This Precious Life

It all started with a phone call from Pat,
“Hey Hillary, would you like to join a Blogathon?”
“Yes! Yes Pat, I would love to join a Blogathon! Yes!”
(Always enthuasiastic = my motto in life.)
“You know what it is right?”
“Yes! I heard about it from The Boyf!”
“Ah good, in that case, take care, smiles, enjoy your weekend, good byeee!”

Woohoo! I felt victorious. A 24-hour blogathon, I’m sure it will be exciting and fun. As a former Girl Guide, I’m always prepared!

Later that night, I started wondering,
“Eh, so what is a Blogathon har?”
I nudged Nadnut on MSN. She said,
“It’s a competition among ten bloggers. There will be two winners. One will win by the number of votes. The other will win by the number of comments.”

Uh oh. Votes? Comment count? I began to feel slightly unwell.

I then sought Nic for counsel. He said, “It will be okay lah.”
I said, “But what if NOBODY comments on my posts? Not even one?” That has been known to happen sometimes at http://precious-living.com

I began to get the jitters. Jayden got the jitters too, as seen on YouTube.

Since the Blogathon was going to be held in the window display at Singapore’s TANGS Shopping Mall, TANGS (formerly known as C.K. Tang) had to make sure we didn’t turn up in singlets, flip-flops and tattered shorts. We were given a budget of $500 each to pick an outfit from TANGS that we would wear during the Blogathon. At this point, I made such huge shopping mistakes that I should warn all females: do not venture beyond reading this point lest you get a heart attack.

!!Final warning now!!

1. I did not check out the TANGS website before going out to shop.
With the generous budget, we could pick any outfit that we like as long as they are from specific brands including Martina Pink, TokiDoki, Library, Fred Perry and TANG+CO. Having not checked the website, I wrongly assumed that TANG+CO is a brand itself so when I saw clothes labelled “Alannah Hill”, “Paul & Joe”, “Kors”, “Nicola Fenetti”, et cetera, I walked away from those racks. Yes, I deserve a slap. TANG+CO is the location that houses all these fabulous brands.

Back story: When I was a student, there was only one Alannah Hill boutique in all of Melbourne and it was filled with the most beautiful clothes on earth. All I could do was stand outside the shop window and stare longingly as drool collect and dribble out both corners of my mouth. It was only after graduating that I “rewarded” myself with one exquisite Alannah Hill blouse, one Alannah Hill handbag and one Alannah Hill brooch. That was 8-9 years ago.

I have been Alannah Hill-deprived ever since, not knowing that it is available at TANGS. To think I could have picked out one Alannah Hill outfit for the Blogathon and I did not. The tears in my pillow, *weep*.

2. I did not give myself enough time to rummage through the racks
My appointment to pick out the clothes was at 3pm but by the time I got there, it was four. The camera crew had waited so long that I didn’t dare stall any longer. After a brief video interview, I dashed through two floors of TANGS to briefly view all that’s available. Within half an hour later, the crew politely asked if I would be ready to make a decision. I zoomed in at Martina Pink, took three pretty dresses, tried them on in the changing room and made a decision on one. It was zero to $125.30 in 40 minutes flat.

Now, I really love the red satin dress that I had picked out. The heaviness of the material shows that this is quality stuff and it felt soooo smooth and cool when I brushed my hand at the skirt that a chill ran up my spine. Fabrics that feel good to touch always make me feel weak inside.

However, after looking at the price tag, I began to feel discouraged. The dress is “only” $179 and is on sale for 30% off which totals $125.30. Does price indicate Wow factor? Had I chosen too little since TANGS had thought we would need clothes worth $500? Thankfully, after the video is out, I was able to review my choice and I do think this is the genuinely gorgeous stuff, the shiny red satin is the kind that’s not just wanted or desired but needed like marrow for your bones.

Who? Me? Prone to exaggeration? I have no idea what you are talking about.

image by Pat Law

Once the shopping was done, I had a Kiehl’s skincare consultation because good skincare is just what you’ll need to prep your skin for 24-hours of sleeplessness. I told the consultant that I have dehydrated combination skin and she agreed. I was given a generous bag of samples to try. To be honest, I haven’t tried them yet. What I can tell you for now is that The Boyf have tried his samples and given his two thumbs up.

The Blogathon day itself.
We arrived at TANGS at 5:30 pm, changed into the brand new clothes, squealed while jogging on the spot at each other’s gorgeousness, unpacked the Lenovo U350 ultra-thin laptops which we would be blogging from, made sure we could connect to Starhub Broadband and stepped inside the window displays.

It was all quiet inside…

image by Victor Tan

At 6:30pm sharp, the shutter slowly started rolling up.

image from TANGS’ Facebook page

It went tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak as The Boyf and I were setting up.

Oooh, I lurrrrve the sheen of the dress.
Can you see how thin the laptop is? I immediately started downloading my favorite softwares including Firefox, Chrome (the kiasuness), MSN Live Messenger and TweetDeck. Unfortunately, after that, the laptop kept crashing and the Lenovo guy had to come click the One-Key-Recovery icon on the desktop. It is a very convenient button to click when you need to fix a laptop’s crash although having a laptop crash is not convenient at all. Always look on the bright side.

In the meantime, we interacted with passers-by. We should have played a game of charade with everyone. The person who guesses correctly gets to take home the shiny black KitchenAid mixer behind my back. *sigh*

Someone said that our window display looks like a scene out of the “I Love Lucy” sitcom. Do I look like a fifties housewife? I published the first blog post, “They made me a housewife at the TANGS Orchard Blogathon” which received 18 comments. Hello? Where are you commenters when I blog at http://precious-living.com?

Next, we were given a task -- to look for one stylish shopper and interview  her about her personal style. I found the uber stylish Adelynn Tan who was exploring a sea of eyeliner colors at Shu Uemura. Adelynn is a theatre actress. <3

At 12am, we had to move out of there to the Kiehl’s New York Loft which we would be sharing with Claudia and Melly. At 3am, we heard a knock at the door of our loft. The door creaked open and a skeletal hand reached in to wave at us.

*SCREAMMMMMMM*

Throughout the night, there was a constant trickle of passers-by outside TANGS. We should have set-up Mr Bones with a Lenovo and get him to sit with us in the window display. Wonder how the passers-by would have reacted to that. But since DK had taken Mr Bones out for a walk, I tried something else.

SCREAMMMMMMMM!

What? What? I was just trying on the Kiehl’s deep pore cleansing facial masque which was freely available in the Kiehl’s New York Loft. The masque gave me an interesting prickly sensation. After cleaning it off, (Girl Guide honor & honesty here), the skin on my face felt like a baby’s bottom -- smooth, gentle and buoyant -- for a full day and a half. Wow!

Did you know: that the area outside TANGS Orchard is a jogging spot? At 5am, regular  joggers were already up and about, hopping on their feet like nimble gazelles. Some were so kind to wave at us as they run.

At slightly after 6am, the first train screeched into the Orchard Road station and a throng of crowd flowed out. Another Wow. This is one road that doesn’t sleep at all.

At 10am, the voting booth at the entrance of TANGS was reopened so friends and family could come vote for us.

At 12pm, we moved to a new window display. I was too sleepy to look around. It was probably a sportswear-themed one.

1pm was Feed the Bloggers’ time. Family and friends were allowed to enter the window to provide us with lunch. Thankfully, Brokenshardz showed up with ginseng chicken + rice or I would have eaten the wooden hand on display, next to the sports clothes. Interesting combination.

In this window, The Boyf finally had the chance to switch on his television set (white screen on the right). He was so proud to be able to geek out.

Notice also our puffy eyes. I was and still am very proud of that. It’s a sign that we’ve been in battle, a war wound that has healed over time. By the end of the Blog-a-Ton at 6pm, I had published a total of 14 posts. The Blogathon really made me discover how much I love to blog. It is such a joy to have done something that I enjoy doing, with people whom I enjoy being with, for 24-hours non-stop.

So, Pat, when’s the next one? ;)

Postscript: The Boyf won the Blogathon with most comments while Nadnut won with most votes. Congratulations to both!

Post-Postscript: I took The Boyf’s prize-winning TANGS voucher worth $300 but am having thoughts of returning it to him, seeing how scrumptious he looks in clothes from TANGS.

What do you think? Should I? Should I? It’s so tempting, help!