I remember those days too. From the very young age of 3, I'd set my sights on medicine, and nothing was going to stand in my way. I was warned about the many years of study, the numerous exams. But nothing actually prepared me for medicine.

Fast forward to 2010 and ask if I'd change my mind knowing what I know now!

The first few years as a junior doctor are terrible. No one prepares you for the long hours, lack of sleep, seniors that expect you to be pychic, nurses that want you there now, all 10 at the same time. Plus studying for exams with a massively high failure rate. And for some of us, young children too.

And this phase lasts 10 years for Specialists, assuming no hiccups on the way.

I have no regrets with my career choice, but I am glad that I have had the courage to expand my possibilities. Anaesthesia on its own would have bored me to tears. Especially in Singapore where the Specialty is not respected.

So what do you say to a young innocent who wants to go into medicine without knowing what it's like to be sleep deprived and yet have to think clearly at all times? Will they laugh when I tell them I've worked for 6 weeks without a single weekend off?

My seniors were laughing when I complained about nervous exhaustion. They just recalled their own stories of how they almost crashed their cars driving home after a night on call, how one of their friends fell asleep and didn't even know he was being burgled because he left his front door unlocked...

So I'm loving Aesthetics. It's rewarding, fun, happy medicine. Some call it frivolous, but I don't really care. I take far too much pleasure in taking care of my clients and helping them look their best to worry about those who daren't go off the beaten path.

It was only when I tried the OPI clear nail hardener a few months ago, that my nails grew longer and evenly. The difference was quite astounding. And just when I thought it was about long enough, I went bowling and spliced off the entire right thumb nail.

Arghhhhhhh!!!!!

So it took a few more weeks to grow out, and finally, it was time to go French!

With over an hour to spare last Wednesday afternoon, I slipped intoDivine MedSpa and got Jam to do the necessary. As usual, the moment I sit down without my computer in front of me, I fell asleep. I got up when my phone went off to say my next patient had arrived. She was half an hour early! I looked down, and my right hand was done, but the left side incomplete! The while tips had only been painted on my thumb and middle finger! Oops!

No choice, had to abandon. And being me, I had no time to do anything about it for days. So I had a really strange looking left hand for the rest of the week. It was only when we got a bit quieter on Sunday that I was forced to sit down again. This time, Jam managed to complete the job. So I have been sporting the almost perfect French finish for the last few days. I say almost because I'm still itchy fingered and can't stop picking at it. So it's not looking too pretty now.

I think I'm better off sticking to the clear varnish. Less evidence of bad habits! )

But our new colours from China Glaze have just arrived. Jam's eyeing the gold polish for the tips! So my hands may look very interesting when she catches me and pins me down on Friday! But she has to catch me first!

During a recent dig-about, I found a couple of bottles of Reparastim HA. This is a serum formulated by Dr Philippe Deprez, a French dermatologist and the man behind Skin Tech and Aesthetic Dermal. I've always loved his products. Since I'd just run out of a few anti-aging creams at home, I tossed a bottle in my bag.

I wasn't unfamiliar with Reparastim. I've been using the super-potent treatment serum for a couple of years already. That was part of my rejuvenation cocktail, and provided nice results with its combination of antioxidants, growth factors, vitamins, minerals, etc.

But, I never expect miracles with skincare. Guess I'm spoilt with the more invasive treatments in the clinic. But, I'm always open to trying, although I will dump products I don't like.

My first impression of this product was neutral. Nice light serum, easily absorbed, but a bit of a strange smell.

Surprisingly, after just 2 days of use, it seems quite apparent that my skin appeared fairer and clearer. Hmmm..... Nice! It's supposed to refill, relax and stimulate. Interesting. I may just become hooked!

I'm waiting to find out the pricing details of this product. There's a very high chance we'll be retailing this at Simply Aesthetic & Divine MedSpa.

Me? I'm very pro foreigners, as I find it virtually impossible to find good local staff. It's not that I don't want to hire Singaporeans. It's certainly much easier to have someone start without prologed approval and appeals with the Ministry of Manpower, followed by the massive IR21 form when they decide to leave.

But sometimes it's virtually impossible to find locals willing to work in the Aesthetic industry. Take our recent interview. This girl was experienced, having worked in another clinic previously. She had left to join a beauty salon, but desperately wanted to come back into the medical side. So we gave her the job, waited for her to serve her notice, then she told us she wasn't going to join us. So we wasted over a week.

A few months ago, another local girl was all set to join us then never turned up on the first day! She refused to answer her mobile till Candy called her with her personal phone. This girl picked up and pretended she was a friend and the girl had left her phone with her whilst she moved house!????!!!!!

Yep! That's how we got crazy Pati, the Australian who has left the country without paying taxes. Okay, so the foreign workers aren't without problems either...

So anyway, we've been advertising again. We need Therapists for both the clinic & spa. And we ran the ad in the Straits Times twice, on Friday and Saturday. Now we need a Singaporean, PR or Malaysian for the spa. We can't get a pass for any other nationality. But no Singaporeans answered the ad at all! Not one! And Saturday's supposed to be day Therapists actually look for jobs? Hmmm.........

The only interest has been from Filipino nurses (and a Physiotherapist). Also someone from Myanmar with incomprehensible English, so that's a straight no. It's hard. Raising the levy is a great idea if there are enough locals to fill in the demand. But there just aren't, and stopping businesses from hiring staff outside is just making it more difficult for us to survive.

The man at the counter asked the older boy, "Son, how old are you?"

"Eight," the boy replied.

The man continued, "Do you know what these are used for?"

The boy replied, "Not exactly, but they aren't for me. They're for him. He's my brother. He's four.

We saw on TV that if you use these you would be able to swim and ride a bike. Right now, he can't do either."

We discussed the ros & cons of private practice. I, of course, would never return to SGH full time, but am no longer in the position to comment about full time Anaesthesia in private practice either.

At that point, he labelled me as a Beautician and walked off!

HA!

Stunned speechless!

It's funny the Plastic Surgeons seem terrified of us doing their work, and my colleagues think I don't do much more than a Beauty Therapist?!!!

If he bothered to find out more of my real scope of interest, he'd be in the clinic hooked up to a slimming device straight away. This is a man who tried to lose weight by doing a few squats in his bathroom once many years back, and ending up laid up in bed. Can't remember if he did his knees or back in...

And looking young of course. The joys of ageing gracefully by not ageing much at all! That and slimming is medical aesthetics. And that's what I do.

I also polled my friends on Facebook and picked at Julie's brains. The consensus was "go do it"! So I agreed.

As usual, if it's not urgent, it gets forgotten. So fortunately the e-mail came to send over the lecture slides with a 48 hour deadline. Arghhhhh!!! Talk about pressure! So everything else got swept to the side last Monday, and the lecture prepared in one night. Phew!

Yesterday was D-Day. I really did not know what to expect. And I was too busy to mull over & memorise the slides. All I had was Julie in the audience to cheer me on. Fortunately it was the second lecture of the conference, so I could get it over and done with ASAP.

So at just after 10 am on 1st March, I stepped up on stage for the first time in years, and rattled on about my views of Aesthetics & Medical Tourism. Fortunately, I have had a significant number of patients in this category, so I could just ramble on and talk nonsense. I ended to a dead silence and no questions. Oh God! Oops!!!

But fortunately, the audience were nice during tea break & said they enjoyed my speech! I was caught by one person after another, after another. Folks from South Africa, Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Taiwan came to say hello. I guess the speech can't have been that bad then! And Julie said she enjoyed it. She took lots of pictures, which I'll add to this blog at a later date.

The South African doctor was also an Anaesthetist by training, had gone into Medical Tourism and now wants to open South Africa's first medical spa. So we brought her back to see our facilities and told her more about the aesthetic business. Won't it be fabulous if we were invited over to be her Consultants! I've always wanted to visit South Africa!

All in all, it was a good experience. Something different to add into my CV. And Julie treated me to a yummy Chinese buffet lunch after to celebrate. Thanks Julie! )

Honestly, quite embarassing, right?

So when I happened upon this Reverse Auction site, I got pretty excited. With reverse auctions, we spend a credit to find out the current cost of an item. With each click of interest, the price drops by US$0.25. When many people click within a short period of time, sometimes the product price drops down to zero! Yup... Free!!!

The products that are sold on the site are brand new, full warranty, and guaranteed to be lowest price online and offline. So there's zero risk, but huge discounts to gain. Products available include Apple iPods, iMacs, Mac Books, Nokia phones, Juicy Couture jewelry, cameras, laptops, etc. For the USA, they even have cars. People have bought brand new BMW Z3s for US$8000. WOW!

Now I know I'll never go the the Apple Store to purchase anymore of their items again. No point when it's guaranteed to be cheaper this way. This is why this site is growing faster than Ebay, Amazon and maybe even Google has. It's likely to revolutionise shopping worldwide in the near future.

We don't necessarily need electronic items everyday, but we do always spent on our credit cards. So it's not surprising that the most popular items are the Visa/Master/AMEX gift cards? Spent one credit (US$0.80) and average savings is $20. For a $200 card, that's effectively a 10% discount on anything and everything you can buy on credit!

Sometimes, you can strike lucky and have a much bigger saving than that. But with gift cards, I think most people just grab them once they get enough value. I know I'm going to be buying a ton of these in future, just to save a bit on my daily expenses.

Bad news is, this site's not going to be available in Singapore for a few more weeks (the global launch is just over a month away). You can still check out the site and register for free now. For more info on how this works, just watch this video.

And if you'd like me to send you a couple of credits to get you started, just drop me an e-mail through the contact form  (or call me if you know my mobile number) and I'll send you some with my compliments.

And yes, you'll be able to use your giftcard at Simply Aesthetic & Divine MedSpa. I'm more than happy to give you a discount that way! )

When I hired these girls, they were all lovely and keen to work. But when reality struck, their true colours appeared. I found out that Therapists will only move when they are paid a commission.  It was getting close to me having to pay them for each breath they take during work hours. If they asphyxiate, it's my problem!

So few have pride in what they do, the environment they work in. My instructions were to not hard sell, but they did not take the oppportunity to build trust and give advice. Instead of building their clientele, they just waited for me to bring customers to them. They just did the least they could get away with, and internal arguements occurred with fingers pointing about who shirked leaning duties.

I lost my temper at one of them today. I called the spa and the person who answered was very curt. She did not introduce the name of the business or her own name. I don't remember if it was a simple "hello" or even a "yah?" . If I were a client, I'd have gone elsewhere. Thankfully, she's leaving at the end of this week anyway, but that's really no excuse for such shoddy attitude. Her excuse was the ring tone suggested it was an internal call. Nonsense! I had called through my mobile, and the clinic was closed today. There's no way it could be internal. And this was no way to speak to your colleagues even if it were.

But I've had really bad luck with employees last year. From a psychopathic ex-spa manager (I just found out she's been investigated by police for the last 10 years!) to cannot-be-bothered staff, and even an Australian nurse who walks out of the job (owing me money!) and refuses to pay her income tax. It's only with Amy & Julie that I see real passion for the spa industry. Even the new girls that started this week are shocked at how bad the situation has become, and can't wait for these old girls to leave so they can run the spa properly!

Regardless of how the business is doing (and we've had a very rough year), these girls have always been paid. Yet they see fit to not deliver on their side of the contract. Coming in late, not keeping the place clean, not following up with clients, poor attitude, stealing products, frequent MCs, ignoring my instructions...

I've been close to strangling them umpteen times. They have really tried my patience to the extreme.

What upset me the most today was how thoughtless they are. Their actions could have brought me to financial disaster. But they wouldn't have cared. Nope. They'd just find some other sucker to bleed dry. And it's clear that they are leaving in droves because Julie's now in to pull the business back to some form of order. They just do not want to learn proper spa practice, pride as a Therapist and most of all integrity.

It'll be interesting if they think they can use me as a referee in the future. Lucky for them, the Spa players don't often call for references. We've started. In fact, we've taken an extra step now. Any potential candidate that passes Julie & myself have to speak to Lily in Australia for a final clearance. And nothing, but nothing, can be hidden from the Divine Miss Lily!

When Hog's Breath opened in its place, I didn't think too much about it. I'd always associated Hog's Breath with expensive mediocre food, having once tried the CHIJMES branch many years ago. But a review in a recent issue of EXPAT Living made me give it another chance. The description of the steaks sounded absolutely divine!

Let me clarify the sad steak situation I'm in. I love steaks. Always have, always will. And I used to enjoy them anywhere, anytime, until I was invited to Prime Society. That re-defined the steak experience for me, and I never found a steak to compare since. But, Prime Society is way beyond my budget, so I've been left just longing...

So when I read the article just days before winning my weight loss challenge, that seemed the ideal place to check out for my prize.

The steaks there come in 3 sizes: 200g, 300g and 400g. That night, we shared a 300g steak as my friend wasn't hungry. He looked a bit concerned initially as our request for medium looked a tad rare. But when we bit into it, wow!!! It was tender, tasty & juicy! Oh my! Steak heaven! And the curly fries that come with it are perfectly done too!

I've been back twice since that night. I had the steak option for a set lunch last week & was sorely disappointed. As its much cheaper, they used a thinner cut, so the steak was not as succulent as the full version. Not recommended at all, despite the fantastic price tag.

My favourite time to go now is on Mondays, when they offer 1 for 1 deals. So I introduced my daughter to the joys of the Hogs Breath steak tonight. It was divine! We had 2 small (200g) prime steaks with barbecue sauce for just $29.95++

We shared a portion of Apple Crumble after, but this was not good. Deinitely not worth the $9.50++ price tag. The crumble was gooey from being heated up in the microwave. No standard at all!

Well, at least it means I don't get too distracted by super yummy desserts after a big steak dinner in future. And with it just downstairs from the clinic, this could become a very bad habit indeed!