Vanilla Essence on 938LIVE

Last Thursday, we had Vanilla girls Karen Tan & Beatrice Chia in The Living Room to tell us about Toy Factory's Sleepless Town. 

Karen was so cute. She leaned over, grinned, and said something to this effect, "Hey, let's put some Vanilla in today's interview..." 

Anyway, I blogged about our chat on The Living Room blog, so check out if you have time! 

Ning aka Magic Babe is also coming on our show, 27 Feb. She's currently in the UK headlining an international magic convention. So we'll let her tell us about that soon! *wink* 

Newly Discovered Emails to Vanilla!!

Just 5 minutes ago I made a really exciting discovery!

I found an old mailbox under the Vanilla mailbox - we had set it up for a challenge we ran in our September issue. It was a "switch to health" challenge, working with Xndo, a company that promotes not just weight loss but keeping weight off and health on.

At first we had received nothing. I was very distraught - I believed with all my heart that Vanilla women did not believe in quick-fixes, but were the sort of women committed to making a lifelong difference in their bodies, minds and souls.

But this morning - Ahhhhh! I found the mailbox titled "xndochallenge" and in it were 21 FRESH UNREAD EMAILS!

Just reading these women's frank and honest sharings about their struggles with weight and height brought my spirit back alive again. My faith has been restored! I could KISS the webmaster but he's quite hairy.

It feels great to know Vanilla women still exist. It was not a figment of my imagination or a product of my making. They live, they breathe, they hurt, they overcome.

So this blog STILL has a reason to exist. I'm overjoyed!

Okay, now I better send them each an email to explain why they haven't heard from us since September 2008...

Overwhelm the Postman!!

hey Everyone!!

reading Adlena's post and how she received her card from Texas has made me post very quickly.

my first article with Vanilla mentioned letter-writing, that old social thing that was big in the 20th century. i continued writing letters and cards during all of last year, not very often, but certainly as much as i could, and i always got happy responses. 

may i suggest that we all find the time to write one card/letter to someone this week? knowing how the year has begun with so much worry and fear and apprehension, i think we all know at least 5 people who could do with a cheering up, especially in the form they least expect it in. we all want to do something big with our lives, but really, it all begins with very little.

i never appreciated receiving chain letters, but man, the effort behind it all...that's something we all could have!!

much love to everyone

Karen

This is about Ron and Me

The first time I've had any contact or any clue as to who Ron Fletcher is(thanks to Levan Cher at The Body Clinic), was because of a "Sportlight" article I did for Vanilla (Feb 2008).

A year on, I actually got a chance to meet with the disciple of Joseph Pilates himself. I booked him for a 30-min interview initially but our conversation went on for two whole hours. I was just so intrigued and riveted by what he had to share. I never imagined having much in common or being able to click with an Irish/American-Indian 87-year-old gay Gemini like I did. It felt like I was talking to a celebrity, maybe Paul Newman, throw in a couple of demos of back-bending moves. And until what comes next, I thought the feeling was a one-sided affair.

Then a few days later, I got a call from Joyce of iPilates who arranged for my interview and who has the most incredible dog, a deep chocolate royal poodle-lab mix named Coco Chanel (pronounce as "channel"). She said Ron wanted my home address; he had something to send to me.

Turns out it's a Christmas card... all the way from Texas, y'all. But what he wrote inside (in impossibly huge, green letters) moved me further:

" I enjoyed sharing some time with you-- our 'natures' mesh well together and you do your work with style and ease-- I hope you get your foot, with body into Joyce's studio-- It's good work. Stay well, go well. Big Texas good wishes.
p.s. If you come out this way, we'll open the gate. Ron"

I digress: This is going into my "time capsule" of sorts, which include correspondences between my primary classmate, who moved to Melbourne when she was in P1, and I(i.e. from 1987 to 2001; saw how our handwriting morphs and we went from using pencils to ballpoint to computer typo), letters from love's lost and random scraps of paper autographed by the likes of Savage Garden and... Timothy W Go (yes, I got a secret crush on that newscaster!)

Sorry I know this post is completely self-centered but I thought to share and spread around some positive energy (since it's the start of the new year and all), which seems to be seriously lacking these days.