We would like to announce that the No Apologies blog will be going on hiatus for a while. But don’t worry! You can still find us at the It’s (un)Complicated Facebook page and exciting things are in the pipeline for No Apologies
So come check us out on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/its.un.complicated
Your worth the wait!
~Ems
Did you know there are 5 different ways to make a person FEEL loved? We call them LOVE LANGUAGES. And each person usually responds best to one or two of these 5 ways. Hence, we say that it is their primary love language. For example, you might find that saying “I love you, mum” doesn’t make her feel as loved as if you gave her a big squeezy hug.
So here is a brief intro to the 5 different LOVE LANGUAGES and HOW TO discover the love language of your family members. You may also like to try the suggested ways to make your family feel loved and appreciated!
If your family member’s love language is Words of affirmation: Read More…
It’s an unfair rule among many teenage guys: If you don’t look, talk, or act a certain way, you end up being a target for bullying and teasing. This leads many guys to question, “Is there something wrong with me? Why do these guys call me ‘geek’ or ‘coward’ or ‘freak’? It really hurts. Why are my peers so cruel?”
… the lie that they’re worthless unless they hang out with the popular crowd.
… the lie that ‘cool’ equals having a muscle-bound body, possessing Herculean strength, and strutting through the mall with the absolute most drop-dead beautiful, supermodel-cheerleader-type babe glued to their arm.
… the lie that measuring up as a man means living up to an impossible cool code – always being a tough guy, never showing weakness, and above all, never expressing true feelings.
Hand in hand with the cool code is the popularity game. Playing the popularity game means Read More…
Our appearance is very important to us – skin tone, waist size, weight and even the brand of our clothing, because we think it says something about our value; our worth. It doesn’t help that we are faced daily with images of malnourished, underweight men and women wearing the latest look – the look we “absolutely must have” for this month. We are continually brainwashed into thinking that “Thin = beautiful”. And this very equation is driving people to dieting pills, over-the-counter laxatives, and
other unhealthy means of shedding those few pounds. It’s as if to say “if I die, let me die thin (and beautiful).”
Let me relate a simple story about my natural curls. I never used to like them because my hair never stayed in place. I always envied Read More…
It will soon be 2011 and a NEW year!
The start of a new year is always a good time for reflection, and to start things on a clean slate.
And as you are thinking about what you hope to accomplish this year, you might wonder what 2011 will bring. Thinking about the future can leave us rather… “gulp”… fearful. Why? Because frankly speaking, the only sure thing we can say about the future is, “I don’t know”
There are a lot of life circumstances that are out of our control. The weather, the family you were born in, the behaviour of our friends, etc. However, we DO have control over 2 important areas of our lives that are vital for achieving our personal goals – Our CHARACTER & BEHAVIOR.
CHARACTER Read More…
Christmas is a coming! And very soon indeed. For me, I tend to just somehow stumble my way to Christmas, with all the gift buying, preparations and festivities. I’m not like some of my friends who are uber organised and have planned and almost finished their Christmas gift preparations.
I often feel a bit cheated with Christmas in Singapore, with the lack of snow or even cold, the often verging on tacky Christmas decor, and seemingly the same routine every year.
Sometimes I feel cheated about Christmas when it comes to relationships as well, and Suzanne sums it up nicely:
“A lot of the coping mechanisms for singleness seem to fall to pieces during the holidays. We all know Thanksgiving and Christmas are about families sitting around tables and Christmas trees, exulting in the warmth of each other’s love. Such images intensify one’s longing for love and belonging. A few years ago, one single friend confided, “One of my goals is to have a boyfriend by Christmas.”
Christmas has made me do some crazy things when it comes to the pursuit of love. Go on doomed-to-failure dates. Rekindle interest in long-ago buried crushes. Waste time texting and e-mailing guys who are impossibly wrong for me. Weak attempts to feel desired and wanted.
Ultimately, though, my self-manufactured romance is intensely unsatisfying. So much so, that I inevitably crash in utter misery and self-pity sometime between Christmas and New Years.”
But there is hope! Don’t worry, it’s not all doom and gloom. 
Check out the rest of her article over at Boundless!
What do you think? Do you agree with Suzanne? What are you going to be doing this Christmas?
Parents don’t always make sense. Actually, most of the time they do, but it just comes out wrong. But what makes those mild-mannered parent types get all uptight and tighten that leash around your neck? Problems usually come from the following issues:
CONTROL - Basically means Read More…
Let’s address this with the guys first.
So there’s this great girl. She’s fun, pretty, mature, and a good friend. You love hanging out with her, and you’ve started wondering about taking things to the next level – you know… a relationship… But why?
It sounds like you’ve got a good thing going. You know each other well. You have fun hanging out together without the awkwardness of being a couple. And you’re getting great practice in learning how to relate to the opposite sex.
So in all your deep contemplation, ask yourself these questions:
- Why do I want this girl friend to become my girlfriend?
- How would bringing romance into our friendship improve things? Read More…
CNN (and Singapore’s My Paper) reported on a poll Seventeen Magazine recently did on 10,000 16 to 21 year olds looking at how their love lives and facebook mixed together, which I thought was really entertaining. Some of the interesting stats that came out from it:
Tuesday we had our Annual Volunteers Appreciation Dinner, and the theme was superheros, so we had a lot of fun dressing up =) It was really interesting to see and meet all the different volunteers! Some young people, just like you and me, and some..uh..old..er people too. Even some facilitators from NA workshops came!
With all this volunteer-ism it reminded me of an article you might have seen in the newspaper last weekend about how much Singaporeans are giving to charity. On average a volunteer gives 45 hours of their time. Of the people between the ages of 15 to 24, 36% of them volunteer. That means over one in three! Who would have known we were such a giving bunch. Have you volunteered before?
So now that Os are over, and holidays are blissfully upon us (well almost for JC & Poly people), what are you going to be doing with the free time you now have? Having some much needed rest and relaxation time? CCAs? Finding a job? or perhaps volunteering? =)
-Ems
