I normally take about 1.5 hours to make myself public-ready. This includes showering and washing my hair, blow-drying my hair, lotioning and sunblocking my whole body, putting on makeup, making my hair presentable, and putting on an outfit.

Yesterday, though, I took 3.5 hours to get ready for a Microsoft press event.

And I wasn’t even fully ready after 3.5 hours. I had to do the last touches of my makeup in the cab because I was seriously late.

Tonging the hair

As you all know, I just did my hair at the salon. At home, after washing my hair, my temp curls disappeared and I realised that my new brown hair looks awful being straight. Which means I will have to curl it myself every time now.

Yesterday was the very first time I attempted to use a curling tong.

It was a disaster!

With the first tonging, my hair looked like this.

I tried different techniques on different segments of hair. Most of them turned out really bad. After 45 minutes, I looked like I had been electrocuted.

I tried straightening and recurling spoilt segments but it seemed like it didn’t work that way. The funny kinks refused to go away.

In the end, I gave up and tied my hair into a ponytail.

Blackening the eye

Besides having to make my hair look human, I had to blacken my eye.

The Microsoft event was held at Hard Rock Cafe with a rock theme and I was told to dress like a rocker. Supposedly, everyone in the Microsoft team and PR team would be dressing up. (Not the guests.)

So, I Googled “rocker makeup” and learnt that rock means black eyes, so I proceeded to give myself some.

This was another first attempt. I have never done rock makeup on myself before.

I have learnt over the years that good makeup isn’t just dabbing on the colour. It’s about blending. So I slowly and painstakingly blended the black onto my eyelids together with some white shimmer.

Half an hour later, I turned into a zombie.

Then I spent another half an hour trying to unzombify myself.

So, to hell with blending. In the end, it was just dabbing on the black.

The final touch

Rocker is not my look of choice, but I have a number of black things in my wardrobe, so I dug out the most outrageous pieces I had.

This was at a time when the event was just about to start, and I was still at home fretting about my wardrobe.

Frantically putting stuff together, I concocted this outfit.

It probably looks more goth than rocker, but I don’t have any rock stuff, really.

I took this punk-emo photo in the toilet, which I like quite a lot:

A picture after the event, practising drums at the studio:

It feels fun playing drums in an outrageous outfit!

A picture at the event, where I took a photo of me being captured by the new Microsoft LifeCam Cinema webcam. It’s a good cam, possibly the best out there now, if you’re shopping for a webcam.

Although I love playing dress-up with all kinds of looks, sometimes I wish I were a guy. Life would be so much simpler without having to tong hair and put on funny makeup.

I could have completed an entire video game in 3.5 hours!