by Keppel corp., whom he has worked twelve years for and who have also sponsored five other employees in an effort to ‘unleash their potential’.
It is true, according to Jenne Liu, that people grow and change during the race. ‘One can see the true character of a person when the going gets tough. There's no way to hide a selfish or lazy or skiving nature! Everyone has to confront his/her own demons!’
Jenne saved for three years to complete the first leg of the race. On first reading about it in a newspaper she thought she wasn’t good enough to compete but later found out that the selection process for the crew was not based on lengthy endurance tests or past experience, but for anyone who wanted to have a go.
Nineteen of the Singapore crew were sponsored by their companies. It seems to be an effective way onto the yachts as sailing is on the pricey side, each leg going for about ten thousand dollars plus training, and the round the world at $87,000 which means that this race designed for ‘anyone’ will have few takers from those with a mortgage and a family to take care of. It is no wonder that half of all people who apply for the race don’t get past the first stages and, as the contracts bring the weight of commitment to those who like the idea of sailing only as a passing fancy.
The ending of the race may have been satisfying for the triumphant ‘New York’ yacht, but could anyone who has taken part in such an adventure be content with a nine to five job consuming their days once more?
Upon finishing the race Jenne had no problem returning to her old job as a freelance tour guide, but she continues to battle with the elements by trying out skydiving. She may rejoin some of the friends she made on the race, sailing from Singapore in August and next year she heads down to Antarctica.
‘After the race, all the discomforts, fears and hardships are very quickly forgotten. I only remember the good bits!’
It is commonly known that yachtsmen/women have a very selective memory, only recalling the choice bits out of the swirl of stormy sea and damp sock filled days, otherwise a bad days sailing would put off even Robin Knox Johnston himself. However, the rest of us are given hope that their experience hasn’t put them off sailing forever.
find more about it at www.clipperroundtheworld.com/
Sunday, November 16, 2008
I am sitting at my desk enduring the second week working here interning at Ogilvy Singapore (elite advertising agency). the very fact that i am writing on here must show how useless i am, they have even stopped giving me photocopying work!
ALTHOUGH, yesterday, i was offered the chance to go to a commercial shoot, and i was like Yes! so at 3.45 we went to Pasir Ris by taxi, to some very
dodgy looking flats and stopped outside a minimart, they told me to run in and buy some marlboro reds so i rushed in and out. They told me 'sorry, but we need Marlboro lights instead.' I rolled my eyes and stalked back inside (this is not a random detail - i swear it is part of the story!).
They had left the taxi, and i gradually came to realise that this was the location of the shoot. I was told i must stay outside because there ‘Wasn’t enough room’. so i sat there with a singaporean who told me he had already been waiting 30 mins because his friend had told him to come, but he had no idea either.
Waiting there forever, I came to a startling realisa
tion. Singaporeans, the ones with chinese ancestors in paticular, have no age. honestly, it was stunning now that i looked around. the women walking past me could be thirteen or thirty! the only thing that gave it away was the way they dressed. it is obvious with europeans, their skin quality degenerates and they have obvious lines on their face, not to mention the obvious weight increase (tee hee. Nah, it won't happen to me, what are you talking about?), but the women milling round me on the street were all slim enough to be models. unfortunately for them the asian genes has a different surprise waiting for them - female pattern hair-loss. (the truth-i swear!)
I'm sorry, i thought this picture was a grumpy woman in a wig.i got bored and went to go look in the minimart. i saw a grim reaper staring at me amid a crowd of technicans! One of them noticed me and hurried me out looking as though she had seen Grim herself. I was starting to peice together what was going on. Having been a ‘just for laughs’ enthusiast for some time, i had already seen the security monitor trick. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bf-7PxQ894
Just then they told me they were ready for me. Iwas handed ten dollers as a prop (which by the way, would not be enough to buy them here thanks to tax!) and told to go in and buy the ciggies. I didn’t want to dissapoint them by telling them i already knew what they were going to do when they had put so much effort into it! So instead i gave them a show.
I walked through to the lonely minimart casually. I ‘happened’ to glance at the screen and froze when i saw grimmy behind me. He started walking towards me. I spun round and obviously due to computer sorcery he was not there. I looked freaked and backed away, grabbing the cigarettes on the way. I was greeted by the team laughing at my reaction and telling me that if they had told me about their 'trick' they wouldn’t have got such a great response. I smiled at their naivity. after all, who would be scared? i am amazed i convinced them. so that was it. my great acting debut.
After that they ‘let me in on their secret’ showing me the split screen they used, on one side showing recorded footage of grim and the other side showing real time. Unfortunatly if anyone walked accross the divide, they would seemingly dissapear into a parrallel universe.
Me and the team spent the next three hours staking out the minimart in a little back room, a running tab on the counter fuelling us with snacks and coke zero. we had some people outside regulating the people who came in which must have immediatly put them on edge, and we had to keep telling the shopkeeper to stop being so friendly. We got a few good victims. One of the team got a few people driven all the way down from the office to ask for ciggies, only one out of four worked and it is a 40 minute trip down there! Shows how valuble they think their juniors time is! after they were done with, they were sent away none the wiser!
Eventually a group of teenagers showed up laughing at the whole thing and finding the hidden cameras, we left, very suspiciously, a whole group of people coming out the back room of the minimart. We left them still staring at themselves in the camera.
That was the end of my adventure. I had to leave the others pretending I was going to have nightmares thanks to them and let them enjoy their joke, little knowing that the joke was on them.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
guide to making a website for the technical dunce
Thursday, October 23, 2008
list of ideas that went nowhere
- Get sponsored by a company for actually using their product on the trip. a sort of 'ultimate scientific test', say, for sunscreen. ten months on the open sea is as good a test as i can think of, although it could probably work on any sort of outdoor trip or event.
- Set up a giant Christmas part event, i wanted to invite sixth forms from many neighbouring schools to make things interesting, and hire out a night club for the night. problems were, now that i had left school i couldn't promote the event there, and wasn't sure how to promote it at other schools + sell tickets. however, it would work if you only wanted to raise a few thousand $$$$. one particularly outrageous event i was planning was to hire out sumo wrestling suits and dress volunteers as Santa's with the help of beards and bobble hats. then i thought the idea of half naked Santa's pitted against one another may disturb my dreams for nights after. the dumb club (the butter club in Singapore) said that we could only stay till 10pm. that is no party.
- Since i had done modelling in the past, i thought perhaps i could model a watch or something, giving them a chance to use a real adventurer rather than the vanilla girls they usually use, and letting them shoot on deck. BUT then i thought, what was i gonna say to get them interested? pay me a truckload of money to get a photo of me, most likely sea-sick and exhausted. THAT my friends, would take all the romance out of sailing.